By Thaddeus Flint
The outcome of the Berlin School District’s June 2nd RoundTable discussion on the Smart School Bonds Act is that a committee will be formed to further study the matter.
[private]The District was awarded $947,237 in funding through NY State’s Smart Schools Bond Act to be used on projects that finance educational technology and infrastructure. BCS now must come up with a comprehensive plan to present to the State showing how the money will be spent.
“We have to be looking five to ten years out,” said Board President Frank Zwack. “Technology changes so quickly.”
The Board had been hoping to get a large turnout from the community to get their input. “We have talent here,” said Zwack of the residents who make up the five towns of the District. Most of that “talent,” however, chose to stay home. Only six people other than Board Members and administrators attended, most of them teachers or staff.
The low turnout did not appear to slow things down. The Board asked that a survey be prepared that will better gauge the public’s desires without having them come down to the High School on a beautiful summer’s night.
“It’s an advantage that we have a smaller community,” said parent and Board Member-elect Sherry Bowman-Kluck, who foresaw “parents, teachers, and kids working together to come up with a unified plan.” Bowman-Kluck will be taking Board Member Liz Miller’s seat at the table as of July.
Those parents, teachers and kids will be joined by administrators, community members, and board members to form an 18 member committee that will be tasked with figuring out how that money will be best spent.
“Think big,” advised the District Business Manager Karen Capozzi.
However, thinking too big might have some repercussions. By moving the District forward into technology, the District takes on the responsibility for maintaining that momentum. While that $947,000 seems like a lot of money now, once spent there is no guarantee that it will ever be replicated by the State. And so whatever it was spent on would need to be maintained and improved largely by local taxes.
“Nothing is free,” pointed out District Superintendent Dr. Stephen Young, who noted that the technology budget has already “doubled or tripled in the past five years.”
And even with that rapid increase in tech spending, the District still has plenty of outdated equipment sitting around slowly getting even more outdated. One teacher pointed out that a computer lab has PCs from 2007.
Some technology hasn’t even arrived yet to be outdated. High School Principal Dr. Cathy Allain said it “seemed kind of contradictory,” when a Marine Biology teacher doesn’t even have a “working faucet.”
That the Smart Bonds Act will not cover a lack of faucets, is just one of the details that the soon to be committed committee will have to work through. There is, though, the incentive of knowing that the money already exists to work with. Many committees become bogged down with idea that their input will often not amount to much in the end.
Board Member Jeff Paine advocated defining an end date for the committee to avoid “going nowhere.” He also reminded everyone just how powerful committees can really be.
“The closing of the buildings came out of [Building] Committee,” said Paine. “So the committee was effective in a way, just not the way we wanted it to be.”
With the Round Table portion of meeting complete, the night ended with a vote of all in favor (Board Member Jim Willis was absent) to award a $62,000 contract for updating the stage rigging and curtains at the Middle School/High School to Syracuse Scenery and Stage Lighting.
The Board was, however, not so favorable in their comments toward the District’s Architects, CS Arch, who it seems have been failing in communication lately.
“I think they need to come up to speed on responding to the District,” said Zwack. “I don’t have a warm fuzzy feeling for them anymore. We’re held hostage here. Maybe the projects are not significant. If it means changing to a different architectural firm, that’s where I’m going.”[/private]