Maybe the kids will do better without the gang-banging and this school would be a better vault back into the city schools to help prevent the gang-banging and other wonderful pressures of city schools....ya know break 'em up and knock the city, urbane-ness out of them.....let the kids actually see what education is without the 'influence'....they wont know what it is until they taste it,I think this is more of an education than 2+2 if ya ask me, has longer, future lasting effects.....Oh, that's right the teachers union likes the battle of the 'bad kids', it gives them reason to cry for more money, for really nothing more than a big headache that the city/county and the union caused......someone rip open this paper bag

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State sticks to recommendation that charter school be closed
Friday, February 29, 2008

SCHENECTADY — Despite intense lobbying by educators, parents and even students at the International Charter School of Schenectady, the state agency that oversees charter schools will stick to its recommendation that the school be closed at the end of the school year.
Cynthia Proctor, director of public affairs for the Charter Schools Institute, said this morning the group will recommend to the SUNY Board of Trustees' Committee on Charter Schools that the charter for ICSS not be renewed when it expires in June. That committee is scheduled to meet Monday and pass along a recommendation to SUNY trustees, who are expected to make the final determination of the school's fate at their March 11 meeting.
The institute provided a draft recommendation to school officials earlier this month, and the school responded by disputing some of the findings, submitting additional information and inviting the institute to visit the school to observe what officials consider improvements since SABIS Educational Systems stopped running the school in March 2007. While the institute did consider the additional information, Proctor said it did not change the opinion that the school should be closed.
"The institute carefully considered the very detailed information the school provided in response to its draft report and at the meeting at the school on (Feb. 19)," Proctor said. "In addition to exhaustive review by institute senior staff, the institute engaged external experts to review the curriculum materials and fiscal information provided by the school. Institute staff reviewed carefully testimony and subsequent letters and e-mails submitted by ICSS teachers, staff, parents and community members.
"While the information provided by the school community clarified some important issues, taken overall it did not justify changing the Institute's ultimate recommendation of non-renewal."

Oh the public schools must be dancing in the isles over this one! They get their bucks back now! It's too bad too. I thought it was a great option for parents who chose and alternative school where their children could do better, or at least thought they could.

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ROTTERDAM
Report slams charter school efforts Sleeping students, poor scores cited
BY MICHAEL GOOT Gazette Reporter

