Hamilton International Scholars Program (HISP)

Last Thursday, Dr. Alston wrote Education Matters: Hamilton International Scholars Program (Proposal)

At the next Hamilton Board of Education meeting, March 10, 2016, I will present a proposal for the Hamilton Central School District to host tuition paying students from across the world. The title of this program is the Hamilton International Scholars Program (HISP). The Board of Education will seek input concerning HISP. ... The meeting will be held in the auditorium of the Hamilton Central School and begin at 6 PM...

And he says that the "model we are proposing" is seen at Great Work Stories: Newcomb School - YouTube

Published on Aug 28, 2013
How do you expand a shrinking public school in the middle of nowhere? When Skip Hults became superintendent of Newcomb Central School in the heart of Adirondack Park, he inherited a tradition of excellence, a talented faculty, a supportive community, and 55 kids to fill 350 seats. It was a case of grow or die. But how do you grow a school?

Yesterday Radio Free Hamilton reported Dr. Alston's announcement at HCS considers plan to attract foreign students Thursday, again with the August 2013 video. Hults started his program in 2006; it's still going on. It happens that in December 2013, I wrote about this as a possibility for HCS at HamiltonCentralOptions: International Students

No single proposal will solve any district's problems; we're looking for proposals which have helped other districts with low enrollment, both in and out of New York State. One is quite simple: it turns out that students from a variety of nations would like to spend a year or two of high school in the United States...

and among other links, I gave Rural Leader Buoys School With Foreign Students - Education Week

Recruiting tuition-paying international students has saved the school by bolstering its finances and population, and it's changed its culture by exposing Newcomb students to diverse heritages and languages. It's also redefined the meaning of "family" to the many residents who have hosted visiting international students.
"I believe this has the potential to become a rural norm," Hults says. "It's a win-win."

A few days later I wrote HamiltonCentralOptions: Appealing to International Students

I posted on the possibility that appealing to international students could have financial, academic, and cultural benefits for the school (and quite possibly for schools nearby, as one case where we might share benefits as well as costs). I'd like to say a little more about that.
One interesting question: why would students from China want to come to American schools?...

The following month I reported on a meeting where it was discussed, at HamiltonCentralOptions: 2014-15 Budget Process --- Join In!

Astrid brought this up at the meeting and Diana replied that HCS did indeed go through the "accreditation" process with Homeland Security so we are "SEVIS-certified"; indeed we are on page 108 of last June's official list at DHS and we can accept foreign students with "F" visas, although not "M" visas. See ...
And Clinton High School went through this in 2004 but may have dropped it, their website doesn't mention it....

That April, after another meeting, I wrote HamiltonCentralOptions: Pretty Good News from April 8 "Community Leaders/Fiscal" Meeting

Astonishingly, this could happen next year and could add another $70K--$100K to the budget. (The tuition may be less than the average cost of educating an HCS student, but is far more than the marginal cost; it's mostly "profit".) ...

Update: notes from other attendees: Susan Marafino adds

I mentioned that [Carolyn Hsu] would be a good person to be involved with the potential exchange student program...

All that is from late 2013 and early 2014, when Newcomb was in the news. There had of course been earlier reports and videos, including this Newcom February 2010 "welcome" video in Russian, showing a bit about how hard they were trying: A Newcomb Welcome.mpg - YouTube

A video introducing the Newcomb Central School community to our friends from Russia....

Then there was the Channel One report in 2011: Channel One News: Newcomb High School - YouTube

Oct 26, 2011
This New York school welcomes int'l students that enhance education.

Nowadays, the Newcomb School top page links to a USA Today story from the same period (February 2014): Public schools recruiting international high schoolers

Perhaps more significant for Newcomb: Students like Ipek have attracted more local kids, drawn by the prospect of a more comprehensive, global education. As a result, the school has doubled in size since 2007 to 109 students. Only 18 of those are international — the rest are local students who heard about the program and moved into the district to be part of it. They also were attracted by a partnership with local colleges that helps them earn credits before they graduate.

That partnership aspect continues today: Paul Smith's, Newcomb team up | Paul Smith's College

Paul Smith's College is partnering with Newcomb Central School this fall on a new advanced studies program....

Of course HCS does have rather an advantage in the local-colleges department.

State Policy Impact on HCS Budget

(updated below 2015-03-31, and again 2015-04-03)
A link with clips to a document on the Hamilton Central website, at Factors Affecting the Hamilton Central School 2015-16 Budget (PDF)

New York Schools face an exceptionally difficult task when preparing budgets this year. The Governor has linked funding to an aggressive legislative agenda, and has pushed back the dates for sharing state budget runs with districts. This document provides a brief summary of how these proposals could impact HCS.

The Gap Elimination Adjustment(GEA) is an adjustment to state aid to schools first implemented in 2009-10 to help close large state budget deficits. ... The amount taken from this year’s budget was $474,572. We cannot predict the GEA amount for next year’s budget....With a 5 billion dollar state budget surplus there is no longer a budget gap, and there is no justification for continuing the GEA.

The final tax cap calculation for HCS that had to be submitted to the state by March 1 was -0.49%. In order to be tax cap compliant this year, we would have to reduce the 2014-15 levy amount by $32,232. Of course our expenses continue to rise, so even keeping the budget the same as the current school year would result in cuts to our current offerings....

The Governor and the Board of Regents advocate changing APPR so that 50% of a teacher’s performance score will come from student performance on standardized tests. [Part of the remaining score must be based on] observations... by an independent observer... This is an unfunded mandate, and would put more strain on our budget....

Contact Information:

• Governor Andrew M. Cuomo http://www.governor.ny.gov/contact
• Assemblyman Bill Magee contact via online form: ​ http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/William-Magee/contact
• Senator Dave Valesky​: valesky@nysenate.gov​
• Members of the Board of Regents: http://www.regents.nysed.gov/members/
• HCS Board of Education: boe@hamiltoncentral.org

Update:Deal Is Reached on New York State Budget; Ethics Measures Are Included - NYTimes.com

The governor had dangled a $1.1 billion increase in education aid in exchange for the Legislature agreeing to pass a series of reforms, including tying teacher evaluations more closely to students’ state test scores, making it more difficult for teachers to receive tenure and allowing the state to take over low-performing schools.

Teachers’ unions energetically opposed the governor’s proposals. ...

In the end, the budget will include an even larger increase in education aid – about $1.6 billion, according to Assembly Democrats. Cuomo administration officials said the budget would establish parameters for teacher evaluations that would result in a more rigorous evaluation system; the changes would be left to the State Education Department to work out.

The budget agreement would lengthen the time before teachers are eligible for tenure to four years, from the current three; Mr. Cuomo had proposed a five-year wait.

