Letter to the Board
Letter to the Board
| 1. | MS Musical: By now all of you should have read my letter to Mrs. Stevenson about the middle school musical. I have not received any other inquiries though I am sure I displeased a number of people. If you should receive any calls I hope my letter at least gives you some background information to explain my rationale. | |
| 2. | Assistant Principal: Larry has found a substitute assistant principal to fill in on a daily basis until we hire a replacement for Jeff. Matt Guarino is a retired assistant principal from Webster. He has 32 years of experience as an administrator and has worked with Larry. Although he has many years of experience his required daily rate is slightly less than what we are paying Jeff ($353 per day versus $350). We also won’t have to pay him any benefits so it will save us a little money. Larry and Jeff are working out a final day of work for him so there is a smooth transition. We will have to appoint Matt as a substitute at the next board meeting. | |
| 3. | Three Boards Meeting: For those of you who were attending to other obligations on our busy Tuesday evening, the three boards meeting was one of our better ones. First, we are going to be working together on the grant to look at ways of sharing services. As soon as Frank [Guelli] gets the RFP, Kim and I will sit down with Joe and Frank to see what can be done. Secondly, I thought Frank’s assessment of the County budget was great news. It doesn’t sound as if there is going to be much support to take back the sales tax. We will keep vigilant of course, but we are starting in a much better place than last year. Walworth discussed the proposed new sewer line that would open up more development in Walworth. I checked our maps this morning. Unfortunately that section of land north of 441 is actually in the Gananda school district so we wouldn’t be getting the increased assessment. | |
| 4. | Reading Buddies and Constellation: Maria Korsnick, Vice President of Constellation, has established a great relationship with us and has been a wonderful supporter of Wayne Central. She recently sent out a memo to her staff at the Ginna Plant indicating her approval of the Reading Buddies program at Wayne and encouraging employees to become a mentor to students in our district in need of the reading support. Ann Blocher, Reading Buddies Coordinator, is very excited about the response and the connection with Ginna. She signed up 7 people from her initial meeting and expects more to come. | |
| 5. | Daylight Savings Time: Remember to turn your clocks back one hour Saturday evening before you go to bed. | |
| 6. | Delaney Letter: We received one letter regarding Amy’s first district newsletter suggesting that it was extravagant. Amy wrote a very nice response that addresses the resident’s concerns. (attached). Conversely, we have had several calls and comments from residents thanking us for running the passport program (a full page of the newsletter) again this year indicating how much they appreciate the convenience. Amy’s work is outstanding. She will be designing some specialty paper for us which we normally order from a catalog. This will be a great cost savings, with equal or greater quality, and a custom design. The demand for her services from the buildings has skyrocketed. She noted that she receives about 30 emails a day regarding coverage of activities from district employees. | |
| 7. | Steve Sanders: In case you haven’t heard, long time State Assembly Education Chairman, Steve Sanders has decided to step down. Steve has always been a strong supporter of our public school districts. His presence will be missed. Mr. Sanders was frequently a speaker at our School Board Convention. He was always very candid with us about each year’s budget situation. I haven’t heard yet who will be the successor. | |
| 8. | Energy Bill: A bill entitled, “NYS School District Energy Cost Stabilization Fund” has been introduced in both houses. If it becomes law it will create a $100 million plus fund to help districts weather the skyrocketing fuel costs. I’ll keep you abreast of things as the bill moves through the Assembly and Senate. Along that same vein we have been discussing a review of our science curriculum to determine if we need to revise our K-12 science energy development and conservation curriculum. The announced cutbacks at our recent Board meeting were a necessary but reactive response to the situation. A more proactive approach would be to have an energy curriculum that produces students who understand energy, how to conserve it and also how best to create it (ok science people, I know energy can never be created or destroyed but...). What we really need to do is to create a generation of people prepared to solve the energy crisis. I may have more about this later. | |
| 9. | Upcoming Events: | |
| a) | Delaney Letter | ||
| b) | Four County General Session Meeting | ||
