Even though graduations have just wrapped up, as of the beginning of July, the 2009-2010 school year has officially begun.
The Bethlehem Board of Education held its organizational meeting Wednesday, July 1, to welcome its newest member and vote for officers.
Elsmere Elementary’s Parent Teacher Association President Charmaine Wijeyesinghe won her first three-year term on the board in May in a five-way race for two open seats. She won her seat along with long-standing board member Lynne Lenhardt, who will serve her eighth three-year term.
Bethlehem Central School District spokesman Matt Leon said the board unanimously voted for vice president James Dering to serve as the board’s new president and board member Lisa Allendorph as vice president.
Dering will replace former President James Lytle, who did not seek another term this year.
Dering was elected to the board in June of 2005 and will be serving his current term until 2011. He grew up in Bethlehem and is an alumnus of the district. Dering holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from Ithaca College and a law degree from Albany Law School.
He is currently the acting deputy bureau chief of the office of the state’s Attorney General’s Health Care Bureau. Before that, he served as a deputy general counsel of the state’s Department of Health and as a partner in an Albany law firm.
Dering and his wife, Cynthia, have a daughter who is a Bethlehem Elementary School student. He also coached in the Bethlehem Soccer Club for seven seasons, serves on a corporate board and is a former church trustee.
Allendorph was first elected to the board in May 2007. She has lived in Delmar since 1994 with her husband and two children, both of whom are Bethlehem High School students. She has been active in the school district since the mid 1990s, serving on the board of the Slingerlands and Elsmere PTAs, President’s Council and Citizens’ Budget Group.
She volunteers as a financial secretary for her church and has served on its governing session. Allendorph previously served as treasurer and board member of the S.I.D.S. Alliance in the late 1990s.
Holding a bachelor’s degree in business management from Plymouth State College (now Plymouth State University) in Plymouth, N.H., she moved to New York after living and working in Pittsburgh and San Francisco.
Allendorph is the finance manager for Prevent Child Abuse New York, a private not-for-profit group in Albany.
The school’s budget of $87.56 million was passed in May by 2,410 votes to 1,215, or 66.8 percent of those who voted. There was also a bus proposition that was passed in May by a vote of 2,109 to 1,492, or 58.6 percent.
The new budget constitutes a $2.8 million or 3.29 percent spending increase over last year’s and offers a 2 percent tax levy increase. There will be a 1.76 percent tax rate increase.
This means an owner of a $200,000 home in Bethlehem would see an increase of $64 in their school taxes before any STAR benefit reductions were applied.
The owner of a similar $200,000 home in New Scotland would see an increase of $66 this year.
The new school year also means the beginning of a newly negotiated teacher’s contract that will be in effect until 2012 and the elimination of night games for the athletic department.`