The Scotia-Glenville Board of Education will continue to look into whether the district wants to present a building project to residents in 2008. The plan is to continue to get figures and cost numbers before deciding what to do.
Superintendent Susan Swartz said the board’s biggest obstacle is trying to decide how to spend the $834,000 in Expanding our Children’s Education and Learning, or Excel, grant.
Board member and President Margaret Smith said improving the athletic fields is a priority for her, but it would have to be coupled with a building project in order to be eligible for any state aid. Smith said she knows that voters are looking to improve fields, as well as improve on the structure of certain schools in the district.
I think the board knows that if taxes go up again for residents, even if it’s minimal, we need to present them with a plan that we feel is worth it, said Smith.
In addition to looking at Excel and building propositions, the district has also been looking at the possibility of closing a school to save taxpayers’ money. Communications Director Robert Hanlon said that there have been talks about declining enrollment but said the district has more than 3,000 students. The district is in need of new administrative offices and the possibility of using an existing elementary school is an idea under discussion.
The middle school will welcome a new assistant principal this week.
The Board of Education approved the appointment of Franklin T. Rosselli, who will come to the district from Gowana Middle School in the Shenendehowa School District.
`We are very pleased to welcome Mr. Rosselli to our administrative ranks and to this challenging position at the middle school,` said Swartz.
Rosselli, who lives in Glenville, has taught music at Shenendehowa since 2001, and was instrumental in beginning the summer enrichment exploration camp at Shenendehowa in 2004. He also served as the districtwide community education coordinator at Shenendehowa.
In his statement of application, Roselli said, `The middle school student is a complex being who is in a highly transitional stage of social, emotional and biological development. It is these stages that make the middle school student so unique from students of other age levels and also the reason why I find this age level most exciting and rewarding.“