by Alex Brooks
At its August 25 meeting, the Hoosick Falls School District finalized tax rates for the bills that will be going out in the first week of September, but they subsequently learned that there was a glitch in the Rensselaer County Data used to produce them. [private]They have been corrected (lowered slightly), and the School Board will pass a revised schedule of tax rates at its next meeting. The corrected rates are:
Town of Grafton $216.74 per $1,000
Town of Hoosick $70.87 per $1,000
Town of Petersburgh $33.46 per $1,000
Town of Pittstown $30.21 per $1,000
Town of White Creek $30.28 per $1,000
The Board also approved two times when people can come to the school and pay in person. These will be Wednesday and Thursday, September 28 and 29, from 3 to 6 pm.
After putting out an RFP for architects to guide the District in its development of a capital project, and extensive interviews with three of the firms that submitted proposals, the Board approved a contract with Synthesis Architects, based in Schenectady. The other two firms they interviewed were Mosaic Associates Architects, based in Troy, and SEI Design Group from Albany.
Director of Curriculum Pat Dailey talked about some of the new courses that will be offered this year, including Anatomy and Physiology, Environmental Analysis (largely about PFOA) Astronomy, Meteorology. Also, he said Mr. Calebrese, who teaches Physics, Engineering, and Technology, will be offering a course on Coding. Dailey said he had read recently that 40% of all jobs will involve some kind of coding in ten years.
Dailey also mentioned that the State’s demands concerning teacher evaluations, known as APPR, have been reduced, and it is a great relief. There is less pressure, and less time spent on testing and evaluations, which allows everyone to focus more on instructional time and instructional strategies.
There was some discussion of development of the District’s Spanish program. The District is considering extending its Spanish program into lower grades and maybe eventually have a full K-12 Spanish program. Board President Greg Laurin commented that as time goes on it is increasingly important to be able to speak Spanish in the workplace. He said Spanish is going to be the #1 language in the world.[/private]