School elections
BKW candidates

BERNE — For the second straight year, Berne-Knox-Westerlo, which often has had unopposed races for its school board, has four candidates running.

The two top vote-getters will take office in July.

Incumbent Edward Ackroyd is running as are PTA President Michelle Fusco; retired teacher and former school board member Helen Lounsbury; and Robert Rue, a BKW graduate making his second run. Janet Finke is not seeking a second term.

At the May 15 election, voters will also decide on a $19.3 million budget. Posts on the five-member board are unpaid.

Edward Ackroyd

Ackroyd, a Knox resident, is currently the vice president of the school board, a post he rotated into. He grew up on Thompson’s Lake Road in East Berne and owns Thor Power Supply, based in Schenectady, which he formed in 1985. Ackroyd said he has one United States patent; he sells industrial batteries and chargers and power back-up systems and supplies.

Ackroyd, a member of the BKW class of 1968 class, ran for the school board unopposed in 2004 after Lynn Countryman stepped down; he is a veteran who left BKW to serve in Cambodia and Vietnam. He served in the United States Army from 1968 to 1971, and spent a year-and-a-half in Germany and one year in Vietnam.

Last year, at BKW’s graduation, Superintendent Steven Schrade, acting on behalf of a program set up by the state to award diplomas to veterans who dropped out of school to serve their country, presented Ackroyd with his high school diploma.
"I enjoy it," Ackroyd said this week of serving on the board. He added that he would like to see board members serve five-year terms rather than the current three-year term. The term was reduced to encourage more candidates to run. "It takes two years to figure out what’s going on," he said.

Michelle Fusco

Fusco, a Berne resident, has been the president of the Parent-Teacher Association for four years. She works at the Colonie Diner as a waitress. With flexible hours at the diner, Fusco said, she is able to be at her home when her children leave for school and when they come home. Fusco has a son is in the third grade, and a daughter in the 10th grade. Her daughter takes college-level Advanced Placement courses, and her son has taken extra classes, she said.
"I have one that’s gifted and one who struggles a little bit," she said.
As PTA president, Fusco said she has less to do now than she did her first two years as president. The PTA’s 18 committees, she said, are "self-sufficient." She attends committee meetings and runs the PTA’s monthly meetings. The PTA has 193 members.
Fusco, who said she is "not college-educated," had once been intimidated by authority figures, and is now on a first-name basis with administrators and teachers. "That was a big deal to me," she said, adding that, prior to serving on the PTA, she hadn’t known how she would handle a position with added responsibilities, and working with those high in the ranks.
"I’ve gotten such pleasure out of the PTA"I’d like to think I could accomplish more with the board of education," she said. Fusco said she is running because she wants to "see our children get the best, most competitive education possible." The district’s students, she said, receive an "exemplary" education, and she would like to see that continue.

Helen Lounsbury

Lounsbury, a Berne resident, was a BKW teacher and served one term on the school board just after she retired from teaching. She taught for 34 years at the district, and spent much of her career in the Berne elementary school teaching fourth and fifth grades. She wrote the grant for the for the Books’ R’ Us program and the storefronts throughout the BKW elementary school.
Lounsbury said she is most proud of her induction as a life-time PTA member. She said her induction was important to her because her mother had also been inducted. "The PTA is such an important thing to me," she said.

When she graduated from Berne-Knox and was college-bound, Lounsbury was on a tight budget and was awarded $200 from the PTA for schoolbooks, she said.

After retiring, Lounsbury said, it has been very difficult to distance herself from the students and the district. Lounsbury began tutoring BKW students two years ago.
"It kind of re-ignites the flames," she said. "I feel very attached to it"I’m a lifer."

Robert Rue

Rue, 44, of Knox, is running for the school board for the second year in a row.

A BKW graduate and a lifetime Hilltown resident, Rue is an active member of the elementary school PTA and the BKW Little League and Softball League. He has a son and daughter in the district.

Rue works for the town of Guilderland, as manager of Keenholts Park.

He could not be reached for comment this week, but he told The Enterprise during last year’s campaign: "I think I have some fresh new ideas that can help better the education of our children and keep the district fiscally responsible," Rue said. "I just want to keep moving the school in the right direction."
"I’m very children oriented."
The best thing about BKW, Rue said, is its size. "It’s a nice small district, and all the kids know each other and all the teachers know all the kids," he said.