Berne-Knox-Westerlo secondary school principal Mark Pitterson, 56, will retire at the end of this school year after roughly six years with the district.
In those first 10 years, it seemed no one dared go above 30 miles per hour, “which we enjoyed, especially living on Main Street,” said Altamont resident Mya Sullivan, but over the past year, she has begun to see drivers flying down Route 146.
Voorheesville Superintendent Frank Macri noted not everything on the previous five-year condition survey got done. “I know we looked at two five-year [surveys] previously,” he said, “and there were still things that were on those five-year plans that weren’t accomplished … So just because they’re on a five-year plan doesn’t mean they have to get finished.”
A Nov. 19 letter to the the appeals court states former Voorheesville varsity girls’ basketball coach Robert Baron “is hereby withdrawing and discontinuing” his appeal of the lower court’s decision in his lawsuit against the school district.
“It won’t stop all incidents,” said Matthew Pinchinat, Guilderland’s director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. “But it will show we do take them seriously.”
The biggest factor in the revenue jump is the state’s commitment to make Foundation Aid to schools whole. That brought Guilderland an additional $1.5 million this year and will bring in $2.5 million next year.
The most important change in preparing for an active shooter is that faculty now has options. Formerly, the only choice was to go into lockdown. Now teachers can choose something different, like having students leave the school, which Guilderland High School Principal Michael Piscitelli said was “super powerful.”
“It’s at the core of our operation in terms of teaching and learning, and has become even more so since the pandemic,” Superintendent Marie Wiles of technology. “But it also touches our heat, our phone system, our fire-alarm system, our transportation system. We can’t take attendance without technology.”
