On Board Online • June 9 2014

By Wayne Rogers
Area 6 Director

The challenge to all our schools today is to provide good leadership and a quality education for students despite the fiscal difficulties they face. In smaller school districts, the search for a superintendent can be complicated by the fact that the best salary the district can offer may price them out of the market or leave them with a pool of candidates lacking experience. Were it not for retired superintendents’ willingness to serve as interims, some of these school districts might be without a superintendent.

Other issues in rural education include declining student populations, less course variety than our urban and suburban counterparts and lack of economies of scale. What’s the solution?

At least 44 school districts including many small and rural districts have explored mergers in New York State in recent years, according to NYSSBA Senior Research Analyst Paul Heiser. But many attempts have been fruitless despite support from – and considerable effort by – the school boards and administrative teams involved.

On Board Online • June 9 2014

By Lynne L. Lenhardt
NYSSBA President

If school budgeting has felt more painful in recent years, it’s not your imagination. Schools state-wide shed more than 20,000 teaching positions from 2008 to 2011, according to the State Education Department. A high percentage of districts (97 percent in 2014-15) has dipped into fund balances. Meanwhile, dozens of schools are still operating under fiscal (and educational) stress.

Yet, there are reasons to be optimistic about the state of education budgeting in New York.

For instance, community support for schools is as high as it has ever been. That was evidenced by the results of this year’s budget votes. You probably know by now that more than 98 percent of school district budgets statewide passed this year. That’s the highest passage rate since NYSSBA started keeping data on budget votes in 1969. The state Council of School Superintendents says this may be an all-time high passage rate. For school districts that kept their tax levy for 2014-15 within the cap, the passage rate was nearly 100 percent.

On Board Online • June 9 2014

By George Basler
Special Correspondent

n a fifth-grade classroom in the Ithaca City School district, students haven’t been writing compositions the time-honored way. Instead, they research and write blog entries that are posted on their websites.

And instead of traditional reports, they create multi-media projects, such as a recent one on the Incas using the Prezi software and storytelling tool. The destination of their finished work? Personal websites.

These are two examples of how teachers in the Ithaca City School District are using technology in their classrooms as part of an effort that has gained national recognition for this upstate district and its superintendent, Luvelle Brown.

The National School Boards Association recently selected Brown, who came to Ithaca about three years ago, as one of the “20 to Watch” educators. The annual designation recognizes educators who are pushing innovative technology.

On Board Online • June 9 2014

By Cathy Woodruff
Senior Writer

Amid the squeak of sneakers and a series of frustrating turnovers on the basketball court, Coach Audra DiBacco was urging her players to get their heads back in the game.

“What is going on right now?” she called out before chiding her players a bit. “We should have practiced yesterday!”

Then, she took a more direct approach: “If you’re missing shots, keep shooting. Keep shooting!”

When the final buzzer sounded, DiBacco’s squad from Columbia High School in the East Greenbush Central School District had poured on just enough steam to pull out a victory over the rival Spartans from Queensbury. It was a relatively low-scoring game for both teams, 20-17, but it enabled the East Greenbush players to cement a winning season.

On Board Online • June 9 2014

By Catherine Knight

If you Google “flipped classroom,” you’ll get well over seven million hits. The phrase refers to a student-centric educational model that has gained tremendous traction in a relatively short time. Unlike the traditional format in which a teacher presents a lesson in a classroom and students complete a homework assignment, the flipped model uses lessons that are posted online as short videos or “screencasts” for students to watch, usually at home. Students complete homework, and teachers use class time to answer questions and lead hands-on learning activities.

“Time spent in the classroom is centered on the students and not the teacher,” said Teresa Prendergast, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in Nassau County’s Garden City Public Schools. “The role of the teacher shifts to helping the students master the concepts, not deliver the information.”

On Board Online • June 9 2014

By Cathy Woodruff
Senior Writer
and
Eric D. Randall
Editor-in-Chief

High school students who took new Common Core-aligned versions of the English Language Arts and Algebra I Regents exams on June 3 will be the first to have their scores calculated on a new five-tier scale.

