Archive: News

Over the past year, three separate individuals occupied the Lansing Central School superintendent’s office. During the current school year, Ms. Tiffany Phillips served as interim superintendent until my appointment and subsequent arrival on January 4, 2006. Besides engaging in the activities associated with orienting oneself to a new district and a new community, I immersed myself in two essential initiatives that were underway prior to my arrival: the development of the 2006-07 school budget and the planning of a capital project initiative. In addition, a new initiative, long range planning, commenced within my first eight weeks in office.

On Thursday, May 4th Mark Lewis made his first annual report to the Board of Education in a public meeting.  The report covers his activities since January, when he joined the School District as Superintendent.  This is a full transcript of that report.

Let’s first focus on the budget. The directive from interim superintendent Tiffany Phillips to the administrative team was to hold the line on their budgets and, wherever possible, reduce them. Mr. Driscoll and I met individually with members of the administrative team, each of whom submitted budgets reflecting no increases over the 2005-06 budgets. During the budget review process, we were able to reduce each building budget an additional five percent below 2005-06 levels.

In addition, as you will note in the revenue side of the budget, the board increased the allocation of local reserves in an effort to offset the tax increase. Mr. Driscoll will address these later in the session. These two actions, coupled with the fact that for the second year in a row, the state legislature submitted an on-time budget for overall approval, enabled school districts across the state, Lansing notwithstanding, to be able to present precise, accurate budget information to the voters of the district. For nineteen years prior to the 2005-06 school year, district officials were forced to report budgets reflecting potential tax impacts as opposed to actual tax impacts due to the fact that they were forced to rely on the state aid figures reported in the Executive Budget presented by the governor each February. The Executive Budget reflects the lowest possible amount of state aid that districts across the state will receive in any particular year. Through a negotiations process involving the governor, senate majority leader, and the house majority leader, the final state aid allocations are usually significantly higher than what the Executive Budget reports in February. Up until last year, however, school officials could not relay that information to the public until after the budget votes in May. The past two years have enabled us to provide the taxpaying public with precise budget information before they enter the voting booth.

A few words about staffing changes proposed in the 2006-07 budget: This year the district created the position of Director of Curriculum and Staff Development as a means of filling a major void in the planning and implementation of essential change initiatives crucial to the district’s ability to address the federal and state regulations, most significantly No Child Left Behind directives. The Academic Intervention Services mandate required the district to appoint two additional academic intervention services teachers, one to serve grades 3 through 8, and one to serve grades 5 through 8. We were able to offset one of these positions with the elimination of a special education position, the assumption being that the AIS teacher will perform the services heretofore performed by the special education teacher. An increase in the student population at the high school required nominal increases in the guidance staffing (.3 FTE), physical education (.4 FTE), instrumental music (.2 FTE), and strings instruction (.2 FTE). In addition, the budget funds the new position of technology integration specialist, a certified staff member who will work with individual teachers as well as groups of teachers to integrate technology into their instructional plans and procedures. Changes in staffing include the development of a hybrid position incorporating the director of technology services with the network administrator position. This will be a full time position, appointed through BOCES. There is no budget increase coinciding with this change due to the elimination of two positions: the current half-time director of technology services and the current half-time network administrator position. Having a director/network administrator available on a full time basis will provide added continuity to the technology initiative in the district. The budget also includes the reduction, by attrition, of one elementary school teacher. Enrollment projections support this decision. The elementary school enrollment is projected to decline by sixteen students in 2006-07. Even with the reduction of one elementary teacher, the average class sizes will run from a low of sixteen in kindergarten to a high of 18.4 in fourth grade.

Mr. Driscoll will have additional information regarding all budget components later in this session.

The capital project was the other major initiative that took center stage within the district during my initial month. Upon my arrival, it was noted that a significant amount of planning had occurred pursuant to a possible proposition to be placed before the voters. The overall dollar figure exceeded $37 million, and it was unclear in early January as to whether or not the community would support a project of such magnitude and cost. As the result of community feedback reflecting a high level of concern for the tax impact connected to such a venture, interested community members were invited to informational meetings designed to inform them of the project and solicit their feedback regarding its feasibility. In February, that ad hoc group recommended that the board delay any capital project until such a time as a process could be implemented wherein community members, school staff, board members, and the design team could revisit the initiative, this time starting from scratch and, through consensus building activities, develop a project that most felt could be supported by the community. As of this date, two groups, a facilities group and a community awareness group, are working in consort to develop a “right-sized” plan, all the while keeping the community informed of the progress and soliciting community feedback via the community awareness group. The committee will make its final recommendation to the board of education in July.

The development of a long range plan for school improvement is the other major initiative currently underway in the district. Few doubt that the capital project planning process possesses the potential to create dramatic impact on the district by addressing deferred maintenance and overcrowding issues. However, long range planning is at the heart of any school district’s school improvement activity. A bipartisan group of teachers, support staff members, administrators, parents, and community members have met on two separate occasions with the goal of specifying the measures that, for the Lansing Central School District, constitute success as specified by the district’s mission statement:

The Lansing Central School Community will educate our students to become knowledgeable, responsible, healthy, and productive citizens.

In addition to the conventional high stakes test measures, the committee is exploring measures that it feels reflect the school community’s attitude regarding other, equally important measures such as budget & fiscal responsibility, k-2 literacy, student wellness, character education, student satisfaction & connectedness, assessments other than NCLB, community service, extracurricular participation, and the percent of graduates attending 2- or 4-year colleges (and remaining more than one year). Baseline data will be collected pursuant to each measure. By the end of May, the committee will be prepared to present a draft plan to the board of education for its consideration. Besides the agreed-upon measures noted above, the committee will determine three overall district priority strategies that it will pursue in 2006-07. These strategies will be of such a broad nature as to facilitate analysis of each measure, leading to growth projections in each measure by the end of the 2008-09 school year. Once the district plan is board approved, each building will engage in a similar process whose end goal will be the creation of specific building-level objectives and action plans designed to achieve the district objectives. The overall plan will be reviewed each year to determine progress toward the long range goals. It will also serve as the basis for resource allocation, including fiscal and human resources, over the next three-to-five years.

My initial half year in Lansing has been rife with challenges, but never dull, and ultimately immensely professionally fulfilling. Lansing’s reputation for quality in all facets of its educational program has been well known for decades. There is much work to be done, however, both near and long term, should we succeed in achieving our school’s mission. We cannot afford to stand still and accept the status quo. If we do not move forward, we slide backward. The activity outlined in my report, coupled with a budget that enables us to move forward with a sensitivity to the needs and concerns of the taxpaying public underscores a bright future for Lansing’s schools, community, and, most of all, its young people. As your superintendent, I am proud to be a part of this exciting venture.

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