Update 2:Estimated State Aid for 2015-2016 is shown at 2014-15 AND 2015-16 AIDS PAYABLE ... HAMILTON which they summarize as

$ CHG 15-16 MINUS 14-15                                      140,890
% CHG TOTAL AID                                                 3.26
 
$ CHG W/O BLDG, REORG BLDG AID                               260,655
% CHG W/O BLDG, REORG BLDG AID                                  7.43

Most items are increased a bit, but the biggest single change is the $-291,889 reduction ("GAP RESTORATION") in the GEA. There's some discussion at Only 1 school district in Central New York will get state aid cut in NY state budget | syracuse.com

Matching Grant by Dick's Sporting Goods to Keep JV Going

A matching grant is available for Hamilton JV Sports, with five weeks to raise $4,089. 5% funded as of April 17th. Hamilton Emerald Knights - Sports Matter

This team will only receive The DICK'S Sporting Goods Foundation matching grant if at least $4,089 is pledged by Friday, May 23rd 6:00pm ET.
Hamilton Central School has a long, proud history of providing enriching extracurricular opportunities for its students. This has historically included athletic activities at the modified, junior varsity, and varsity levels when participation numbers warranted all three. However, JV sports have not been a part of the overall school budget for the last three years. The athletic budget itself has been cut by approximately $50,000 over the course of the last six years. For the past three years, we have been fortunate to receive donations to keep our JV programs running. Budget constraints are an issue again in the upcoming year and we are asking for your help to keep these opportunities for our student athletes.

update:More info at HCS Teams With Dick's Sporting Goods for Grant

Note on Fall Sports

With reference to the fall sports discussions around the approved budget, and more particularly to the Superintendent's blog post at Will There be Girl's Soccer in the Fall of the 2014--15 School Year? - Dr. Bowers - SuperintendentHamilton CSD, Heather Cigeroglu urges by email:

  In a small school numbers are always an issue with sports. I understand Denny's reason for changing it but disagree with the finality of the switch being based on a student survey. Another issue is whether or not all students really understood the survey's intent or consequences or even got to take the survey. After reading Denny and Jen's response on the blog it seems, and I could be wrong, that if volleyball moves to the fall and there are not enough players then the sport to be merged with another school would be soccer. Is volleyball not able to be combined with another school?
  Regardless, there are girls who have quite a stake in this switch and thus a meeting with Denny, Jen, Brian, Bill and/or Diana, the ladies who intend to play volleyball or soccer, and their parents should indeed be held as soon as possible to work this all out and find the best possible solution for the students involved.

Budget approval -- report from Astrid Helfant

Astrid Helfant (BoE candidate) with quick report on yesterday's meeting:

Here's a quick summary of tonight's Public Budget Hearing. Ellen [Larson], please read over it and see if some items need editing or if I left out some things that you consider important. ... The end result is that the Board approved the budget this evening.

- The BoE is looking to hire an interim Superintendent starting July 1st. Erin asked the salary for someone with a doctorate which is $135,000 according to Diana. Barbara proposed the possibility of hiring a permanent superintendent in the middle of the school year starting the spring semester. Matt responded that this would be fine in terms of the budget; such a mid-year hire could be accommodated. My question (which I did not ask) is whether the quality of candidates is better during for a normal July 1st starting time compared to a February 1st starting time. 

- The tax levy of 2.21% and the intent not to override the levy was submitted by March 1st. Although this is not binding, it was clear that the Board had no intent of overriding the levy. From my conversation with Terry Monte during the meeting it was clear that the Board may anticipate a worse budget year coming up as Terry gathered from a Superintendent coffee she attended. It would thus make more sense to avoid an override of the tax levy this year, as we may very well need an override next year. Diana did remind us that in a letter she received a year or so ago from David Valesky, Valesky stated that he anticipated a full restoration of the GEA within the next two years. Since this letter was sent a year ago, that may mean that we should have our GEA restored for the 2015-2016 school year. Of course no guarantees here. 

- I mentioned again to Diana, Matt and the Board that Carolyn is very interested in being involved in the foreign exchange initiative. I asked Diana who the Colgate Alumnus is that is part of the Southern-Westchester BOCES. She was very good about sending Debbie Kirley to retrieve his name for me: Jeff Donnelly. Diana and he had email communication. The full intention is that he is considering up to 5 boys most likely from China paying $14,000-$20,000 HCS tuition and who all may be living in a house provided by Colgate supervised by a house parent. This monetary amount of $70,000-$100,000 has not been included in the budget as there are no guarantees here. With the HCS Sevis rating good to go, we are however all set for students from abroad to come. HCS just needs to facilitate their visas.

- I brought to Diana, Matt and the Board's attention Stephanie's question regarding a second full-time art position. I threw in there the option of the 0.5 or 1.0 second library position. Diana first clarified that with Bill Magee's $50,000 Bullet Aid, HCS is able to maintain Jenn Brigg's 0.5 library position. Which means the total librarian staff is 1.5 FTE. The response was that since we cannot count for sure on the foreign exchange funds, we are unable to include such increased staff position(s) in the current budget. Maybe next year?

- Much talk was about the JV, Varsity and Modified Sports. David Ellis had a conversation with Jen and was particularly concerned with how the HCS administration presented their Sports budget to the public. The perception was that JV sports' funding was contingent upon a grant requested from Dick's Sporting Goods. The money received from Dick's would need to be matched by the Sports Boosters. This is however not the case. Based on the enrollment surveys for all sports, only those sports with enough enrollments to create a team are currently budgeted for. Any additional teams to be created based on unanticipated sign-ups will have to come from this grant. Dennis Roy said that no matter what happens with the numbers, money can be shuffled and the teams will play. It's a matter of getting the numbers. Gary Weeks and Morgan among others asked questions in addition to David Hollis about the sports budget.

- The "Enrichment" position is indeed cut. However, this position cut does not mean HCS students will no longer receive enrichment. Also, Johanna B. (Ag teacher) will hopefully continue to offer the Enrichment Bunch Program, though this is contingent upon funding from the Emerald Foundation as well as help from a second teacher.

- None of the other administrators (besides Diana, Matt and Dennis) were there. I was going to ask the attending Principals what their opinion was about a reduced (interim) Superintendent position (0.75 FTE). Do they think this would be feasible? Could they themselves make up for the reduction in administrative staff? Could they take on the extra responsibility? Again, I didn't get to ask this question, but would very much have liked to.

and Ellen Larson doesn't see anything to change in there, so here 'tis.

Update:Radio Free Hamilton has a report at HCS Board Approves Budget With 1.16% Increase

The HCS School Board tonight approved a preliminary 2014-2015 budget of $12,260,960, which is an increase of just 1.16 percent over the current spending plan.

And Dr. Bowers' blog has information on athletics at Will There be Girl's Soccer in the Fall of the 2014--15 School Year? - Dr. Bowers - SuperintendentHamilton CSD

Pretty Good News from April 8 "Community Leaders/Fiscal" Meeting

(Updated below with comments from others who attended)
Every now and then, things have to go somewhat less wrong: otherwise everybody would understand that the Universe really is plotting against us all, and we'd be permanently braced for it. So this evening our oft/rescheduled meeting revealed that

• The GEA improvement in the just-released final budget run is $68K; (still not good, but less bad)
• Our State Assembly representative, Bill Magee, produced $50K in "bullet aid"; it may indeed be true that Our view:'Bullet' aid clear indication that system is wrong - News - Uticaod - Utica, NY, but in this case at least it is certainly plugging a hole left by, as the article puts it, "the state’s long-broken school funding formula". Again, less bad.
• I've written before on the possibility (and desirability, not just on financial grounds) of appealing to international students. Now it looks like the Southern Westchester BOCES is setting up an exchange student program to which we need only say "yes", for an initial version with probably five students, paying HCS $14-20K each in addition to the money that pays for their stay and supervision here; that's obviously complex, and takes most of the money that their parents pay. Astonishingly, this could happen next year and could add another $70K--$100K to the budget. (The tuition may be less than the average cost of educating an HCS student, but is far more than the marginal cost; it's mostly "profit".) In this case HCS benefits from the Colgate connection and the fact that Homeland Security has already investigated us, costs being paid by a previous student's family.
• Classrooms for special education, a huge expense for HCS, are being reshuffled in complex ways; Molly (BoE President) wanted to comment on the cleverness of the juggling act, without which "we'd be in a very different place."
• And for the moment, the resource officer is off the budget.

