BOE makes capital project proposal official

The Skaneateles board of education officially adopted a resolution to propose a $2,835,299 capital project at its Oct. 15 meeting.

The proposal will be voted on by residents of the district between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Dec. 10 at Waterman Primary School.

The items in the project are issues at the middle school/high school building that the board’s facilities committee deemed to be the most urgent for the safety and longevity of the building.

They include: roof replacements, masonry repair, window repairs, boiler room areaway drainage reconstruction and safety and security upgrades. While this project only contains a small number of items from the $22.7 million proposal that was rejected by voters last June, board members have said they plan to propose another small capital project next year and will revisit other facility needs in the future.

Assistant Superintended of Business and Finance Dale Bates said that the total comprises of $2.7 million estimated construction costs and $114.000 of capitalized interest which will keep the debt from the project from impacting the taxpayers until the 2015-16 school year.

Starting in the 2015-16 year the project’s debt is estimated to add an average of $21 to the tax bill of a house valued at $275,000 in the district, Bates said. The bond will be paid back over the course of 10 years.

Pending the public’s approval, the work is set to begin on June 26, once school is done for the summer and should be completely wrapped up by August 2015.

More information on the project can be found on the district website here

In other business:

—The board voted to accept the resignations of two employees who each worked for the district for more than 30 years. Dale Bates will retire at the end of February 2014 and Dot Pitman, assistant to both the superintendent of schools and the assistant superintendent, will retire at the end of December.

Board members commended and thanked both individuals for their service to the district and the community over the years. Both motions were met with a round of applause and a standing ovation from the board and everyone in attendance.

—The board moved to accept two donations on behalf of the Skaneateles Education Foundation. A donation of $23,884 comes in the form of grants for three programs Engineering is Elementary, the Literacy for All conference and Robotics on the Move.

The foundation also donated $49,150 to be used for the Zooming In, Zooming Ahead program. This money was raised by the foundation through donations from the community and presented to board members at the recent Hoedown for Education event.

Zooming In, Zooming ahead is a program for high school and middle school students in which they will learn how to use multi-media technology that they may not have access to at home, foundation President Patti Carey said.

“It allows for children to learn the technology they’re expected to know these days,” she said.

Interim Superintendent of Schools Judy Pastel noted that these donations assist with one of the district’s goals for the school year to “investigate our STEM [science, technology engineering and mathematics] offerings with an eye to a global job market.”

Programs like these not only provide students with great opportunities to learn and expand their horizons, but also can lead to scholarships for college, Pastel said.

—The board approved a revised technology plan that will run through the 2016 school year. In a video posted to the district website technology Director of Computer Technology Dr. Paul Blair explains that the plan consolidates previous rules into eight new rules.

The rules are summarized by the acronym PASSWORD: