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| On Board Online • October 15, 2012 By Cathy Woodruff The State Education Department will mark the centennial of its grand Albany headquarters with guided tours offering a rare look inside the magnificent Beaux Arts building dedicated in October 1912. Open houses are scheduled for Friday, Oct. 19, and Saturday, Oct. 20, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 21, from noon to 4 p.m. Visitors may sign up in advance for scheduled tours, which begin during the open house days and are expected to continue through December, by following a link on the centennial portion of SED’s website, http://usny.nysed.gov/centennial/. On Board got a sneak peak in a tour with George Webb, who oversaw a painstaking restoration of the building as the department’s director of facilities and building operations. Each detail reflects the vision articulated by Andrew Sloan Draper, New York’s first education commissioner, Webb explained. |
| On Board Online • October 15, 2012 By Gayle Simidian New York trails other states concerning black male graduation rates with an alarming 37 percent for 2009-10, according to a new report from the Schott Foundation, The Urgency of Now: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males. In Rochester City School District, the rate is a mere 9 percent, according to the report. Black male graduation rates improved from a dismal 42 percent in 2001-02 to 52 percent in 2009-10, the report said. The difference in graduation rates of black males and white (non-Latino) males during that time only amounts to a slight improvement of 3 percentage points. |
| On Board Online • October 15, 2012 It’s no secret that today’s students will face a more demanding job market than 50, 25 or even 10 years ago. Employers want new skill sets that require a more rigorous form of P-12 education. As school board members, you have to strike a difficult balance between managing dwindling resources and making sure your students have the opportunity to develop the skills they need to succeed. The relationship between education and employability is clear. In a recent New York Times column, Thomas Friedman reported that the unemployment rate is about 4 percent for those with four years of college, about 7 percent for those with two years, roughly 9 percent for high school graduates and at least 12 percent for dropouts (not counting those who have left the work force entirely). We’ve made real gains in graduation rates in the past decade – even as the Regents have raised the standards for high school graduation. But, despite those gains, only 74 percent of students who enter high school graduate four years later. That’s clearly not good enough. |
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| On Board Online • October 15, 2012 By the New York State Association of School Attorneys The next time a motion is made for an executive session during a meeting of your school board, don’t be surprised if your school attorney recommends that the motion be more specific. Citizens have successfully challenged the legality of motions that merely recite boilerplate statutory language as the reason for an executive session, resulting in board members being ordered to receive special training and the district to pay attorneys’ fees. This article will review the requirements of the state’s Open Meetings Law (OML), case law and advisory opinions to help boards avoid these potential problems. Reasons to meet in executive session Because school boards are public bodies, all meetings of a quorum of the board must be open to the public except where an executive session is properly convened for certain reasons authorized by law. While the OML lists eight reasons, the most common grounds invoked by school boards are to discuss: |
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| On Board Online • October 15, 2012 By Kimberly A. Fanniff A school district did not violate the Taylor Law when it unilaterally transferred duties of teaching assistants in a universal prekindergarten program (UPK) from unit members to a private contractor, according to the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). The decision to offer a prekindergarten program rests with the board of education, PERB noted in Matter of CSEA v. Springs Union Free School District. Under Education Law section 3602-e, decisions to reassign UPK program duties are not a mandatory subject of collective bargaining. If a school board decides to offer a preK program, it must adopt a plan that is “designed to effectively serve eligible children directly through the school district or through collaborative efforts between the school district and an eligible agency or agencies,” PERB said. That could be fulfilled by staff or it could be accomplished by contracting with a provider of child care and early education, a day care provider, an early childhood program or other organization that meets certain standards and qualifications. |
| On Board Online • October 15, 2012 By Kimberly A. Fanniff When a district abolishes a position, the teacher with the least seniority in the tenure area is excessed and placed on a preferred eligible list for reinstatement to a similar position in the tenure area of service. In Appeal of Scarpinati de Oliveira, a laid-off first grade teacher claimed the district improperly calculated her seniority by excluding maternity leave she took pursuant to the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The petitioner also argued that the district improperly excluded two sixth-grade teachers from the elementary tenure area and that one of those teachers was actually the least senior teacher in the elementary tenure area. Despite finding that the two sixth-grade teachers, Goodwin and Murphy, were part of the elementary tenure area, the commissioner of education determined the petitioner still was the least senior teacher because her time on maternity leave under the FMLA did not increase her seniority. |
| On Board Online • October 15, 2012 By Peggy Zugibe A year ago, I was beside myself because our manned space program had ended. I’m considerably chipper now that we’ve landed a rover on Mars. There is something about exploring space that makes me proud to be an American. I’m also proud to be a school board member, because I believe public education is essential to our national character as well as our success. Our founding fathers believed in public education as much as they believed in a system of checks and balances. As John Adams wrote in 1785, “The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.” |
| On Board Online • October 15, 2012 By Eric D. Randall More than 700 men visited the Niagara Falls City School District on Sept. 20 to participate in the statewide Dads Take Your Child to School Day. “We want this to be step one in making fathers and men feel valued and welcomed in our schools,” said district Community Relations Director Judie Gregory Glaser, an organizer of her district’s event. The district plans to invite the men (who include uncles, grandfathers and others) to participate in a reading campaign. |
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