What with all the savings, it appears that we keep our full-time art teacher (1.5 art teachers total). Only the "supplemental innovation/enrichment" person is cut. Diana argues against looking for a part-time superintendent...hmm...dunno. Molly says, in response to the observation that we have a few more administrators than comparably sized schools, that she checked on specifics and was told that "for historical reasons" we list a couple of positions, such as the technology directory, as an administrative post where the "low-administration" schools would list the people doing this as teachers. This is plausible, and overall the news is much less bad than it seemed this morning.

Update on Opt-Out Our opt-out percentage may have been high, with almost a quarter of the affected students sitting out the test, but the protest has been heard and it wasn't just us: about 30K students in the state opted out, a vote of no confidence on the current nysed administration has gone through, the new administration is sounding different, the test is invalid and there's no way it will be used. I will probably update with other notes (we talked about telepresence and such) and maybe with more links Real Soon Now, but that's all for the moment.

Update: notes from other attendees:
Susan Marafino adds

I mentioned that [Carolyn Hsu] would be a good person to be involved with the potential exchange student program with Southern Westchester BOCES. The coordinator happens to be a Colgate alumni - Diana couldn't recall his name.  HCS would apparently be the first school to be part of this BOCES exchange student program, and  one appeal for choosing our district, besides the Colgate connection, is that we already have the SEVIS rating.

I missed the first minute of the meeting, but after the meeting Bud Ballinger confirmed that the strings position was being restored to current levels including 2nd and 3rd grade.

Lastly, Diana mentioned, following a question from Astrid about JV sports, that the girls soccer program was being cut because "there aren't sufficient numbers".  This is on the heels of girls volleyball being moved to the fall.  To my understanding, there has been no discussion of this in any BOE meeting to date, so it was surprising to hear it presented as fait accompli.  Considering that the last item on tonight's agenda was "asking for collaboration and transparency as a two-way street", this certainly merits further discussion at the next board meeting, as well as with student athletes and their parents, and Sports Boosters.

Heather Cigeroglu then added

Just a few other notes to point out...

• Susan had mentioned the shift of girls volleyball to the fall. In response, Diana mentioned that Jen Dean should be asked about this because it was Jen and Denny Roy that made the switch based upon a student survey that was given.

• There will be potentially 4 positions opening up at HCS if the budget is passed: 

       2 Guidance Positions (long-term maternity leave) 

       1 Art Position (not sure if full or part is being advertised)

       1 Special Education Position

* I was hoping that the .5 art teacher would somehow be able to extend their position by teaching courses that the technology and innovation coordinator may have taught so not to completely loss that portion of the curriculum and also to be a support to PBL since this is how art teachers have always approached their material. I don’t think I was clear on my intention, I think many people thought I was just advocating to bump the part-time to a full-time position which was not the main intent. Following my comment, Audrey Miller made a great point that although it would be great to have two full-time art teachers there is still only one librarian for the school. An excellent point really.

• Currently the Board is looking into Interim candidates and once he/she is decided on they will then focus their energies on a full superintendent search. 

• The PBL (Project Based Learning) model http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning is just beginning to become incorporated as part of the curriculum at HCS. Diana explained that she prefers to refer to it as process-based learning, placing more emphasis on the process than the product. I have to agree with her on that. 

  Audrey Miller seemed very positive about the experiences her 1st graders are    

  having with the PBL approach. 

• Also, for at-risk students or students who prefer a “hands-on” approach to learning BOCES will be offering a model similar to Tech Valley to 9th and 10th graders. http://www.bizjournals.com/albany/morning_call/2014/03/tech-valley-high-school-model-to-be-replicated.html  If i’m not mistaken, High school programs at BOCES are currently only offered to students in 11th and 12th grade. They hope this program will help catch students before they lose complete interest in school and fall behind.

Astrid Helfant said

Let me add to this Diana's rebuttal in response to my letter to the Board regarding a 0.75 FTE (interim) superintendent position. Her comments included that it would not be of benefit to HCS to reduce the superintendent position. She of course emphasized that she had nothing to gain from advocating this on behalf of HCS considering she's leaving her job this summer. Diana stated that those schools that have reduced superintendent and / or shared principal jobs are of lesser educational standing compared to schools that have no part-time upper level administrator positions. Also, according to Diana, HCS would not be able to hire as good a candidate if it were seeking to fill a less than full-time slot.

Furthermore, and Molly chimed in here, they both critiqued the earlier comparison Ferdinand and I vocalized during a board meeting regarding HCS having 6.0 FTE administrator positions compared to other similar sized schools with only 4.0 administrator positions. Such a comparison, they stated, is invalid as Hamilton includes its Technology Director as part of administrator staff, whereas other schools may include this position under teaching staff. So in essence, according to this argument, we'd be comparing apples to oranges.

Thanks also to Stephanie for backing me up on this reduced superintendent position by underscoring at the end of this discussion that my original letter to the Board suggested this may make sense for the interim job, which does not necessarily mean this is the way to go for the long term.

 and finally, Stephanie McClintick did some research on the athletic issue:

I wrote to Brian Rose who had no idea that there was a possibility of canceling soccer at HCS in the fall. He met with the Jen Dean, the AD this morning, and said that there would be girls soccer.

And a note from me (Tom Myers) -- I had been supporting the part-time interim superintendent idea, and wasn't immediately convinced by Diana's rebuttal: in particular, Diana commented that we could pay less and get a "manager" but not an "educational leader" and I wasn't sure that was bad. Thinking about what Astrid said and back to Diana's remarks leads me to think I was wrong. If we're hoping to get new things to happen, such as the international student project or electrical cogeneration or telepresence in any of its forms or whatever, then we do need more. The Bottom Line for me is that we're probably doing okay for next year... Yaaaaaay!! But there are several troubles on the horizon. So it goes.

Final (?) Budget Run for State Aid, 2014-15

Ferdinand points out the 2014-15 STATE AID PROJECTIONS. (Copied below.)
Bottom line, as Radio Free Hamilton quoted Superintendent Bowers, Aid Increase for HCS Still Means Possible Cuts:

"We are still looking at a decrease in staffing by 2.0 FTE's (full time equivalent positions), having morning and afternoon pre-K - instead of two mornings, and adding new special education programs to the district, to decrease the number of students placed out of the district."

So the question may become: considering that we have more administrators than other comparable-size schools, do we cut teachers or administrators? And considering that the most expensive administrator will of course be the (new) interim superintendent, should we cut the superintendent to part-time?

