VOORHEESVILLE — Joseph Pofit, president of the Voorheesville School Board, is a confident straight shooter, whose ideas are well thought out.
"I think what the public just saw" was a very traumatic time for the board"The board continues to take their responsibility very seriously," Pofit said of recent findings by the state comptroller.

He believes other school districts across New York are going to be dealing with similar difficulties in financial management with new legislated standards, the comptroller’s audits, and more responsibility for individual board members.

Board members are all volunteers and not necessarily experts in financial matters, Pofit said.
"It’s been an awakening for each board member," Pofit said; they are now striving to take their knowledge to a "higher level."

Pofit serves on the boards finance and audit committee, plus the governance and planning committee, which looks at structure and reviews information that comes up from the site-based management teams at the district’s schools.
"The board definitely needs to spend more time on the financial integrity of the district," Pofit said in response to a question about how the board has handled the Comptroller’s findings. It’s important to have each member know what is going on internally, he said.
There are some members who don’t know as much about school budgets and the funding of education as others, and are somewhat quiet during discussion of these topics, Pofit said. He has a goal to "bring everybody on the board up to a level of comfort with the numbers," he said.
"My role is to help facilitate that," Pofit said.

Pofit announced at a recent board meeting that he has taken on a new role as the district’s chief financial officer, a new duty of the president .

No one wants to take on that role without knowing the going-ons of the district, Pofit said. It’s a new title he’s comfortable with, he told The Enterprise, adding that it certainly "heightens one’s awareness of the huge responsibility."

Pofit’s job is with the Catholic Charities developing senior housing, assisted living, and nursing homes; he deals with the planning and financing of these programs for 14 counties. Pofit went to Columbia University and has a degree in public health. He declined to give his age.

If re-elected, Pofit has a long list of objectives: developing curriculum; completing the capital project, maintaining the present facility; minimizing the cost to taxpayers as part of the budget process; upgrading technology, because he’s not so sure Voorheesville is innovative enough; maintaining and securing the best teachers and supporting them with professional development opportunities; and offering an academic program that is balanced, he said.
When the board proposed the major building project for the high school and middle school, constructed over five years ago, one of the major pitches to the public was that, with the larger space, the building would be a community resource. "I want to continue to reinforce that," Pofit said.

The building is not just open during school hours, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. but should be a resource to the community after hours. That does have to be balanced with the expense, he said.
"I don’t want to drive people away because it’s too expensive," Pofit said of fees.

When making decisions on ancillary services, one of the factors Pofit considers is the number of people who will benefit or use those services. Not every kid in the district uses Kids’ Club, Pofit said, but he also doesn’t want the cost of a program like day care or adult education to be so high that residents can’t use it.

This board particularly, values the building being a community resource and not just for classes, Pofit said, something he strongly believes in as well, whether it be for senior citizens groups, or clubs.

In terms of the BOCES classrooms, Pofit said, he’s not going to worry about that now. The superintendent was responding to proposed new housing developments, such as Kensington Woods, bringing in more students which might require extra classrooms, Pofit said. If that were approved by the town of New Scotland it could take five to seven years for the whole site to be built out, Pofit said. He would not want BOCES to be shipped out, he said, but he sees no issue at this time. Pofit said currently, the district has some extra space.
In terms of the upcoming curriculum development, one of the reasons the board "moved the middle school up to the high school was to have a more seamless program," Pofit said, and also so that advanced scholars could take on more challenging courses, and enroll in high-level classes.

Pofit said he has been impressed with the department chairs’ abilities to work on curriculum from elementary grades all the way up. Voorheesville has a very strong curriculum and instructional program, Pofit said, and he wants to make sure it’s innovative enough, that it challenges children, offers good opportunities, and is academically adventurous.

The curriculum should be supportive of everyone’s academic needs, Pofit said from special education to middle level and gifted students.

To review the curriculum, the district needs more data-driven assessment, he said.
"This board is data hungry," Pofit said, rather than just making subjective decisions. By the time the district gets state-test results back, it’s too late in the school year; also, those scores don’t give enough information, he said. The school will need to implement its own evaluations on what a child knows as he enters a unit of study, or a class; what he has learned half-way; and what he leaves a session with as a way to monitor the student’s progression, Pofit said.

The board has always encouraged community members to come to meetings, Pofit said. This year, the board has actively pursued getting different student groups to come to the meetings to give presentations or to offer input. The board has also improved and updated the district’s website, putting more information on its pages, including meeting minutes, Pofit said.

Linda Langevin has been a very visible superintendent, Pofit said, joining community groups, attending the village of Voorheesville and town of New Scotland meetings, and watching Voorheesville’s sporting events.

Some people don’t want to attend the school-board meetings, Pofit said, but board members have been responsive to residents when they call or write, Pofit said.