    The agency that recommended closing the International Charter School of Schenectady is sharply critical of the school in its report — at one point saying that some students in the classrooms its representatives visited last November were “socializing, staring into space, or sleeping.”
    The Charter Schools Institute, the organization that oversees charter schools in the state, provided a copy of the 51-page document to The Daily Gazette in response to a Freedom of Information Law request made last month. The institute had provided a mostly blackened-out copy of a draft report on Feb. 12, arguing that only the contents of the final report could be released publicly.
    The institute’s main reasons Share your for recommending that the thoughts on school close down at the end this story at of the 2007-08 year are that the www.daily  school does not have a strong gazette.com  academic program and its sharp enrollment drop from last year raises question about whether the school is financially viable.
    The State University of New York’s Committee on Charter Schools is scheduled to review the report when it meets at 10:30 a.m. today at the SUNY office in Albany. It will make its own recommendation to the SUNY board of trustees, which is scheduled to meet on March 11 for a fi nal decision on the school.
    The report said that during the last two years, only half of the students were proficient on state math tests and only 40 percent proficient on the English tests.
    “While the school performed about the same as, or slightly below, the Schenectady City School District in the two subjects, it consistently scored lower than predicted when compared to demographically similar schools statewide,” according to the report.
    In addition, the report said the quality of student writing work displayed in the hallways was poor.
    “Posted work in the primary grades appeared to be below grade level and consisted mostly of coloring worksheets. Some student work posted in hallways and classrooms was rife with spelling and mechanical errors, but teachers’ comments included ‘Good Job!’ and ‘Great’!”
    Middle school work also had spelling, grammar and usage errors, but still contained high marks with few or any comments or corrections, according to the report.
    The school had a set aside time called an “enrichment period,” but institute officials said it was not effective. Some classrooms in the lower grades did tasks like group math instruction, while about 50 middle school students in the drama club watched a cartoon during the same time period.
    The report also stated that there were discipline issues in both the elementary and middle schools. Misbehavior in the lower grades included “students talking to each other, making noises, or being off task.”
    The problem was worse at the middle school, with students “wandering around classrooms, leaving the classroom without a stated destination or a pass, wrestling with each other, and using profanity,” according to the report.
    It went on to say teachers routinely did not address the problem.
    “Several middle school teachers displayed a sense of frustration and even resignation with regard to students’ behavior; one teacher reported that in the past she attempted to demand silence while she was teaching, but since that was unsuccessful now she just tries to get their attention and then ‘moves on.’ Another teacher stated to an inspector who was observing his unruly class, ‘You can see what we have to deal with.’ ”
    The inspection team reported that instruction was not tailored to different student levels.
    “The renewal inspection team did not observe teachers engaging their students in a rigorous curriculum, asking probing questions, or developing students’ critical thinking skills; in contrast, teachers in the middle school were observed working on their computers during class, pleading with students to complete a low-level worksheet, and lecturing to disengaged students.”
    It also said that the teachers were not familiar with the methods the school was supposed to use to assess student performance. The report said that curriculum development was lacking. School officials had said they were going to use a Buffalo-based curriculum document, but teachers did not adhere to this format. One teacher told institute officials “I am winging it. I haven’t gotten much guidance since I got here.”
    The report also said that three curriculum coaches were supposed to help teachers in grades kindergarten through second, third through fifth and sixth through eighth. However, it stated that there was not a clear direction about whether then-director Sam Penceal, former assistant director and current Acting Director Shirley Reed or the curriculum coaches were guiding instruction.
    “The confusion about leadership had resulted in a lack of clear expectations for and consistent feedback on classroom practice. Further, both the director and assistant director reported to the inspection team that they have not observed as many classes or attended as many grade level team meetings as they intended,” the report stated.
    The curriculum coaches themselves were also inexperienced. One of the coaches told the site visit representatives. “Nobody taught us how to do this job. We taught ourselves.”
    The report also cited morale issues. Thirty-five of the 50 teachers were new for the 2007-08 year. All but one of the seventh- and eighthgrade teachers resigned from the previous year. Because of the drop in enrollment, some teachers were reassigned, which caused stress and morale problems, the report said.
    It also said the school’s financial situation has weakened because only 587 students are enrolled compared with 685 the year before. Also, the school’s income declined because of the Schenectady City School District’s withholding of aid payments. (Charter schools are privately run but publicly funded. Most of the International Charter School’s student population comes from the Schenectady City School District.)
    The report also faulted the charter school’s board of trustees for not acting more swiftly to raise academic performance. It said board members mentioned the improvement in the school climate since its former educational management company SABIS had left in March 2007 and the school decided to govern itself. However, the institute said the board did not seem to be aware of how much it needed to raise student performance.
    The report also said the board of trustees had not established any criteria for how it would review the director. It also hinted at some discord between the board and Penceal, who was fired on Jan. 21.
    “Several school staff described the board as ‘micromanaging’ since it had moved to self-management. The lack of a formal evaluation protocol for the school director tied to academic achievement indicates a lack of oversight by the board, and was particularly concerning given the quality of the educational program at the school,” according to the report.
    When contacted for comment about the report, board President Tracy Petersen said the institute did not take into account information the board submitted refuting its conclusions, particularly about the school’s financial status. They sent documents from their accountant and First Niagara to back up their claims.
    Also, she said even if the school continues to have a dispute with the Schenectady City School District over aid payments, it can get the money by filing an intercept with the state Education Department.
    In addition, she contends the school’s educational program is sound. “They have no evidence in their report that backs up the reason why they think we don’t have a strong program,” she said.
    Petersen said institute officials only visited the school for a twoday period. Half the school was in the midst of taking the state social studies test, on which students scored 23 percent higher than last year, she said.
    She also criticized the institute’s conclusion that the school has a widespread discipline problem.
    “To say that one visit is indicative of how those classes [are] all the time is ridiculous. There is no behavioral problem in the school at this point,” she said.

