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District gets ready for first day of school Thursday
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
SCHENECTADY — Put away the beach towel and get out the books because it’s time for kids to go back to school. School starts Thursday for city students. While the students have been relaxing all summer, district officials have been hard at work to ready three new schools, change bus schedules and hire new staff. The district is opening three new elementary schools — Keane at the former St. Luke’s School on Albany Street, Katharine Burr Blodgett on Bradt Street and Franklin D. Roosevelt on Lansing Street. The facilities were necessary to accommodate students returning from the International Charter School of Schenectady. Superintendent Eric Ely said crews have been working hard to get these three new facilities ready. They were moving furniture in and cleaning. Former Pleasant Valley principal John Sardos takes over at Keane, which is named after William C. Keane — a founder of St. Luke’s School. Nancy Fontaine, an interim assistant principal at Mont Pleasant, is the principal of Blodgett, which is named after General Electric’s first female scientist. Pedro Roman, principal at Capital Region BOCES and former dean at Oneida Middle School from September 2001 to June 2007, takes the reins at FDR. Ely said there was a problem with finding sufficient chairs for Blodgett and FDR schools. The company the district deals with on state contract is back-ordered on furniture. The district is using chairs from other buildings until it receives the furniture. Board President Jeff Janiszewski praised the administration for handling these changes. “Nobody opens three new schools in one year, maybe New York City,” he said. Ely said work on a six-classroom addition at Paige Elementary School is nearly complete. “It’s beautiful,” he said. About 120 new teachers will be on hand to welcome the returning students. Ely said there were about 10 retirements at the end of the school year, but most of the new hires is because of the new facilities. “We’re trying to keep our class sizes down,” he said. Students will also be in school longer this year. The district last spring announced its plan to increase the school day by 30 minutes at all grade levels. This was part of the passage of the new teacher contract. The new elementary school hours are from 8:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and the middle schools and high school will be from 8 a.m. to 3:05 p.m. Ely said the district has posted the information on the Web and sent out reminders to all parents and to each building, though there may be still a few students confused on the first day. “It’s been out there for several months. I don’t think we’ll have a problem,” he said. The additional time adds up to 90 hours per year. “It’s really about time on task and increasing the amount of quality instruction that students get,” Ely said.
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December 2, 2008
12:14 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
Mr. Ely. What are you thinking? Let's close down a school that just refurbished everything because it was too much money not in the City School Districts pocket anymore. Well then lets lease 3 schools that will cost more than the original school that was functioning. Better yet, why not just move into the school ICSS vacated. Now that would make sense, and you have not made sense since ICSS started. Stupid move on behalf of tax payers. Oh ya, you think we need to pay more next year? I'm sure you think so!
4:15 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
Draper School was approved to be in Schenectady County, therefore was able to be used by ICSS which received money from City of Schenectady School District. What the hell I am saying is, instead of trying to get rid of a school that was not given ample time to show performance, Mr. Ely right from the beginning wanted to close ICSS because it was costing the District too much money. In essence, using Draper School or even allowing ICSS to continue to operate would be A HELL OF A LOT CHEAPER THAN LEASING 3 NEW SCHOOLS FOR 5 YEARS!!!! GET IT???
12:11 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
Yes I was a supporter of ICSS. It's the only option available to Schenectady Residents other than private schooling, which is highly priced. Unfortunately, yes the management was run horrible near the end. If you remember from the beginning the City Schools were against the idea because of what they were going to pay. If ICSS went 8-12 grades also, the education dollars would have been less paid to ICSS. The cost per student is set by the State Charter System. Example: It costs $7500.00 to teach a child K-8 and $10,500.00 for kids 9-12. Charter Schools will only get one certain amount, $9500.00 no matter what grade the child is in. In the end, the State sees it washes itself. As far as the City "losing" money for each child, yes about $2000.00 in the example above, but if they get approved for High School, ICSS would be losing money. The State sets the mandates through the Charter Institute in Albany. 5. Funding And Facilities
5.1 How are charter schools funded?
As public schools, charter schools are funded by public tax dollars that pass through the student's school district of residence. A portion of the per-pupil amount that a school district spends follows a student to the charter school. It is important to note that because not all monies received by a school district are included in the calculation, charter schools receive only between 60-80% of what school districts actually spend on a per-pupil basis. For a list of the amounts that would follow a student from particular districts, please visit the State Education Department's website at http://stateaid.nysed.gov. For details on how the amount per-pupil, i.e., the "average operating expense/total aidable pupil units" is determined, please refer to § 2856(1) of the Education Law. One detail of the calculation is worth noting in particular. The per-pupil amount that follows a student to a charter school is calculated based on prior years' expenditures. Accordingly, any increase ordecrease in spending by a district in a given year will not affect the amount paid to the charter school until later years.
Any additional aid received by the district attributable to students with disabilities would flow to the charter school if the charter school provides, directly or indirectly, the funded special education services. http://www.newyorkcharters.org/forms/gen... . Residents were not fully informed of these procedures. Perhaps you are one of "Those".