Four residents of the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake School District will vie for three open seats on the district’s Board of Education.
During a candidate forum Tuesday, May 6, the candidates — incumbents John Blowers, Joe Pericone and Nancy Della Pia and challenger Patre Kuziak — discussed topics ranging from their ideal future school to the district’s strengths.
Blowers is seeking his first full term on the board; he joined the board in November 2006.
Pericone, who has served on the board since October 2006, is also seeking his first full term.
Finance committee chair and vice president of the school board Nancy Della Pia is seeking her second term.
Kuziak is running for her first term on the district’s Board of Education, she has never served on the board.
Vice president of the Teacher’s Association Andrew Huluska, who moderated the event, presented three questions to prospective board members regarding the strengths of the school, district class sizes and how to deepen the relationship between the Teacher’s Association and the school board.
John Blowers
A lifelong resident of the district, Blowers graduated from Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High School in 1983.
Blower’s twin sons attend Charlton Heights Elementary School, and his daughter will be entering Kindergarten in the fall.
He lives with his wife on Beechwood Avenue in Charlton and serves as a Burnt Hills Little League coach and a board member for Junior Achievement. He is also an elder at Charlton Freehold Presbyterian Church.
For more than 10 years, Blowers has been a human resources leader at General Electric.
This district is unique in many ways, Blowers said, adding there is no one large employer in the district except the school, but the district is constantly growing.
He said in the future it would be necessary to adapt to the changing classroom delivery models.
`Our ability to adapt will be the hallmark of this district,` he said.
He said one of the strengths of the district is its programming.
`I think we have programs that hit at all levels,` Blowers said.
He said there is something available to every student, whether the student is ahead of or behind peers.
`No one gets lost in the shuffle,` he said.
In regard to class size, Blowers said, `It’s hard to put a hard and fast number on it. I think there a lot of factors that go into it.`
Some of the factors he mentioned included class composition and teacher experience.
Blowers’ ideal future school would have a greater sense of diversity. He said ideally the district would have a sister school in another country where students could interact with students across the world. He also said more high school students would be involved in college academics.
Joe Pericone
Pericone has worked as a mechanical engineer for General Electric for more than 29 years. In the past eight years, he as served as an instructor at General Electric’s Energy Learning Center.
He helped develop the district’s Pathways Program, which allows middle and high school students to take hands-on lessons at the General Electric Learning Center and introduces them to the engineering field.
He has been a resident of the district for 15 years, living on St. Stephens Lane in Glenville with his wife. The couple has four children: two are Burnt Hills graduates, one is in high school and one in middle school.
`I’m just starting to scratch the surface in terms of what I can learn,` Pericone said regarding his service on the school board.
He said the district is lucky to have an extremely dedicated teaching staff.
`The people that come here, you never hear them wanting to leave,` he said of the teachers.
He also said a district’s strength is to bring together four towns. The district encompasses the towns of Ballston, Charlton, Glenville and Clifton Park.
Pericone also noted that there are several factors to consider in addressing class size, but he said at Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake, the class sizes seem to be working.
`There are only so many classrooms and so many teachers,` he said. Pericone said that is a variable to consider when discussing class size.
He said students in the future would have to be fluent in a second language. Pericone envisioned students using the Internet to talk to students in other countries.
Nancy Della Pia
Della Pia is a trained public health nurse and has lived in the district for eight years.
She has two sons, one graduated from Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake and the other will graduate this year. Della Pia lives with her husband and son on Edgewood Drive.
Della Pia has served on state-level boards in the nursing field and managed a number of PTA programs and committees. She has also been an active member of the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake soccer booster club and the Alley Cats Soccer Club.
`The ultimate concern is each of our students,` Della Pia said. `The district has always been able to identify the best practice.`
She said being a school board member comes with a steep learning curve, but there is a balance to be struck.
Della Pia said there is a tremendous cooperation between the administration, board and staff.
In order to strengthen the relationship between the Teacher’s Association and the school board, Della Pia suggested that the groups continue to hold joint meetings to discuss issues concerning both sides. She said it is beneficial to have both groups sit in on districtwide committees because it is a way to exchange information.
`The world is flat and getting flatter,` Della Pia said in regard to a school of the future. She said it would be necessary for the school to operate globally and to be aware of people outside Burnt Hills.
`This is a wonderful community, but we are a part of a huge community that we have to contribute to,` Della Pia said.
Patre Kuziak
Kuziak co-owns Marcella’s Restaurant on Route 50 with her husband. They opened the restaurant in May 1991, shortly after they moved to the area from Rochester.
As owner of the Marcella’s she said, `I have a first-hand seat to the children of community because a lot of them end up coming through here as their first job.`
Kuziak was the recipient of the Charlton Heights Parent-Teacher Association Founders Day award in 2006.
She holds a biology degree from Keuka College and is a graduate of Mechanicville High School.
Kuziak said both institutions were small and that she chose to move to Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake because of the district’s size.
`I like small,` she said. `I like being known as a name and not a number.`
She is completing her sixth year as a religion teacher at Immaculate Conception and is the president of the Burnt Hills-Scotia Glenville Hockey Association, which supports the joint school ice hockey team.
Kuziak lives with her husband and two sons, who attend the middle school and high school, on Schlensker Drive in Glenville.
`I love this community,` Kuziak said. `They have embraced me and my family.`
She said running for the Board of Education is a way for her to give back to the community.
`I’m a big advocate of ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’` she said.
She said strengths of the district include the quality of education it provides and the district’s teachers.
`I am extremely impressed by those who serve us on the board,` she said. `Education is probably the most important thing we can give our kids.`
Kuziak said a school in the future would need to provide what colleges provide to students now.
She said class sizes should be around 30 in the elementary schools, 20 in the middle school and 25 at the high school.
She justified the figures by saying that classes should never become too large, so that the teacher no longer knows the students.
Vote set for May 20
Residents who are not registered to vote are encouraged to register for the school election by Thursday, May 15.
They may register for the school election by going to the district office in the Hostetter Building, 50 Cypress Drive, Glenville, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday to Friday. Residents may also register with the County Board of Elections for the Tuesday, May 20, vote.
Voters will also be asked to decide on the district’s $52.2 million budget and approve the borrowing of $450,000 to replace five the district’s school buses.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the high school gymnasium on Tuesday, May 20.“