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Charter school closure justified but still sad

    Troy’s charter school, the Ark, is still afloat after the SUNY trustees’ Charter Schools Committee meeting yesterday in Albany, but Schenectady’s International Charter School appears to have drowned. The committee endorsed a recommendation made last month by the Charter Schools Institute that the school be shut down at the end of this term. We have mixed feelings about the recommendation, which there’s every reason to believe the SUNY Board of Trustees will act on at its March 11 meeting.
    While we could have seen giving the six-yearold school a second one-year reprieve to get its act together, the report of the Charter Schools Institute contains justification enough for closure. Still, it’s sad that children in the school will face such disruption; that all children in Schenectady will have one less educational option; and that the school district, which to its discredit has done everything possible to undermine the charter school, will have no competition to keep it on its toes.
    The school’s problems — or “failures,” as SUNY Trustee Randy Daniels repeatedly called them yesterday — were widespread. They included a spotty academic record: encouraging test scores the first year, where the school’s mostly minority students outperformed students in the Schenectady district and comparable students elsewhere, followed by years of discouraging test scores, where they slightly underperformed students in the Schenectady district and badly underperformed comparable students elsewhere. Charter schools, which operate with fewer bureaucratic rules than other public schools and have a student body that wants to be there, are supposed to be different and somehow better. If they can’t distinguish themselves from the rest academically, what’s the point?
    The charter school complains that students are now doing better in English and social studies but the Charter Schools Institute used data from past years, before management and curriculum changes were made. The institute says these gains have not yet been documented, but even if they can be, based on the curriculum used and other things it saw in the school during a visit in November, they are unlikely to last.
    The institute also was concerned about the school’s frequent shake-ups, including getting rid of a management company and seeing a series of directors either leave or be fired. The key to a good school is strong, consistent leadership. The lack of this has very likely played a part in the school’s high teacher turnover, the discipline problems it has had in the past (and which it now claims to have overcome), and poor student performance. The institute acknowledged that the board has tried to address these problems, but concluded that it was too little too late.
    Also, without directly assigning blame, the institute points to the role the Schenectady district played in the school’s fiscal problems that have hurt it in the past year. First, when confusion from management changes caused many parents to miss the deadline for requesting transportation in April, the district took a hard line and denied their students transportation this school year. That cost the charter school many students, and a lot of money.
    The district also refused to pay the school nearly $750,000 for disputed students, when state Education Department policy says that districts should pay and then settle such disputes at the end of the school year. And finally, on the eve of yesterday’s SUNY Charter Schools Committee meeting, Superintendent Eric Ely couldn’t resist sending an e-mail to the trustees calling attention to the charter school’s shortcomings.
    So, it appears the school system has got back its monopoly, and the state aid that comes with the charter school students. It should use it to overcome the logistical problems, successfully integrate these kids into the district and give them the education they deserve.

I guess they failed to see the kids sleeping in the city schools, or the kids piled into detention or some other activity made for the education-challenged....

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SCHENECTADY
District wants aid money back School officials plan to file suit to recover funds sent to ICS
BY MICHAEL GOOT Gazette Reporter

    The Schenectady City School District plans a lawsuit to recover money sent to the failing International Charter School of Schenectady in pupil aid.
    The state Education Department sent money to the Rotterdam-based school in January to make up for money the city district withheld because it challenged the accuracy of the school’s enrollment figures.
    The charter school is under imminent threat of closure by the SUNY Board of Trustees due to underperformance. A final decision is expected on Tuesday from the State University Board of Trustees.
    The Board of Education on Wednesday authorized Superintendent Eric Ely to proceed with a lawsuit, which would aim to recover some of the funds.
    Last fall, Ely withheld some of the money owed to the charter school because he said charter school officials did not provide proper proof of residency of the students enrolled.
    In December, charter school officials petitioned the state Education Department to obtain the $741,000 they claimed was owed. The state sided with the charter school in late January and sent it the money directly — bypassing the city school district. That money otherwise would have gone to the Schenectady district.
    This decision did not sit well with Ely, who said previously that he believed a “fraud” is being perpetrated on the Schenectady taxpayers. Ely said Wednesday the Education Department did not follow the required process.
    “They didn’t verify the addresses of the children; they didn’t even have the names and addresses of the children. All they had were the names,” he said.
    The money sent to the school — which is roughly $9,500 per pupil per year — comes from both state aid and local taxpayer dollars.
    Ely said the district still does not know the exact amount of money the charter school should have received. He said he knows it is less than $741,000 because the district sent the school a $73,000 payment. “We believe it’s probably less than half of that,” he said.
    School Attorney Shari Greenleaf said the lawsuit would be filed in Supreme Court — in either Schenectady or Albany county.
    Greenleaf said school officials believe the Education Department’s action was “arbitrary and capricious.”
PREPARING FOR INFLUX
    Ely also informed the school board on Wednesday that he has formed two staff committees to deal with the potential closure of the charter school. One committee would continue the search to find space to accommodate the students. The second committee would explore how to help students readjust to a new setting.
    He said in some people’s minds, the closing of a school is like a “death in the family.”
    Ely plans to have counselors and social workers to help welcome these parents and students back into the district community. Charter school officials are preparing for Tuesday’s meeting of the SUNY Board of Trustees, where a final decision on the school’s future will be made. School spokesman Saleem Cheeks could not comment on any pending action by Schenectady.
    “All of our efforts and focus is on the trustee meeting on the 11th,” he said.
    Charter school Business Manager Lori Veshia said previously that the school stands by its enrollment numbers.

