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SCHENECTADY
Loss of aid forces cut in adult education
BY MICHAEL GOOT Gazette Reporter

    A reduction in financial aid is forcing the Washington Irving Adult Education Center to lay off two teachers and drop its computer program.
    Sheila Tebbano, the school district’s director of adult and continuing education, said the center will no longer offer a computer training class and a Microsoft Office certification course unless it obtains other money. It is also not offering GED programs at the Family Investment Center at Steinmetz Homes and Yates Village, but will continue to offer these courses at the Washington Irving Center.
    The program receives funding from the state through an Employment Preparation Education (EPE) grant that supports programs for students at least age 21. Schools receive a per-hour payment based on the number of students.
    “The governor made a huge cut in EPE funding this year,” Tebbano said.
    Last year, the district was approved for more than $1 million in adult education aid. However, this year, it will receive no more than $572,000, depending on enrollment.
    She said fewer than six people were attending these programs at Steinmetz and Yates, so they were cut. The GED classes average about 10 to 15 students. The maximum size is 20, per the teacher contract. The district seeks to keep its enrollment at a certain level.
    “We need to have at least 10 students in a class all the time in order for it to be cost effective and for us to be able to continue,” she said.
    Another problem is the district did not receive a federal Workforce Investment Act grant. Tebbano said the computer teacher was mostly funded out of that money.
    “You can’t cut $240,000 from a program without touching salary and people. There wasn’t that much supply money or conference money or anything like that. We’ve had to scale back our offerings,” she said.
    Another person reduced her hours to part-time to leave the center with eight full-time and five part-time positions.
    The district is also continuing its English as a foreign language classes at the Schenectady Job Training Agency and the night classes at the Schenectady County Public Library. Also, the GED program at the Schenectady County jail will stay in place.
    Tebbano said they will try to maintain business as usual at the center, which serves about 700 students annually, not including the program at the jail, which accounts for another 200.
    “I don’t want folks to think were shutting down because there are other programs that are out there. These are free to everyone,” she said.
    Tebbano said she did not anticipate the center would have to put people interested in participating in the GED program on a waiting list. The center has always had open enrollment. It will continue to monitor how many students are using the program to determine whether the district will receive enough aid.
    She said she was told that the reason why the center did not receive the workforce grant was because Washington Irving is a program “in need of improvement,” under federal guidelines. If at least 50 percent of the students in each of the categories do not make progress, it affects the program’s report card.
    The center is working with the state Education Department to improve its program. It is going to give new GED students a multi-hour orientation program, including mandatory testing. It will also review their learning styles and give them a heads up on exercises they will be doing in class, as well as work to practice at home.
    Superintendent Eric Ely said it was unfortunate that cuts had to be made. He hoped that the district could supplement it with other grants. “We’ve done the best we can in terms of shifting money,” he said.

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Former Catholic schools get new secular life
City leases buildings to ease overcrowding caused by students moving into region, closing of charter school

By LAUREN STANFORTH, Staff writer
First published: Monday, August 18, 2008

SCHENECTADY -- A row of hooks on a wall at the former Marian Academy on Bradt Street hasn't held a child's coat in four years.
The library, a series of wood shelves in an upstairs hallway, is vacant, and the chute to the incinerator has long since been padlocked.

     
But academic life will soon return to the former Catholic elementary school when the Schenectady City School District takes it over to handle an influx of students who are moving into the city or transferring from the now closed International Charter School of Schenectady. The charter school, which used the Old Draper School in Rotterdam, was closed by the state because of inconsistent curriculum and enrollment.

The building is one of three former Catholic schools the school district is leasing for at least the next five years to handle the unexpected rise in enrollment.

Buildings the city school district owned during Schenectady's boom years were sold during enrollment declines in the 1990s. They included the former Brandywine Elementary, which was sold to a private developer who wanted to turn it into apartments before a 2007 arson fire destroyed the structure.

The Roman Catholic Catholic Diocese of Albany, which owns property throughout the Capital Region, will make over a $3.5 million on lease agreements for the now vacant buildings.

The deal is important to the city school district, which is in immediate need of school space.

The diocese's vacant school buildings are often sold to private developers for noneducational uses. But a few, such as the former St. James School in Albany, which is now the Brighter Choice Charter School, are still used for education.

Diocese spokesman Ken Goldfarb said the lease arrangement serves both the diocese and Schenectady schools well in that it generates revenue for the diocese while providing badly needed classroom space for the school district.

The former Marian Academy building, which will now be called the Katharine Burr Blodgett Elementary School, can accommodate up to 170 prekindergarten through sixth grade students, district officials said.

The former St. Adalbert's school on Lansing Street, now called Franklin D. Roosevelt Elementary, is also being leased and has a capacity of up to 110 Pre-K through sixth-grade students.

The district also is leasing the former St. Luke's school on Albany Street, which will open this school year as William C. Keane Elementary School. Last year, voters approved spending $1.6 million on renovations and using the building for at least 15 years.

The district says 90 percent of the leases' costs on all of the diocese buildings are reimbursed by the state.