                                                                              
                                                                   
                               STATE OF NEW YORK                                          
                       2014-15 STATE AID PROJECTIONS                                      
RUN NO. SA141-5                                             03/28/14                      
DB ED: 0190C                                                                              
                                                                                          
                                                                                          
           PRELIMINARY ESTIMATE OF 2013-14 AND 2014-15 AIDS                               
             PAYABLE UNDER SECTION 3609 PLUS OTHER AIDS                                   
                                   DISTRICT CODE:             250701                      
          
                                   DISTRICT NAME:           HAMILTON                      
2013-14 BASE YEAR AIDS:                                                                   
  FOUNDATION AID                                           3,084,023                      
  FULL DAY K CONVERSION                                            0                      
  UNIVERSAL PREKINDERGARTEN                                   69,500                      
  BOCES                                                      343,369                      
  SPECIAL SERVICES                                                 0                      
  HIGH COST EXCESS COST                                       69,499                      
  PRIVATE EXCESS COST                                         23,351                      
  HARDWARE & TECHNOLOGY                                        8,192                      
  SOFTWARE, LIBRARY, TEXTBOOK                                 44,834                      
  TRANSPORTATION INCL SUMMER                                 371,573                      
  OPERATING REORG INCENTIVE                                        0                      
  CHARTER SCHOOL TRANSITIONAL                                      0                      
  ACADEMIC ENHANCEMENT                                             0                      
  HIGH TAX AID                                                     0                      
  SUPPLEMENTAL PUB EXCESS COST                                 7,730                      
  GAP ELIMINATION ADJUSTMENT                                -552,663                      
SUBTOTAL                                                   3,469,408                      
  BUILDING + BLDG REORG INCENT                               817,139                      
TOTAL                                                      4,286,547                      
                                                                                          
2014-15 ESTIMATED AIDS:                                                                   
  FOUNDATION AID                                           3,110,237                      
  FULL DAY K CONVERSION                                            0                      
  UNIVERSAL PREKINDERGARTEN                                   69,500                      
  BOCES                                                      335,525                      
  SPECIAL SERVICES                                                 0                      
  HIGH COST EXCESS COST                                       49,927                      
  PRIVATE EXCESS COST                                         22,558                      
  HARDWARE & TECHNOLOGY                                        7,868                      
  SOFTWARE, LIBRARY, TEXTBOOK                                 45,110                      
  TRANSPORTATION INCL SUMMER                                 380,496                      
  OPERATING REORG INCENTIVE                                        0                      
  CHARTER SCHOOL TRANSITIONAL                                      0                      
  ACADEMIC ENHANCEMENT                                             0                      
  HIGH TAX AID                                                     0                      
  SUPPLEMENTAL PUB EXCESS COST                                 7,730                      
  GAP ELIMIN. ADJMT (SA1314)                                -552,663                      
  GEA RESTORATION                                             78,091                      
    GAP ELIMINATION ADJUSTMENT                              -474,572                      
SUBTOTAL                                                   3,554,379                      
  BUILDING + BLDG REORG INCENT                               817,137                      
TOTAL                                                      4,371,516                      
                                                                                          
$ CHG 14-15 MINUS 13-14                                       84,969                      
% CHG TOTAL AID                                                 1.98                      
                                                                                          
$ CHG W/O BLDG, RE BLDG, FDK                                  84,971                      
% CHG W/O BLDG, RE BLDG, FDK                                    2.45                      
                                                                                          
SMART SCHOOLS ALLOCATION                                     409,770                      
                                                                                   
NYSED HOME PAGE | STATE AID HOME PAGE | DISTRICT HOME PAGE

                 

 

HCS Budget Trends

Ferdinand provides some older HCS budgets as PDF files. Here we have the 2009-10 with proposed 2010-11; direct link here.

And here's the 2012-13 with proposed 2013-14; direct link here:

Board of Education Meeting, Tuesday 2014-03-18

It's really nice to have the BoE meetings put up on YouTube; unfortunately there was no microphone in front of Diana Bowers (Superintendent until July) so that answers to some questions are not audible to me, except in bits and pieces. Also, some BoE members leaned back too far from the microphones, sometimes. Anyway, I'll set it here with notes below so that you can find segments for particular speakers or subjects. Umm, I skipped the FFA presentation somewhere early, I see...sorry, it's not what I was focused on. (But the state FFA convention will be here, with local schools including HCS as hosts; it seems to rotate among all the participating schools.)

Bottom Line, as I understand it: We can't save money by refinancing any of our debt; we can save some by not keeping our "resource officer" (policeman), we will probably save some with an "interim Superintendent" being paid less than Diana has been paid and we may save quite a bit if that interim Superintendent is part-time or shared with another district. We may save a trivial amount of money on the GEA if the House amendment to the NY budget goes through, or a small but non-trivial amount if the Senate goes through; the Senate version does end the GEA in 2016--2017, and they have different rules about going past the tax cap (which is 2.21% this year.) We have a long-term problem of sustainability in that our instructional budget has been rising more slowly than inflation for years, while the Special Education program has risen rapidly; it's not clear that anything can be done about that, but in a world of limited resources it is unfortunately fair to say that we (and other NY districts) have increasingly been doing special education instead of general education; resources have been redirected, and the tax cap says they can't be increased at the same pace. Perhaps it has to be that way. Meanwhile, we can certainly save money by cutting art, which doesn't seem to be covered in the testing which evaluates how well HCS is doing, so obviously it's not important. (end sarcasm)

6:50--13:55 Barbara Houze, retiring art teacher; she's unhappy at being replaced by a total of 0.7 part-time people who, by "magic math", will be able to cover the actual classes, but the art program will have no planner, advisor, or advocate; only the actual classes will be covered.
14:00-16:00 John Knecht spoke up as artist and educator, to say that art should be treated like chemistry or history or math or any other academic subject. (I doubt this; I think of art as a category of subjects, not as a subject; it's of very little importance if we're just training workers with specific skills, but immense importance if we want the creative class, the "black-collar" entrepreneurs/innovators/designers/scientists of the 21st century. Or if we want artists, I suppose.)
16:20--18:15 Denise Leone as a "visiting artist at HCS" said that we evaluate cultures based on their art, and she wanted to understand why art is among the first items to be cut ... to understand the process. Molly Johnson replied that it's not, (a) it's not decided if the art will be cut and anyway (b) we've been cutting a lot for a long time and (c) the process is open, working through open meetings and openly available documents like those at boarddocs for this meeting.
20:00--21 Audrey Miller spoke as a parent of a child who hates school except art/music; this is not about saving the art program, it's about saving the children.
21--22 An HCS art student whose name I can't hear (upd: Sydney Craven) said that a lot of kids need an arts background for what they hope to do with their lives, especially of course if that involves application to an art school. It was well-spoken.
22--24 Lynn Schwarzer talked about the amazing changes wrought by the art teacher who ought to be given a full-time position, after decades of relative inadequacy at HCS. She also talked about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education broadening into STEAM education (I just can't think what that "A" could stand for, but I'd be happy to buy an Evil Mad Scientist STEAM T-shirt for each BoE member; I did long ago link to STEAM Learning Network site: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, to STEAM: A Framework for Teaching Across the Disciplines, and just as an example to Maker Faire and Science Education: American kids should be building rockets and robots, not taking standardized tests. - Slate Magazine.)

