School Board President Hickey called the monthly meeting to order at 6:30 PM. Topics of note are as follows:
The Board approved two additional agenda items. First, a report on the High School Options Committee meetings was added. Second, public comment on non-agenda related items was approved during the second scheduled Public Participation period.
The accounting firm of Nugent & Haeussler (performs annual audits on numerous NYS school districts) gave its report on the TUFSD for the most recent fiscal year. Not only did our District receive an unqualified clean opinion, but audit Partner Chris Melley was very complimentary of the budgeting and reporting job done by Business Administrator Dawn Cupano. A quick review of the annual report’s contents was made, and Melley concluded that the District had met its goals for the prior fiscal and lived within its budget.
Superintendent Joseph Zanetti reported on the work of the High School Options Committee. Voters in both Greenwood Lake and Warwick will be asked to vote on whether or not to the tuition GWL students out of Tuxedo’s high school and into Warwick’s on December 12, 2007. The Committee has identified 11 options for the School Board to consider ranging from continuing the relationship with GWL to closing the high school. In between these two extremes are options that include operating with a smaller high school; joint educational programs; establishing a vocational school; tuitioning our students elsewhere; and the use of internet teaching programs to expand our teaching options as well as others. The Committee has met monthly since August. Public hearings on this issue are scheduled for Warwick on November 26, 2007 and Greenwood Lake on November 27, 2007.
Chairman Hickey indicated the School Board would be meeting with both the Tuxedo Town Supervisor and the Village Mayor and as many as their Board members as possible in the very near future to carefully explain the gravity of the current Greenwood Lake situation. He added that a meeting by his Board at a church in Greenwood Lake had been scheduled and a public meeting in Tuxedo would be scheduled during November for his Board to discuss these important issues in detail and answer questions from the public.
During the second Public Participation period, David du Pont requested that the Board make copies of the District’s most recent annual report available at the Town Hall, the Village Office, and the Tuxedo Library. The Board will consider this request.
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