On Board Online • January 14, 2019

By Brian Fessler
Deputy Director of Governmental Relations

As school districts throughout New York State experience significant increases in student need - from poverty, to special education enrollments, to new English language learners - NYSSBA is advocating for a $2.2 billion increase in state aid in the 2019-20 budgetary year.

Combined with limitations created by the property tax cap and other local funding, this proposed state aid increase would represent less than a 4.5 percent increase in revenue for school districts statewide.

On Board Online • January 14, 2019

By George Basler
Special Correspondent

Officials at the Broome-Tioga BOCES can tick off the facts about drug use and addiction in Broome County, each as upsetting as the last.

• The county has been federally identified as a "high intensity drug trafficking area."
• Drug deaths, mostly from heroin and opiates, claimed 66 lives in the county in 2017.
• Nearly 36 percent of county students in grades seven through 12 have used alcohol in their lifetimes, a higher percentage than the national average. Nearly 21 percent have used alcohol in the past 30 days, also higher than the national average.
• Marijuana use among students grades 9 through 12 is also higher than the national average

On Board Online • January 14, 2019

William Miller
NYSSBA President

Last January, I became the president of NYSSBA. I blinked, and the next thing I knew, we were turning the calendar to 2019. Where did the time go? Where did the time go?

It's a universal truth that when time flies, you must be busy. And so it was in 2018. Public education had another hectic year that had us keeping our tentacles out in all directions.

On Board Online • January 14, 2019

By Cathy Woodruff
Senior Writer

New York lawmakers returned to Albany this month with new leaders at the helm of the Senate and Assembly education committees.

In the Assembly, Bronx Democrat Michael Benedetto, a special education teacher in New York City schools for more than 30 years, was tapped by Speaker Carl Heastie, also of the Bronx, to succeed longtime Education Committee Chair Catherine Nolan of Queens. Nolan, the committee chair since 2006, was named deputy speaker.

On Board Online • January 14, 2019

By Julie M. Marlette
Director of Governmental Relations

In the final weeks of 2018, Gov. Andrew Cuomo took action on hundreds of bills, including a number that were important to NYSSBA members. Unfortunately for school district advocates, there were many more disappointments than celebrations.

First, the bright spots:

• Small group health insurance: approved. The governor signed NYSSBA-supported legislation to allow school districts with 51 to 100 employees to continue to be excluded from the definition of a "small group" for health insurance purposes. Originally adopted several years ago, this carve-out has prevented massive rate increases for more than 100 districts. Legislators passed a proposal that would have extended the provision for five years but a last-minute negotiation resulted in an agreement to make a chapter amendment that will extend the carve-out for two years.

On Board Online • January 14, 2019

By Barbara Bradley
Deputy Director of Online Communications and Project Planning

One hundred custom board retreats in a single year - that's a milestone!

NYSSBA recognized the staff members and adjuncts who facilitated the retreats throughout 2018 during a year-end meeting at the NYSSBA offices in Latha