Art/music/theatre good, tests bad. (All right, all right -- tests are good for some things, just not for all we now use them for. Art/music/theatre good.)
24-- Carolyn Hsu wanted to know about the specific rules and limits for donations...I could hear Diana's response when I was sitting there, but I can't hear enough of it on the video.
28:15--Stephanie McClintick, as a local artist, wanted further clarification....
31:10--Molly (BoE) Somewhat into the next phase, thanks for and acceptance of the Sports Boosters donation.
31:30--40:00 Embarking on search for the next Superintendent; nothing solid yet, but looks like it has to be an interim.
40:--46 Molly, Diana, Bud -- policy on testing and opt-outs chosen by students or parents.
46--Aaron on opt-out consequences; if fewer than 95% of students participate for two consecutive years, there might be financial consequences but it's not clear in the regulations; there will be a reclassification of the school as not being "in good standing" which might hurt college applications, but (Diana) there may be a lot of downstate schools in this situation and college admissions people will understand.
47 Kevin Ellis continues same topic, but I can't hear him.
52--1:00:30 Matt Crumb on 2.21% tax cap calculation, on failure to save money by refinancing debt, and on House and Senate bills to amend the Governor's proposed budget. Get Your Protests In Before April 1st!
1:00:30 Bill Dowsland on Senior class trip to Hershey Park.
1:01 Susan Marafino pointing out that the "resource officer" is costing us $20K/year, which may be money well spent but it might be money better spent e.g. on keeping the art program going, and that a part-time rather than full-time Superintendent might save even more. (Molly replies that there is some savings implicit in having an interim Superintendent anyway, who will get a lower salary than Diana has received.)
1:05:40 Ellen Larson on testing and teacher evaluation, which ought to be separate.
1:07:50 Ryan Solomon contrasts South African actual violence with American over-protectiveness and would rather spend the resource officer's cost on art; applause suggests that this is a popular view.
1:08:50 Ferdinand von Muench talks about the art and strings programs which seem to be at risk; we just need to follow the library's example with a 3.6% tax increase. He wants to encourage people to go to the next public Finance Planning meeting, but it hasn't been rescheduled yet. He makes two major points: our Administration costs are high, with 6 people to do the admin that other similar-size schools do with 4. (Note that the most expensive of these is of course the superintendent; as he knows but does not say, "School superintendents get paid more than governors in a dozen states: New Jersey, New York,...". So a part-time or shared superintendent might be a really good buy for a financially stretched district. And Special Education of which he is very much in favor, but there is a question of sustainability. (See "bottom line" above, or better yet listen to what he's saying. The recent growth in special education is substantially larger than our deficit; the GEA is larger than our deficit; life is difficult.)


Well, I guess I ran out of steam (not STEAM) as I approached the end, but I'll post this and hope it's somewhat useful to somebody. Error-correction would be appreciated.

Update: Radio Free Hamilton reports here. Sadly, the first comment is "Are these all the same people that voted against the merger. Do they truly not get it and see what they caused". This appears to reflect a failure to realize that some of us turned against the merger when we realized that according to the merger study, it wasn't actually a money-saver -- the economy of scale (reduced staff) and diseconomy of scale (more transport) were quite close to balance. It's certainly probable that most or all of those speaking voted accordingly--I dunno. Obviously, most of Hamilton did. (It was a money-shifter, and that gets complicated. Never mind.) So it goes.

Budget Coffee, March 5

Email from school (Debbie Kirley) on 2014-03-04: "Good morning. Just a reminder that Dr. Bowers will be holding a Budget Coffee tomorrow, 3/5, morning @ 9:00 a.m. in the Cafeteria."

Budget Coffee, February 26

Sorry for not posting this earlier; I was out of town, which shouldn't have been the problem it was. These are Astrid Helfant's notes from the Wednesday's "budget coffee". The news is very slightly improved. I'm puzzled, though, in that I don't see a discussion of the 2.5 straightforwardly financial options:

  (1) refinancing debt, some of which was incurred with higher interest rates;
  (2) Ken's bond to fund the natural gas installation, so that we benefit immediately instead of with a year's lag;
  (2.5) Ferdinand's extension of (2), to include cogeneration following the example of Madison-Oneida BOCES.

Anyway:

Diana opened meeting at 7pm. Tonight's numbers are a bit better. Matt Crumb was given the floor.

Three handouts. 5 year GEA history. Four year GEA history - Matt added a fifth year. Over 3 million dollars total taken. 

Next document. 2.21% allowable tax levy increase. In dollars 142,832.

Matt discussed ERS and TRS.

Inflation rate: roughly 2%

Pilot agreement - none

Matt brought up that we will have to decrease the tax levy for next year as a result of a debt being paid off. I'm hoping someone else can pitch in here explaining this concept a bit. 

Colgate used to pay $200,0000 and that amount will continue. The additional $300,000 was just meant for three years. The last year of that coming up 2014 2015. Since this is a non-binding payment is not considered to be part of the pilot payments. 

Last document. We are assuming a debt of close to $200,000 for upcoming budget year. All employees salaries are in negotiations. Health insurance is going up. More specialty drugs and more high expense health cases. 8.5% increase.

Personal changes through attrition: -$60,000

Projected deficit: 1.5% wage increase -> $140,000 deficit

2.0% wage increase -> $166,000

2.5% wage increase -> $192,000

See document for additional numbers.

Staffing cuts:

Total cuts 3-4 fte instead of 4-5 fte

Hire 0.7 art teacher instead of 1.0 = 0.3 fte savings

Morning and afternoon pre-k instead of two mornings classes

0.5 fte savings

One of the long term subs would be released as a result of this pre-k change. That's almost 2 fte.

The remaining 1.5 cut still will be decided. Not ready for release yet.

Also some savings through new life christian school.

Astrid asked some questions about GEA and 2% versus increasing tax levy beyond 2% and when the board would decide this. April was the answer. And no we cannot count on a GEA cut this year.

March 13 Thursday from 4:30-9pm. Budget work-shop meetings. To be held at elementary library. 

Stephanie asked about school bus purchases. The answer: 2 per year historically and now it's only one per year. 

Transportation aid is the highest.

Ferdinand: Time table for budget versus contract negotiations? Basically best guess. Budget calendar is only what is certain - The May deadline vote. 

Lorna Wilson: Are these deficits normal? Diana: normal for the last 4-5 years.....

Ellen: How knowledgeable is public about tax cap bribe? Matt: I don't know....

After this we discusses off topic about state testing and the anxiety this creates among students.

End of the meeting around 8:30pm

Gap Elimination Adjustment Links

\ I've talked before about the HamiltonCentralOptions: Gap Elimination Adjustment and I'll go on talking about it. This is just a set of links, really. Watertown Daily Times | Senators pushing bill to end GAP Elimination Adjustment

Legislative sponsors of Bill 5452, calling for the end of the Gap Elimination Adjustment, are pushing to have the state take a serious look at ending the tax as soon as possible. State Sen. Patricia A. Ritchie, R-Heuvelton, said if there is a surplus in the state budget then there is no longer a need to continue the implementation of the penalty tax on public schools.

“This bill was originally proposed last year. This year there is a whole new dynamic,” Mrs. Ritchie said. “This bill amends the education law, requiring the state to pay down the gap elimination adjustment.”

Mrs. Ritchie and her legislative colleagues are hoping to take the bill before legislators to have the GEA’s conclusion be included in the final 2014 budget.

Bill 5424 is reported at S5452-2013 - NY Senate Open Legislation - Requires the state to pay down the gap elimination adjustment in three years - New York State Senate

Feb 4, 2014: REPORTED AND COMMITTED TO FINANCE
Jan 8, 2014: REFERRED TO EDUCATION
Jan 8, 2014: returned to senate
Jan 8, 2014: died in assembly

Note that Valesky is a co-sponsor.

