by Alex Brooks
The Hoosick Falls School Board voted 5-1 to keep its policy excluding non-enrolled students from extracurricular activities at the school, despite an appeal from the Drama Club and many other students to allow non-enrolled students to participate.[private]
Laurie Gormley said the policy committee had met to discuss the issue for over an hour with legal counsel in attendance, and the attorneys said it was not advisable because the District would not be able to require that the non-enrolled kids get vaccinations. They said if the District required vaccinations for those kids to participate, it would probably be challenged in court, resulting in expensive litigation.
John Helft was “incredulous” that this could be an insuperable obstacle to participation of non-enrolled students.
Superintendent Ken Facin suggested that Helft and anyone else who doubted that the vaccination issue was a sufficient reason for the policy to meet with the School District’s attorney, and offered to set up such a meeting.
Joe Patire said he attended the policy committee meeting and after hearing the attorney discuss the matter for a solid hour, he was convinced.
Helft said he would like to know what other School Districts are doing about this and why. He wondered how many school districts across the state allow participation in extracurriculars by non-enrolled students. Facin said he would ask other superintendents what they are doing, and try to gather some information to bring back to the Board.
Helft remained unconvinced, and voted against the motion to keep the present policy.
Renee St. Hilaire, who led the petition drive to change the policy, poked holes in the logic of the Board’s rationale when public comment time arrived. She started by asking how the students can make a movie about how Hoosick Falls is a united community when some kids are being excluded. She was referring to a movie planned by the Central School as a community service project about why Hoosick Falls is such a special place. She then asked if volunteers are required to have vaccinations (they are not). She said some home schooled kids have come in and worked as set volunteers, in close proximity to Central School students. She also said, “I could take a home-schooled kid to prom,” where they would be in close proximity to lots of HFCS students, and no vaccination would be required.
Facin acknowledged that she brought up some good points, but he felt they didn’t negate the central problem of bringing students into the school who can’t be required to have vaccinations.
He said, “This is painful to us. I want all kids in this community to come to this school.”
Sister Schools
Director of Curriculum Instruction and Assessment Patrick Dailey talked about a visit he had with people from a school in China, the Qingdao Grand International School, that is about the same size as the Hoosick Falls District and shares many points of educational philosophy with the Hoosick Falls Schools. He said they are exploring some kind of sister school relationship with the Qingdao school, which might include visits back and forth, student or teacher conversations using the distance-learning facilities, or even student exchanges or teacher exchanges. He said many Chinese schools have visited and “we were not interested in partnering with them. Likewise, the Qingdao delegation visited many schools in this country with whom they did not want to get involved. Dailey said there seems to be a good fit between the two schools, and the possibilities for learning from each other are exciting. Dailey said he will continue to work with the people from Qingdao to explore the possibilities. Superintendent Ken Facin added that the Hoosick Falls District is also exploring a similar relationship with a Charter School in LA.
Budget Development
HFCS Business Manager Pam Hatfield presented a proposed budget calendar to the Board, as budget development, already underway in her office, will soon be a central part of the Board’s business.
Facin took the occasion to comment on New York State’s methods for determining how much school aid each district gets. He said the formula that determines this is antiquated and complex, and nobody wants to talk about it. He said the courts have decided that the funding formula is not fair, but it has not been rectified.
He said it is good that the Gap Elimination Adjustment has finally been removed, but that doesn’t fix the problem. He said he will continue to advocate for funding formulas that are more fair. Traditionally, rural districts and inner-city districts have received less, while wealthy suburban districts have done very well.
Facin also said the District will soon start developing a capital project, and the District plans to solicit community input right from the start, so it can build a project that has broad support in the community. Two information sessions are planned to talk about the projects that need to be done, and to hear what the community has to say.
Facin said the plan is to have payments for the new project come into the District’s budget at the same time that the debt from the 1999 project is retired, so that it will have no effect on the District’s annual budget.
Junior Prom
The meeting began with a presentation to the Board about the prom. The students would like to hold the prom at Crystal Cove, a facility on Crystal Lake in Averill Park. Tickets will be $50. The grand march at the HFCS campus will be at 4:30, and the prom from 6 to 11 pm, arriving back at the school campus about midnight. They said it will have an “enchanted garden” theme. The Board approved all of this. The after-prom activities have not been worked out yet, and that part of the event will be presented to the Board at a later date.[/private]