Webb School Board meets; Superintendent Germer reports on NY state aid; Ms. Valerie Gaudin to retire at term’s end

The Town of Webb Union Free School District’s Board of Education held a meeting on Tuesday, January 19, 2016.*

Public Comments included: Christine and Ryan Prichard approached the Board about their daughter, a 7th grader, attending NYSEF in Lake Placid for the winter term to train for alpine skiing at the Olympic Ski Center.

The TOW UFSD would provide the curriculum materials and a NYSEF tutor would provide the instruction.

TOW UFSD would then grade the homework/tests. 

Discussion was highlighted by the great opportunity for the student to ski nationally and internationally; great extra burden for the teaching staff at TOW UFSD especially due to the lateness of the request; student must be goal-driven to complete the work and to stay current with the materials provided; Google Docs would be a great benefit to the student and the student would return to TOW UFSD at the end of March.

Ms. Nahor expressed the Board’s concern over the lateness of this request and asked the Prichards to inform the school in advance if she would attend another term.

The Board reviewed the following information and took the following action:

Approved the Minutes of the January 5, 2016 meeting.

Approved the Warrants and Claims.

Approved the Treasurer’s Report for December 2015.

Approved the permanent appointment of Marie Candee as Cook, effective January 26, 2016.

Accepted the letter intent for purposes of retirement from Valerie Gaudin, Vocal Music Teacher, with regret and appreciation for her 31 years of service, effective June 30, 2016.

Rejected the bids for the Heating Upgrade/Mechanical Construction from Giruzzi Plumbing & Heating – $192,000 and H.J. Brandeles Corp. – $171,000. The bids exceed the available funding under the Capital Outlay project requirements.

Approved the Permanent appointment of Marie Candee, Cook effective January 26, 2016.

Approved the appointment of Forrest Williams as Substitute Teacher and Substitute Teacher Aide.

Approved the 2016-2017 Instructional Contract with Inlet Common School.

Approved the 2016-2017 Transportation and Service Providers Contract with Inlet Common School.

Principal’s ReportMr. John Swick submitted the following information:

The 3rd grade class had a coin drive to support St. Jude’s Hospital and the Ronald McDonald House and was able to raise $513 that was donated.

The 4th grade was happy to report that they collected 283 food items and a $20 donation to deliver to the Food Banks at our locate churches, St. Bartholo-mew and Niccolls Memorial for the 2016 holiday season.

The Junior Key Club is having a clothing drive for students in Proctor High School who are foreign refugees. Please drop clothes off to Mrs. Amos at the school.

The 5th grade continued the tradition of gathering money and blankets for the ASPCA.  onetary donations in the amount of $110. Along with three large boxes of used blankets and towels were collected.  he 5th grade class was very proud to partner with Mrs. Phinney who started this several years ago.

Our Junior High Snowball Dance took place on Saturday, January 10, under the direction of Student Council and Mr. Kinney.

Our sophomores visited the HGSTC BOCES on Thursday, January 7 for a tour of the programs available to them next year.

Our 2 P.M. all-school dismissal due to the weather was successful delivering each student home safely due in part to our transportation department’s team of drivers and every staff member in the building working together.

Mr. Donovan held a mid-year parent meeting to continue to update parents on the changes and roll out of the new Common Core Algebra 2/ Trigonometry class tonight.

Superintendent’s ReportMr. Rex Germer included the topics: 

The Governor spoke about the budget for the coming year and released Aide runs that are not typically released until the final budget is agreed upon at the State.

The overall figures in this initial run are lower due to a decrease in building aide as we are in a period where there are no projects generating aide because they were not run as projects years ago.

The amount of aide increase built into the budget for education is half of what the Board of Regents has asked for to allow programs across the state to remain in place.

Political negotiations are sure to land the increases somewhere between the current proposal and the ask from other agencies and groups.

We have a pamphlet that has been created to help attract F-1 students to our school. Our tuition costs are high comparatively but we are hopeful we will be able to attract some interest to the District.

The final edits are not complete but I have included copies for you to see what we are working on.

I will not be present at the next BOE meeting. I will be traveling with BOCES to a conference called the “National Technology Centers that Work Leaders’ Forum.”

This conference is part of the planning we have been engaged with as a Tech Center to hopefully develop and offer a new program that will be a direct feeder to industry jobs with local manufacturers as well as into the nanotech center that will be gearing up soon in Utica.

The Town of Webb UFSD Fitness Center participation has declined to one participant in the morning and one in the evening. A review of the hours will be discussed with the Fitness Monitors.

Kristin Helmer has volunteered to demonstrate Yoga to our high school students and has been successfully welcomed by the student participants.

The next Board of Education meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 6:30 pm in the library of the school.

*The preceding capsule does not represent approved minutes and is provided by the Town of Webb UFSD for publication.

 
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