     

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Review of Schenectady charter school not comprehensive enough

    I’m a teacher proud to be part of the many and significant positive changes that have occurred this year at the International Charter School of Schenectady [ICSS]. Despite what’s been said, despite the votes cast, and despite what many have come to believe based on statements by the Charter Schools Institute, I can assure you that our students now are learning at a pace comparable to, if not better than, many of their peer institutions throughout the region.
    I believe it’s an incredible injustice to the current team of dedicated administrators, teachers, concerned parents and students to recommend closing our school based on the limited information CSI has chosen to act upon. I’m not writing to discredit the institute’s report based on a two-day observance in November; what I do question, however, is why we were never observed again after making the changes CSI had recommended.
    According to CSI Senior Vice President Jennifer Snead [March 4 Daily Gazette], it’s the policy of the institute not to make return visits to schools because there is always another set of test scores and improvements that they could make. Let me try to understand this logic: The people (CSI) who initially determine how well a charter school is performing do so by observing a school only once and never again because of the possibility of witnessing improvement?
    How can two days of observation in November possibly be an accurate or fair assessment of how our students and our school are performing now? That would be analogous to a teacher observing a student in November and issuing a report card in early March concluding that the child is failing based on assessments made four months earlier. Forget the new strategies the child has learned; disregard the child’s scores over a four-month period; ignore admissions from the child’s teachers and parents about how much progress they have witnessed because none of this is deemed relevant and worthy of being included in determining the current grade!
    I ask the SUNY Board of Trustees to examine closely what CSI has based its decision on. I ask the board to look at current, highly relevant student performance, not results from last year or even before.
    Finally, I implore board members to visit our school at any time to witness fi rsthand what truly happens within the walls of ICSS — genuine learning in a positive environment.
    PATRICK MCGARRY
    Rotterdam

I'm about done with this charter school.  But if they think that they're going to start bringing the shootings to Rotterdam, they've got another thing coming.  They can keep their kids downtown.  This is close enough.  Rip down the entire building and we can put in that new park that everyone in town has been looking for.

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SUNY board votes to close Schenectady charter school
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
By Michael Goot (Contact)
Gazette Reporter

ALBANY — The SUNY Board of Trustees, citing poor test scores and inconsistent management, voted unanimously this afternoon to close Schenectady's charter school.
The school, the International Charter School of Schenectady, will close at the end of this school year. About 500 students are enrolled at the school./p>
Last week, the Committee on Charter Schools voted 2-0 to accept the recommendation of the Charter Schools Institute to shut down the school, which is in Rotterdam. .

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Charter school didn’t get fair shake from state

    The Gazette’s March 4 editorial, “Charter school closure justified but still sad,” on the International Charter School, while sympathetic in several ways, missed the mark.
    This school deserved additional time for several key reasons, including that its board fired a non-performing, for-profit management company last year when scores had dropped to the Schenectady district average; while the evidence this year — the first one under self-management — is that scores on the two state exams administered thus far (English and social studies) increased.
    Incredibly, the SUNY Charter Schools Institute ignored this evidence and gave no credit to the school’s board for replacing a management company, in contrast to other charters that failed to hold such non-performing contractors accountable. Instead, the Institute used an inspection visit only two months into the current school year as grounds for closure, while using old data from when the management company was still in charge.
    In its nine-year charter history, SUNY has never treated a charter school so unjustly, particularly by placing so much weight on a single, subjective visit (while refusing to make any follow-up visits in the four months since to validate its earlier findings). Such a consequential decision as closing a school in a poor-performing district, with no other charter options, surely warrants a more thorough examination than has been given to International Charter School.
    More ironic is that two area charter schools, New Covenant in Albany and The Ark in Troy, have had struggles, made changes and were given extra time by SUNY on multiple occasions. Yet, no such patience and evenhandedness was afforded the ICCS. It’s inconsistent, to say the least, and damaging to SUNY’s reputation as a charter authorizer, if allowed to continue.
    PETER MURPHY
    Albany
The writer is policy director for the New York Charter Schools Association in Albany.

