Kinney Resigns From HFCS Board
by Alex Brooks
The Hoosick Falls School Board held a special meeting on Thursday July 30, at which it was announced that School board member Maggie Kinney has resigned from her position on the Board. Kinney cited time constraints as the reason, needing to devote more time to her family and her business. But the Board was ready with a replacement, as former school board member Bridget Foster had already been asked to join the Board and had accepted. She was present for this meeting, and she was unanimously appointed to the Board to fill the vacancy created by Kinney’s resignation. She was sworn in and took her seat on the spot.
HFCS Business Administrator Emily Sanders said she is working on a spreadsheet to add up the costs of reopening the school in the COVID era. Some of the items on this list are temperature check equipment to take temperatures as fast as possible of 300 or so people arriving at the school each morning; poly barriers for some of the elementary classrooms (rather pricey at this point because of heavy demand); installation of a sink in the high school cafeteria for hand washing; possibly UV filters for some of the Univentilators to kill virus in recycled air (these are $1,250 apiece); and small additions to staff – additional bus monitors and an aide in the nurse’s office. Sanders said she hopes to have a reasonably accurate figure for these additional expenses to present to the Board at its August 20 meeting.
Sanders also said Keybank is not eager to have people lining up to pay school tax bills in person at its Hoosick Falls branch, nor is the school administration keen on having a parade of people coming in to pay bills in person, so she recommends that school taxes be paid 100% by mail this year.
Ron Jones Fund
Superintendent Dailey said a Ron Jones Scholarship fund has been created and a committee assembled to make decisions for it. Its initial funding comes from $14,000 raised by the recent golf tournament held at the Hoosick Falls Country Club. Dailey also said a video about Jones that is being made by Rob Allen is nearly done. He said the video is about an hour, and its initial showing is planned for Sunday August 30 at Hathaway’s Drive-In, use of which the owner has donated for this occasion. Dailey said there will probably be two showings, and you will need tickets to attend, but the details of how this will work are to be announced later.
Capital Project
Dailey said the concrete pads on which the new boilers will be set have been completed and the District is just waiting for delivery of the new boilers so the project can be completed. He said completed plans for Phase 2 of the Capital Project have been submitted to the NYS Education Department for approval. The District expects NYSED’s review will be completed by the end of September and the architects can then move on to preparing construction documents and bid documents so that these projects can be put out to bid later in the fall. The work on Phase two will take place over the next two summers.
Safety Plan
A public hearing on the District’s Safety Plan for this year was held prior to the Board meeting as required by law on July 30, but there wasn’t much interest in it. The Safety Plan is basically unchanged from last year’s safety plan, and there were no comments offered on it.