We are pleased to see the continued improvement in student achievement reflected in the growth in high school graduation rates announced today by the State Education Department. Also encouraging is the continued progress in narrowing the gap in graduation rates between white students and their black, Hispanic, disabled and English language learner peers. 

Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed some laudable goals – such as closing the achievement gap, enhancing school safety, advancing net neutrality protections and expanding pre-K and afterschool programs – in his State of the State address. These are all goals that school board members can rally around, to be sure.

Fred J. Langstaff of Sayville has been elected president of the Board of Directors of the New York State School Boards Association for 2020. He will be the 72^nd president to take office since NYSSBA’s first recorded gathering of school board members took place in Utica in 1920.

Nearly 2,500 school board members, superintendents and educators from throughout New York State are expected to arrive in Rochester next week for the New York State School Boards Association’s 100th Annual Convention & Education Expo.

Nearly six in 10 school board members recently polled by the New York State School Boards Association think the high school instructional day in their districts should begin later to accommodate teenagers’ natural sleep cycles. They also acknowledge there would be logistical challenges in doing so.

The New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA) has named longtime finance and operations manager Robert S. Schneider of Gansevoort, Saratoga County, as the association’s next executive director, effective January 1, 2020. He will succeed Timothy G. Kremer, who will retire at the end of this year after 21 years leading NYSSBA. 

Schneider brings great depth of experience to his new position, with more than 25 years in association management.

Mary Jo O’Hagan, a school board member in the Baldwin Union Free School District (USFD), has been named the winner of the New York State School Boards Association’s (NYSSBA) top award for school board service. 

She will receive the 2019 Everett R. Dyer Award for Distinguished School Board Service at the Association’s Annual Convention this October in Rochester, New York.

Some 2.5 million students will head back to public schools across New York this fall amid an array of new protections approved by state lawmakers and local districts to help safeguard their health and safety.

At the state level, important new tools include the Red Flag Law, which aims to keep firearms out of the hands of dangerous people.

MaryEllen Elia took over as commissioner of education during a tumultuous time in New York’s public schools. She helped heal wounds resulting from the hurried implementation of the state’s annual teacher and principal performance review process (APPR) and Common Core learning standards.

State lawmakers took a number of significant steps during this legislative session to protect the health and safety of our students and to provide local school districts with new tools and flexibility to enhance educational programs.

At the same time, we also must note that some legislative actions taken this year are likely to impose new costs and unnecessary mandates on local school districts.