District enrollment projections for the 2008-2009 school year show that the number of students could increase from the high 9,000s to as many as 10,300 -- largely because of the charter school influx. District enrollment has grown by more than 2,400 students since 1994.
Given the enrollment increases, Schenectady schools Superintendent Eric Ely said the idea of building a new K-8 school is being considered but no decision has been made. The city also once had two high schools -- Linton and Mont Pleasant -- before the two were merged in 1992 to form Schenectady High amid a declining high school enrollment of about 1,900. Enrollment now totals in excess of 2,900, according to the latest school district figures. But there are no plans currently to go back to a two-high school district, Ely said.
A long-term solution will also still have to be found at Blodgett school for a cafeteria and gymnasium. For now, empty classrooms in the building will be used for physical education classes and to serve meals.

Meanwhile, Nancy Fontaine, the new Blodgett principal, said she's in no rush to get rid of a small, intimate school setting.

"This is like a big classroom and to me that's exciting," said Fontaine, who was previously assistant principal at Mont Pleasant Middle School and a fifth-grade teacher for 18 years. "To have this size, I couldn't ask for anything better."

Lauren Stanforth can be reached at 454-5697 or by e-mail at lstanforth@timesunion.com.

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Incoming family chooses Schenectady schools

    When I accepted a position in Albany for work, my greatest concern was finding a quality school district with staff that cared.
    After I had the chance to talk to Schenectady Associate Superintendent Gary Comley and guidance counselor Matt Mortier, I was convinced that I wanted to move to Schenectady and have my family be a part of this community.
    Schenectady High School may not be perfect, but the staff and coaches I have talked to took the time to care about how my kids could transition to the area and be successful and were so positive and encouraging. That was the deciding factor in our decision to move to Schenectady in August.
    SANDRA MCANANY
    Norwalk, Wisc.

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SCHENECTADY
School code changes OK’d
Electronic devices allowed but must be off in class
BY MICHAEL GOOT Gazette Reporter

    Students are once again allowed to bring their cellular phones to school, but please, no calls during class.
    The Schenectady Board of Education on Wednesday approved changes to its Code of Conduct for the 2008-09 school year. One change would be to permit cellphones or other electronic devices like MP3 players, iPods and Game Boys on school grounds, but require that they be turned off while in the classroom during instructional time.
    The previous policy had banned these devices altogether, which school officials said was difficult to enforce.
    “It doesn’t disrupt the educational process at all to have a kid using a cellphone during lunch,” said Superintendent Eric Ely. “We end up doing a lot of monitoring that doesn’t have a lot to do with the education of kids.”
    The new policy states that bringing electronic devices is “highly discouraged.” However, the school is still not responsible for loss, theft, damage or vandalism of any electronic devices.
    The board also approved a new policy that requires visitors to schools to show a picture form of identification upon entering the buildings.
    Board member Linda Bellick said she is concerned that not all parents have a picture identification.
    Ely said in that case, school officials will call the administrators that parents want to see and they will come down and escort them to the office.
    In addition, another new policy would clearly state that any behavior prohibited at school is also prohibited on the school bus and it created a new category of assault called “group assault,” which is defined as an assault instigated by three people or more.
    Also on Wednesday, the board approved the appointment of principals for new facilities. Nancy Fontaine, the interim assistant principal of Mont Pleasant Middle School, will be the principal of Katharine Burr Blodgett Elementary at the former St. Adalbert’s School on Lansing Street. Pedro Roman will be principal of Franklin D. Roosevelt Elementary School at the former Immaculate Conception School on Bradt Street.
    Fontaine served as interim assistant principal at Mont Pleasant since last year and was the dean of the School of Global Commerce at Schenectady High School from 2005 to 2007. In both positions, Fontaine was responsible for discipline, supervision and guidance.
    Before that she was an elementary teacher for many years. Fontaine obtained a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the State University of New York at Oswego and a master’s degree in educational administration and school supervisor administrator (SAS) certification from the State University at Plattsburgh.
    Roman served as principal at Capital Region BOCES since June 2007. Before that, he taught special education and served as a dean at Oneida Middle School from September 2001 to June 2007.
    The district is leasing these two schools from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany to accommodate the influx of students from the closed International Charter School of Schenectady.

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School district needs civilian review board

    For the past several weeks we have been reading news stories about decisions by the Schenectady city school board and superintendent that have met with much opposition from the public. Despite this outpouring of sentiments, the board chairman and superintendent continue to stand fast and uncompromising. Unfortunately, these actions ultimately will further damage the effectiveness of a school district that arguably is one of the worst performing in the Capital Region.
    Therefore, I believe it’s time for the mayor and city council to create an oversight board, made up of residents of this city, to monitor the decisions made by the school board and report back to the citizens. While such an oversight board might have limited legal authority, it can act as a “watchdog” body to investigate actions of the school board and its administration.
    After all, the members of the school board are elected officials and should be accountable to the citizens of this city, should be representing the best interest of our students, and should be presenting ideas that will bring this district’s performance to an acceptable level — to a place where more students actually receive a high school diploma and where families new to the Capital Region might actually consider moving to Schenectady because we have a good school district.
    We can’t continue to allow for the same missteps to occur and expect that the results will be different.
    A.C. MAZUREK
    Schenectady
The writer is chairman of Schenectady Civilian Police Review Board.