The Cazenovia Board of Education held its annual organizational meeting last week, during which it made its yearly appointments and authorizations for the upcoming school year. New district Superintendent Matt Reilly, who officially took over as head of the district on July 1, presided over the meeting and said he has had an excellent and welcoming beginning to his new position.
“It’s been a great first week,” Reilly said. “I’m getting settled in … and learning as much as possible. We’re off to a great start; I’m really excited.”
The July 10 meeting was a relatively short affair, made up mainly of organizational appointments.
Patrick Vogl, last year’s board president, was unanimously reelected, as was last year’s board vice president, Cindy Bell Tobey.
The BOE member appointments to the board’s various committees — finance, personnel and facilities — remained the same as last year, with the exception of Leigh Baldwin leaving the finance committee and Jan Woodworth taking his seat. The board, with the encouragement of Reilly, also created a new policy committee and appointed Baldwin, Karin Marris and Kathy Hahn as its members.
Baldwin suggested the creation of a new athletic committee as well, saying that the board in recent years has spent an inordinate amount of time discussing athletic issues during its general meetings, and a specific committee would help streamline such conversations. After a brief discussion, it was agreed by the board that athletic discussions would fit under the new policy committee’s purview.
Reilly stated, to a general board agreement, that he prefers people with concerns to follow the chain of command — in an athletic case, from coach, to athletic director to administration to school board — and an athletic committee would likely cause parents to avoid such a chain and “jump straight to board members.” He said that if specific athletic issues warranted deeper discussion, he was in favor of creating a special working group to address it, as the board did last year for the issue of Selection Classification.
The board re-adopted all policies and codes of ethics in effect during the 2013-14 school year, approved a $41-per-hour fee for building use during the 2014-15 school year, approved participation in the national school breakfast and lunch programs, approved the fall coaching hires and approved the Cazenovia Republican as one of its two official newspapers.
The board also set its regular board meeting schedule for the upcoming year, with an Aug. 18 work session and an Aug. 25 regular board meeting as the next two meeting dates.
Also at the meeting, the board:
—Approved a three-year contract for Assistant Superintendent Bill Furlong.
—Heard from Marris that the special working group on the district’s Selection Classification policy would present its report and recommendation at the board’s next regular meeting in August. She said the group will recommend that the policy remain intact, but will recommend a few revisions as far as how the policy is administered and how students, parents and coaches are educated on the policy. The board agreed there could possibly be a vote on the whether to implement the working group’s recommendations at the August meeting. Selection Classification is a program under which exceptional young athletes can be moved up to a higher team level after undergoing an application and physical examination process.
—Heard from Reilly that the administration is working to fill the last few vacant positions in the district, specifically for a speech teacher and a high school library specialist.
Jason Emerson is editor of the Cazenovia Republican. He can be reached at [email protected].