There's a lot about it at the "Statewide School Finance Consortium": SSFC Responds to Gov’s State of the State | SSFC

The system for distributing state aid to schools is broken and needs to be fixed, says Dr. Rick Timbs: “We need relief and reform. First and foremost: Do away with the GEA!’’

And of course it's not just upstate; Long Island complains, and is trying to reduce the 2014 GEA impact before April 1: Legislators: Gap Elimination Adjustment short-changing Long Island’s school districts - News 12 Long Island

Local lawmakers say they will fight to increase that amount before the state budget is passed by April 1.

So, how to "fight"? Mostly send letters, I guess.

• Watertown Daily Times | General Brown launches letter writing campaign to end Gap Elimination Adjustment
• Freeport Public Schools

  All residents are encouraged to join in the district’s efforts to eliminate the Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) by participating in a letter writing campaign.

• Averill Park Central School District

  Below are a number of advocacy resources, contact information for our representatives as well as others in position of power within the state. You will also find sample letters as well as talking points to create your own letter.

• ADVOCACY / Home

  The Coxsackie-Athens Central School District’s Board of Education and administration are instituting a letter-writing campaign NOW to eliminate the Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) from our school budget for the 2014-15 school year. It is NOW that we need to make our voices and numbers heard in Albany.

• Legislative Action Committee

  Click here to print a letter that may be signed and mailed to legislators. You may also copy the text from the letter and paste it into an e-mail. Legislator mailing addresses and e-mail addresses are provided below.

The list goes on. A lot of people in a lot of communities are doing what they can to say that the GEA is not a good way for the state to save money. The deadline, assuming that a budget passes on time, is April 1st.

Notes on January 29th "Community Leaders" Meeting

These are very raw notes on what went on in the meeting; corrections appreciated. Some tentative corrections in red, but that does not mean this is complete; I've seen some corrections in email which I (Tom Myers) haven't entered. I'll try to go over it this weekend, but comments/emails would be good. Thanks to Astrid, Heather, Amy et al. 

Community Leadership Meeting

January 29, 2014 @ 5:30pm

Hamilton High School Library

Diana opened the meeting:

New fiscal advisory committee

Not a discussion center on what may not be possible.

School has handcuffs.

Sharing what the school's restraints are.

Last week new state runs.

Unfortunately, surprised..... as the worst happened....

Combined wealth ratio for next year: We are above 1.0

HCS is above Cazenovia and New Hartford

Due to salaries, properties

Deficit is about $250,0000

Cutting some program and 4-5 full-time equivalents.

Diana writing letter to Senator Dave Valesky.

Total additional almost $19,000 received, 0.44% increase.

GEA this year $515,000

GEA is due to a gap 5 years ago. Why still GEA if there's a surplus now and no longer a deficit?

Five years of this GEA, so the noisier we are the better.

Teacher contracts expired last year. So lots of question marks.

Diana is giving the word to Matt Crumb:

Matt provided packet. Files accessible at HCS site???

Revenues and expenditures.

Revenues:

First page is a summary of executive budget proposal and the impact on MO-Boces.

Second page unofficial overall results.

Third page anticipated wealth ratio. HCS jumped from 0.958 to 1.007

Note by Diana: HCS more students in poverty than Cazenovia yet we have a higher wealth ratio.

RWADA Aid ratio? Resident Weighted Average Daily Attendance.

https://stateaid.nysed.gov/boces/pdf_docs/boces_rwada_report-sams1213.pdf

Look at combined wealth ratio and RWADA ratio to see how much revenue we are getting back.

Please help explain this further...... (Astrid's note) From what I heard, the amount the state reimburses for BOCES services are determined by the RWADA which has gone down to .554.

Page 4 HCS almost $300,000 restored to us in 3 years. Much less than other districts.

Last column percentage GEA restored compared to tax levy.

HCS compared to other districts way higher tax burden.

In summary: Wealth up, enrollments down.... less money

Diana's note: Our reassessment means that in a year or so we will take an even greater hit.

Matt on expenditures:

We will be in negotiations with every district employee. District wages possibly 1.5% increase. Health insurance 8.5% increase. See page in packet for the remaining numbers. Tax levy: 2% allowable tax levy increase $130,000.

Summary: Projected deficit with 1.5% wage increase $210,000 and with wage increase $262,000.

Based on Susan Marafino's question regarding wealth ratio, the response was: 28% free and reduced lunch at HCS versus Caz at 16%.

Ferdinand Von Muench asked question. Technology-type funding. Voted on in November. Smart schools. These funds would not help us this coming year. Does not help with salaries.

Aaron Robinson: Tax on true 17%. Missed this question/ answer....

Matt and Diana: Our tax on true is actually not that high in comparison to other districts.

Diana Bowers explained last page in packet:

Methods of supplementing our Annual Budget to allow for financial stability:

59 FTE - versus 75 a few years back - back in 2007.

Cost per pupil $10,154 per student, tad bit higher than surrounding schools.

$19,286 total expenditure per pupil including instructional costs.

Where HCS excells: $22,624 for special ed which is lower than other schools surrounding us and state average These savings are due to servicing students in–house rather than sending them to get services and the implementation of RTI.

Diana on what has been cut regarding staffing:

We started with 3 sections in each grade. Now mostly only 2 sections. Most departments at first 4 teachers and now only 3.

To what extend are we allowed to advertise? Hands are tied in many ways. Sports boosters can collect money and Emerald Foundation as well. It’s illegal for schools to solicit donations.

Susan brought up again getting a complete HCS alumni list to request for money for Emerald Foundation.

Diana: About 5 year’s back when we started the Annual Alumni Chicken b-b-que we compiled a list of alumni, it may’ve not been complete but it was substantial.

Stephanie McClintock: What funds can Emerald provide to schools?

Heather Cigeroglu: We can provide funds for special projects, technical items, teacher grants, student scholarships but no salaries. Donations can’t be earmarked for a specific item but donors can request an area they would like to support.

Hamilton Initiative was mentioned.

Colgate help was discussed briefly.

Ellen Larson: Can we make money by offering distance learning for Latin to other schools as HCS is the only school in 100 miles to offer the language. Diana said that one of the problems is different bell schedule. But with tablets you can solve this timing issue Ellen said.

Diana: What about offering distance learning of our AP classes which Morrisville-Eaton lost due to budget cuts. Again bell schedule an issue. Also, unless teachers are hovering over a student shoulders while completing on-line course work, the success rate of such distance learning is low.

Aaron: Could ME send students over to take a half day for our AP classes. Would that work? Could that give us money.

Ellen: What about seminar type afternoon sessions for money - Ag, science groups? Lot of organizing.....

Stephanie Fadale: Longer school days and four days per week? Does it change the state aid? Are their contractual limitation?

Ferdinand: Does this benefit our kids?

Astrid: Several Governors proposed longer school year and school day. However, where's the funding coming from?

David Hollis:

Downtown businesses are already funding so much. Colgate Inn donates $30,000 per year to HCS. ($30,000 for local donations, not just HCS?) Hamilton asks already for so much.

Morgan Larson: Can we raise taxes to fund this $250,000 deficit. Yes, we can but with risks.

Stephanie: Can HCS rent out classrooms at night? Can't be to for-property organizations says Diana. Can we bring Boces here? Can we be our own Boces? Diana says moving or starting our own just hasn't happened.

Ellen: School budget for dummies. Graph in back NYS highest expense and lowest state funding.

What is this reason? Diana does not have the answers. Can we do away with Regents?

Astrid: I'm all for doing away Regents.

Heather: In response to David Hollis comment, unfortunately I believe this is going to continue to be the new normal. Schools will continue to receive less and less and their communities and/or corporations will have to subsidize the gap. I just looked over Commissioner King’s presentation of the 2014-15 budget and it’s grim. The majority of the budget is slated for testing, making tests, preparing for the tests, testing material. There is very little going towards actual instruction. Assessment so much time we have little left for instruction but yet the state and federal government wants us to increase scores?!@#!

Aaron: Write letters to our politicians.

Heather mentioned having written letters. I’ve pulled together the contact information of key state officials for other as well as some links to resources that help explain the financial and education and also provide advocacy information. She can e-mail contacts to them to all. I know the school is not technically allowed to distribute this information but maybe the PTO can help.

Ellen: Paper letters more influential than email.

Susan: Yes, paper is better, but email and phone better than nothing. Writing is very important.

Make the letters a bit personal --like if your a teacher.

Ferdinand: What do we do if we're stuck with the budget? Mayor is here. We could ask for up to 6% tax increase. Pledge from Hamiltonians to give more due to this tricky budget situation.

Jim Ford:

As Colgate acquires property does it stay on tax roll?

Mayor says yes.

What is the Colgate amount that is given to school district?

Diana: $200,000 per year. Then went up to $500,000 per year to HCS.

How many students have we lost?

Matt: 540 down from 606 which does not include pre-K numbers.

Ferdinand: Can we issue new bonds at lower rate?

Diana and Matt: Some bonds we can some we can't

Barbara Schindler: What would this district be like if we were a charter school?

Diana: Not as easy as you think. However, maybe it’s an option looking into.

I saw Diana write this down in her notes.

Aaron: Natural gas conversion - can that be bonded.

Matt is looking into that. Conversion cost would help this year.

Susan: Resource officer cost $5,000 but budgeted $20,000. Could this be cut? Could Emerald Foundation fund this. Diana answers no. Emerald Foundation mission issue. The HEF mission is to enrich programs, support innovative ideas in teaching, student opportunities at HCS, not personnel.

Ellen: What is the out of pocket cost difference to do the 6% versus 2%.

Matt: If you stayed within the cap, you could gain back the 2% tax increase.

Amy Hurta: So if you paid the extra 4% needed, you'd benefit the school that much more.

Matt: Cannot provide firm estimate on out of pocket cost for such tax increase. Differs for every person due to personal equalization rates.

Jim Ford: Very upset over Mid-York weekly ABCs advertisement. He taught in the Madison School district and felt the ad bad-mouthed our neighbors. He had never read such an arrogant piece in the paper. He called for somebody present in the meeting to come out and say who was part of this initiative.

Silence.......Awkward Silence….
(Apparently there was a discussion after the meeting, in which Jim did not identify any particular "arrogant" -- or false -- items in the ad. I [TM] was certainly one of the group, though in the end none of my too-geeky contributions to the ABCs were used, except that I was one of those objecting to a couple of things that could be misinterpreted as Morrisville put-downs. None of them made it into the ad or even into the ABCs page so I really would like to hear more about this.)

Diana: $5000 in tuition per transfer student from other districts. 25 kids total at this point. This is not a money-maker, just breaking even. They pay at cost. We are only responsible for paying transport to students going to other schools within district - like New Life Christian.

Barbara: Negotiation with teachers is very important.

Diana will be posting on blog about the meeting. All suggestions can be posted and will be brought to next meeting.

Molly: Any fundraising going on, please let us know.

Ferdinand: Budget of districts in our league would be useful. Having board members from other similar districts come over with ideas.

Matt: It’s very difficult to compare budgets between schools.

Diana: It would be more useful to compare districts with similar wealth ratios.

Ellen: We spend a lot more on programming. Are there any other obvious cooperative ventures that may fall into place?

Diana: This can't be rushed. Gotta be done right and it may take time.

Ellen: Are we still having conversations despite merger no-vote?

Matt and Diana: Resounding yes.

Ellen and Diana: RTI: response to intervention: The sooner it is implemented the less the overall cost as support is front-loaded. Early intervention ensures an earlier and better success rate and thus we spend less as the student gets older. Conclusion: money saver.

Russ Tiffany: Business park - would it bring more revenue?

Matt: Any new construction would benefit.

Mayor: We try to market it. And there is a developer that is interested in more than just Wayne's Market.

Ellen: 4-5 teacher cuts?

Diana: 1 possible retirement only so definitely some cuts.

Heather: We should really pull together our communities and discuss various options for dealing with this fiscal challenge. Even if we don’t end up sharing services we can at least discuss what has been proven to be effective money savers in other districts and in the very least, we are all extending an olive branch to one other’s communities and hoping helping to diffuse the tensions among districts. Should we invite other concerned community leaders from other districts to join in the discussions?

Diana: That may be a good idea.

Molly: That may be something the Upstate institute may be able to coordinate.

2014-15 Budget Process --- Join In!

As the Budget Calendar mentioned, our January 21 BoE meeting (which will supposedly be on Youtube eventually (see below) was largely about the budget, starting with the NYS proposed aid in the 2014-15 EXECUTIVE BUDGET PROPOSAL which had just come out a couple of hours before. It was not happy reading; Aaron commented that he had expected our Gap Elimination Adjustment to come down fairly substantially which would have led to a relatively straightforward budget process. Instead, it came down by 6%, remaining still above $500K, leaving us with a back-of-the-envelope $250K deficit. It's a big problem for many schools... as North Country Public Radio quoted What does Cuomo's budget mean for schools in the North Country?

"...it seems odd that the governor touts increasing aid to education on the one hand and fails to say that he’s taking it out of the pockets of educators with the other hand"

Of course it's not just the GEA; our insurance costs jumped sharply, more than in quite some time; apparently this is a consequence of Obamacare. (It's a surprise to me; I had thought NY to be one of the very few states where our existing mandates would make the ACA look good, except for the "narrow networks" phenomenon which may provide nasty surprises for New Yorkers who spend time in other states and expect to have non-emergency care while they're away.)

And there are mandates for equipment for simultaneous test-taking, and there's an individual property which was reassessed a couple of years ago from $1.3M to $1.7M and the appeal is almost certainly going to result in a settlement back down to $1.2M with our school on the hook for some excess taxes. Ouch.

The applicable tax cap is Whichever Is Less of 2% and the official CPI which is 1.46%, plus a local growth factor of almost exactly 1%, so income is not rising to match outgo unless we vote to override the tax cap.So...

---

Please Come To The 5:30PM Jan 29th High School Library Meeting

Bring Ideas

---

Ideas? Of course there is always sharing; the actual merger plan did not save money (long-run) because the diseconomy of scale from added transportation cancelled the economy of scale from cutting staff, but sharing doesn't have to involve large-scale transportation costs. Diana discussed doing more (mainly administrative) sharing among the 4 local schools through BOCES, and we can do more athletic sharing (girls' basketball with Madison). This will not save a lot, but every little bit helps.