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EDITORIALS
Resurrect plan for district-run ‘charter'

    No one took him very seriously at the time, but maybe former Schenectady School Superintendent John Falco was onto something when he proposed, back in July 2004, replacing the International Charter School with a district-run, “back-to-basics”-themed magnet school, stressing “discipline, a dress code and daily homework.” That just might be the best way for the school district to integrate the 500-odd students who’ll be coming back next fall, in the aftermath of the charter’s failure.
    Parents who chose the charter over Schenectady schools the past several years did so because they had problems with the way those schools were being run. A good many of the parents supported the charter to the bitter end and have expressed disappointment over the state’s decision to close it. They’re unlikely to be satisfied simply re-enrolling their kids in traditional city schools, so why not try to give them something different — especially considering that most schools in the district are already overcrowded?
    School board President Jeff Janiszewski suggested a couple of weeks ago that an arrangement allowing the district to use the charter school’s building — the Mohonasen school district’s former Draper School — might make the most sense among the possible choices. It would probably be the best option from the school district’s standpoint, and many of the charter parents should like it — provided the district takes steps to make the new school special.
    It also might be available for a steal, since the charter school is likely to default on its mortgage now that it’s being shuttered.
    Unfortunately, the district was quite biased against the charter from Day One, and not only did its administrators do their darndest to undermine its success, they have even been accused of giving charter students who come back to the district for high school a hard time (a charge that Superintendent Eric Ely has denied).
    It’s time to let bygones be bygones. Make the school district one big, happy family again by coming up with a plan to open a new, better-run version of the charter — right on the grounds of the old one.

It's the unions(textbook and otherwise].....SHOW ME THE MONEY TRAIL......

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SCHENECTADY
Meeting set on options for charter pupils
City school officials: We were snubbed
BY MICHAEL GOOT Gazette Reporter

    The International Charter School of Schenectady has called for a meeting next week to discuss options for its students after the school closes at the end of June.
    The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. March 26 in the gymnasium at the charter school, in the former Draper School in Rotterdam. ICSS is shutting down at the end of the year because the SUNY Board of Trustees denied it a new charter last week.
    “It’s an opportunity for parents who are looking for choice to find what alternatives are out there,” said ICSS spokesman Saleem Cheeks.
    Schenectady School Superintendent Eric Ely expressed concern that ICSS officials had invited the Albany charter schools to come speak, but not representatives from Schenectady city schools.
    “Their board president and their current director basically said we’re not welcome to be there to sit side by side with the other elementary and middle school options,” he said.
    The charter school representatives have not spoken with him directly, but Ely has heard this from representatives at the Charter School Institute — the university agency overseeing charter schools.
    Officials said Schenectady representatives could discuss high school options, but not the other grades. Ely accused charter school officials of making it personal.
    “I find it absolutely reprehensible,” he said.
    Cheeks said the meeting is for private and charter schools and was never intended to be for public schools. However, Cheeks said ICSS has taken the extra step by saying it will provide parents with materials about the public schools, which he believes parents know about already.
    A few charter schools contacted by The Daily Gazette last week said they had openings for students. However, Ely said the district only provides out-of-district transportation for special education students. The district has been responsible for getting city students to the charter school after they enroll and request transportation. ICSS currently has about 530 students.
    The district and ICSS have been at odds since the school’s opening in 2002. The charter school draws state aid from the city district for every student who switches to ICSS. Charter schools are instituted under state law to provide competition to public schools.
    Meanwhile, the district officials continue to discuss options for how to bring the charter school students back into the city schools.
    On Monday, the district met with Education Department offi - cials to discuss options including using the Draper School. However, the district would need special permission from the state because the building lies within the Mohonasen School District. ICSS owns the building. Ely said he has only briefly discussed the matter with Mohonasen School Superintendent Kathleen Spring.
    Other options are to explore existing classroom space in the district including space at parochial schools, Ely said.
    “Our plan is to have a recommendation by end of March.”
    The district on Tuesday sent out a letter to ICSS parents letting them know that two teams are working to address the space needs and the social and emotional needs of its children. It is also willing to meet with parents in school or private homes.
    Ely said the school has already seen a large jump in applications for one of its three magnet schools. About 100 forms have been received from parents of children currently at ICSS compared to fewer than a dozen last year.