The new performance level designations are among the latest refinements of test-related policy and practices announced by the State Education Department (SED) as curriculum and teaching techniques evolve with the transition to Common Core Learning Standards.

Currently, students must receive scores of 65 to pass Regents exams, whether those exams are based on Common Core standards or on the 2005 standards.

The class of 2022 – this year’s fourth graders – will be the first required to pass Common Core Regents exams with scores of at least 75, but the new category ratings will serve as a barometer of how students are doing relative to those expectations.

Media Contact: Al Marlin, (518) 783-3723 or (518) 527-6933

For Release: June 3, 2014

Diverse Coalition Calls on Lawmakers to Enact Mandate Relief
and Fulfill Promises Made Prior to Passage of Tax Cap

A statewide coalition of groups representing businesses, local governments and schools today urged state lawmakers to enact a package of mandate relief measures before the end of the legislative session.

Noting that state lawmakers pledged to provide mandate relief to schools and local governments during passage of the tax cap in 2011, the “Let NY Work” Coalition today highlighted six mandate relief measures that, if enacted, would help ease the financial burden on municipalities – and help them comply with the state’s property tax cap and recently enacted property tax freeze.

The six items in the Coalition’s mandate relief package include:

• Freezing step increases when contracts expire. The state’s Triborough Amendment allows so-called “step increases” – or salary increases – for public employees to continue under an expired contract. This places a financial burden on school districts and municipalities and provides a disadvantage in collective bargaining, as they must continue to provide salary increases even with no contract in place.

On Board Online • May 26, 2014

Staff Report

A substantial majority of school districts expect no actual layoffs of teaching or non-teaching staff in the 2014-2015 school year, according to a recent survey conducted by NYSSBA.

Eighty percent of 283 school business officials responding to the NYSSBA survey said they do not expect to lay off employees based on their budgets for next year. About 20 percent said they plan to impose layoffs.

According to the State Education Department, more than 7,000 of the state’s teachers were laid off in 2011 and 20,000 teaching positions were lost over the three years prior to that.

Survey respondents also indicated the possibility that some districts will hire more teachers. Nearly half (49 percent) of the respondents said they could see an increase in teaching staff.

The survey of 611 school business officials was conducted in May 2014.

On Board Online • May 26, 2014

By Merri Rosenberg
Special Correspondent

When Joanne Fleming, a sixth-grade math and science teacher at Mineola Middle School in Nassau County, introduces her class to a new topic, she uploads the relevant material to her students’ iPads.

“I do some overall group instruction, but they work on their iPads and submit their work electronically to it,” said Fleming, who’s done this for the past two years. “I can grade it and make an audio comment. It’s so efficient. I already know who’s struggling and can decide how to differentiate the lesson.”

While districts have considerable experience in customizing instruction for special education students under the IEP (individualized education plan) model, now they are figuring out how to deliver equally individualized instruction for all students to ensure they are making progress on Common Core State Standards.

In Mineola, all students are getting what’s called ILPs – individualized learning plans – with a high-tech twist.

On Board Online • May 26, 2014

By Cathy Woodruff
Senior Writer

To bolster his case against the Common Core learning standards during a recent legislative floor debate, Assemblyman Al Graf reached back a few thousand years.

“Can anybody in this chamber explain to me why a first grader has to tell me or point out for me where Ancient Mesopotamia is on a map or a globe and explain to me the contributions that Ancient Mesopotamia has made to modern-day civilization?” the Suffolk County Republican thundered during the March 5 Assembly session. “They’re 6!”

A retired New York City police officer with an affable demeanor, Graf has a post-retirement degree in elementary education from SUNY Plattsburgh and likes to joke about his experience as a student teacher in a kindergarten class. “Do I look like Arnold Schwarzenegger?” he asked, referring to the star of the action comedy film Kindergarten Cop.

Graf’s tone turns serious, though, when he talks about the Common Core standards. While he acknowledges that he has not observed the English Language Arts lessons being used in a first-grade classroom, he says it is obvious to him that the material is ill conceived.