Shared Admin can go pretty far, there is such a thing as a Shared Superintendent possibility; it's not obvious that this is applicable to our situation. In general, if we consult the New York State Professional Staffing Ratios" (large PDF) (we're on page 244), we might find that some other small schools do it with reduced staff and maybe we can do what they do...or maybe we can do New Things; telepresence robotics is taking off, after all, and getting lots cheaper than being there.

Smart Schools Equipment for telepresence, for distance learning (below), and to satisfy the mandate Diana mentioned for simultaneous test-taking is not just getting cheaper: it may be covered by the "smart schools allocation" at the bottom of the "BUDGET PROPOSAL", which for HCS is $409,770. It's likely that the "allocation" is intended to encourage long-term shift towards options like the Khan Academy, or simply lessons like our own Youtube channel to be used locally or shared. In the long run that's important, but it's possible that some replacement of people cost with machine cost will actually be feasible even in the fairly short term. (It's also possible that the geek writing this is overly optimistic.)

Natural Gas was discussed; my understanding of Diana's remarks is that it will save each year but that this coming year the savings is roughly cancelled by the installation cost. Ken Bausch points out by email that if if that understanding is correct, then it's a normal capital cost which should be funded by a bond issue, just as we do to amortize bus cost; in fact it's far more obvious in the case of the one-time-only natural gas cost. If indeed that's how it goes, and if the link above was correct in projecting $160,000/year savings, then we're more than halfway home right there. If.

Distance Learning is a current topic for Madison; Ferdinand sends a link to MCS bringing new instruction via distance learning through BOCES and in the long run this may be a major winner, but probably not a big issue for the next few budgets. Well, it might be.

Alumni/Community Fundraising was discussed; Amy Hurta as Treasurer reported that she had learned the day before that the Sports Boosters, like the Emerald Foundation, is in fact a tax-exempt 401(c)3 organization listed with the IRS, "and always has been." Send Money! Andrew Coddington says the Emerald Foundation is always looking for alumni donations and tries to keep an alumni list, so Send Names/Addresses! (And Money!) And there's also HCS alumni site which isn't very active--but links to a facebook page.

Sponsorship Stephanie McClintick (via email) brings up the possibility of local company sponsorship of teams and other activities, which is a common development elsewhere; the Albany Times-Union reported a year ago on Schools look to sponsors to help pay for programs - Times Union

Cuts force districts to find alternative funding

which is certainly a familiar story; from this past fall we can add This student planner brought to you by… | The New York World

New York City middle and high school students will be receiving free planners next school year courtesy of corporate sponsors, under a new city Department of Education plan.

There is an organization to support this kind of thing: Sponsorship and Advertising | School Administrators Association of New York State

The Corporate Sponsorship Program helps SAANYS to achieve its mission of continuing to provide programs and services to the school leaders of New York State - leading to greater opportunities for the students within their care. Participating in the program provides companies with many opportunities to interact with school leaders from all over the state.

Of course, there can be problems, and caution is advised; from Utah we hear High school sponsorship contracts raise concerns, but also benefit programs | Deseret News

In this piece, Amy Donaldson examines the regulatory environment surrounding these deals and how local coaches have gotten into legal trouble with respect to such contracts.

It could happen here.

Foreign Students I've written before about the possibility of tuition-paying international students and about some of the reasons why HCS might appeal to some. Astrid brought this up at the meeting and Diana replied that HCS did indeed go through the "accreditation" process with Homeland Security so we are "SEVIS-certified"; indeed we are on page 108 of last June's official list at DHS and we can accept foreign students with "F" visas, although not "M" visas. See SEVP Certification Basics and maybe Everything you need to know about Foreign Students (F-1) studying in Public Schools

• Secondary school attendance is limited to twelve months.
• F-1 secondary school students are required to pay the school the full cost of education by repaying the school system for the full, unsubsidized, per capita cost of providing the education to him or her.
• F-1 students are prohibited from attending public elementary schools or publicly-funded adult education programs.

And Clinton High School went through this in 2004 but may have dropped it, their website doesn't mention it. The idea went nowhere at HCS, beyond conversations with a company which actually offered to provide students and pay $2,000/year to HCS for their education. Not a good offer, in fact much less than is required by the second requirement above. Is the idea hopeless? I don't think so, not at all. Consider the town of Millinocket, Maine, reported in Millinocket using China program money to keep schools going in 2014 — Bangor Daily News...

Seven Chinese students attended Stearns this year, each paying about $24,000 tuition. ...
Millinocket is among several Maine municipalities hoping to offset shrinking school revenues with Chinese students but had recruiting difficulties. An informal poll of state public high schools’ Chinese student enrollments taken in February showed the most students, 12, at Orono High School. Some private schools had close to 100.

What does Millinocket have that we don't? Connections with Chinese high schools, apparently. Hmm... but we do have potential connections through Colgate faculty/students/admin, including the China Study Group. USA Today reported last July on U.S. summer camps increasingly popular overseas

U.S. summer camps are increasingly popular in countries such as China, where rising middle class can send their children to experience American life -- and possibly set the stage for going to college in the USA

The article featured Colgate rather prominently. At the wrong level for our purposes, but still -- it's worth exploring. Do we have such connections? (Carolyn?) Do we have people, preferably parents of current HCS students, who'd be hosts? (Astrid?) Of course this doesn't have to be China, but China is prominent in the F-1 high-school student visa discussions.

That's all I can think of right now. Diana wanted to emphasize that ideas need to be considered in the context of our layers of regulations, mandates, subsidies... When Ferdinand talked about transportation costs, working with local transport to save some of the $90,000/year we give to BOCES, she replied that transportation is among our highest aid-ratio costs so that much of the money we give BOCES comes back to us, and even if we found a cheaper transportation solution it's likely that the budget cost would be higher. We can't count on specific aid ratios for long-term planning, but for right now, let's talk about the next few years' budgets, with focus on next year.

Update: I didn't mention Activism, or at least Letter-Writing; note that the state's disappointing Budget Proposal is not a Final Budget. There will be a post about this, Reasonably Soon Now.

Update2:The BoE meeting is now a (long) video at ▶ Hamilton CSD BOE Meeting 1.21.14

...apologies, the next one will have better sound.

Below is the order [of] events and the times in which each Agenda Item appears:
0-10min: Items 1.0-3.6, Call to order, Preliminary Action, Consent Agenda (Business Operations)
10-11 min: Item 4, Consent Agenda (Old Business)
11-17 min: Item 5, Community Participation Part 1
17-21 min: Items 6-6.4, New Business
21-35 min: Item 6.5, Budget Sports
35-55 min: Item 7, Information and Correspondence
55-1:41 min: Item 8, Community Participation Part 2.

Hooray for open government!

Update 3 Yes, the sound is terrible. If you have LOTS of energy then

• (a) download the video from youtube, lots of e.g. Firefox extensions for that;
• (b) split off the sound track, probably in iMovie or whatever basic video handler you have;
• (c) download Audacity (free) from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
• (d) follow, e.g. http://www.podtopia.net/gettingstarted/removenoise.shtml

No problem. Well, umm, assuming you have several hours...make it a day, this is a long video and there will probably be synchronization issues when you put it back together so you may have to do it one clip at a time. And the result will not be perfect. No, I'm not gonna try, but I'll post the result if somebody else does.