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ROTTERDAM
Charter school wants withheld funds
Nearly $900,000 in student aid kept by city district is sought
BY MICHAEL GOOT Gazette Reporter

    The International Charter School of Schenectady is attempting to obtain nearly $900,000 in student aid it says the city school district has withheld, before the school closes at the end of June.
    The SUNY Board of Trustees voted earlier this month to shut down the ICSS because of poor academic performance.
    Parents and staff of the school were told at the board meeting Monday that student enrollment has dropped and some staff have begun to leave school, in the aftermath of the decision to close.
    Business Manager Lori Veshia told the ICSS Board of Trustees on Monday that the school has filed an “intercept” with the state Education Department to get the roughly $887,000 the Schenectady School District owes. Schenectady pays roughly $9,500 per year for every student at the school.
    Veshia said these funds are crucial to maintain cash flow.
    “Provided that we get the money from Schenectady that we planned for and budgeted for, we should be fine to finish out the school year,” she said.
    This is the second such intercept ICSS filed this school year. In January, the Education Department sent ICSS $740,000 to cover missed Schenectady payments.
    Schenectady Superintendent Eric Ely said previously that he did not send payment to the charter school because it did not provide him proper documentation of residency for enrolled students. Most of the charter school students are transfers from the city district.
    Veshia said the charter school still lacks proof of residency for about 20 students. “We’re as close as we’re going to get without hunting the people down and going to people’s house and taking a [utility] bill,” she said.
    The school has already been making adjustments to the budget. Board President Tracy Petersen said that two weeks ago the school dismissed Geraldine Wolfe, who was hired in January as a consultant, as a cost-saving measure.
    “Her services were no longer necessary after we were notifi ed that the school would close,” she said.
    In another cost-cutting move, Veshia said, she told the school’s contractor a few weeks ago to stop all work on construction projects, including a new playground and controls for an electrical system.
    The board also discussed its closure plan with representatives from the Charter Schools Institute for about two hours in executive session. Afterward, Petersen said the board has put $75,000 into an escrow account to handle attorney and closing fees.
    She added that a special closure committee consisting of herself, Veshia, board member Sheridan Biggs and Acting Director Shirley Reed has been formed to handle closure issues including an inventory of the assets, payments to creditors and contractors.
    ICSS officials have not yet made a decision on what to do with the former Draper School. It may re- vert to the bank, First Niagara.
    Charter school officials continue to explore options. Petersen added that the ICSS corporation would continue to exist long after the closure of the actual school.
LOSSES GROW
    In other business, Reed said the school has lost some students to the Schenectady district and picked up a few new ones. Enrollment stands at 557, down from 573 earlier in the month.
    Reed said some staff have already started to leave. A special education aide resigned last week. Some teachers are taking half-days to look for other jobs. “We’re having a lot of absenteeism,” she said.
    They are using academic intervention staff as substitutes. They are not allowed to use BOCES staff because they are a charter school.
    On Wednesday, the school will hold a meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the gymnasium to allow parents of ICSS students to meet with representatives from other charter, private and parochial schools.
    Veshia said the charter school does plan to set up another meeting to let parents know about Schenectady schools at a later date.
    Reed also updated the board on preliminary scores from the state math test. About 69 percent of third-graders showed proficiency. This is up from 43 percent who took a mock test in January. The result for fourth-graders was 71 percent, up from 33 percent in a mock exam; and for fifth-graders, 63 percent, up from 24 percent in a mock test.
    Data for the sixth, seventh and eighth grade is not available.
    Though too late to have any effect on the school’s future, the results pleased board members.
    “If this plays out, with the actual test scores, we’ll be closing the best elementary school in Schenectady,” Petersen said.
Reach Gazette reporter Michael Goot at 395-3105 or mgoot@dailygazette.net.