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Martin Szinger

 

 

BERNE — Martin Szinger, a software engineer, is running for the first time for a seat on Berne-Knox-Westerlo’s school board. He works at Carma Systems, Inc., a start-up which uses cloud-based servers to manage fleets of cars.

Originally from western New York, Szinger has a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University at Buffalo. His wife, Cathleen (née Curtis) Szinger, is a BKW graduate, and the two have been living in the area since 2012. Two of their four children attend BKW Elementary School, and one will be entering pre-kindergarten in the fall.

Szinger said he had been following district news such as the capital project, and decided to run to support the project.

“The buildings are not new,” he said, adding, that even when his wife attended school at BKW, the infrastructure was not new.

Szinger believes that investing money in the capital project will save money for the school in the long run, because, despite the “large price tag,” it costs less to conduct a total revamping than to do individual projects.

“It’s almost a unique opportunity,” he said.

He feels repairing infrastructure is the most important aspect of the project, but added that other elements — such as security and refurbishing classrooms — are also important.

Szinger said his career involves being analytical and detail oriented, which he said has served him well before and could serve him well on the school board. He also was on a church council at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church of America South Newstead in Akron, in Erie County, for 10 years, and was president of the council for eight years over two different terms.

Szinger feels there are similarities between the school board and the church council, one of which is not taking advantage of community resources. Szinger said both organizations have had austere budgets when more funding could be provided by the community in order to expand programs.

“I see extremely striking similarities,” he added. “I don’t think the [BKW] community is really upholding its share of the bargain,” he said, indicating taxpayers could pay more.

Szinger applied this to his view of the budget, saying that he hoped in following years the budget wouldn’t be referred to as a “baseline budget,” which indicates the school is spending the bare minimum it needs to on programs for students and other resources, he said.

He thought the superintendent and the school board made the right choice in how more-than-planned-on state aid was used, saying that the short deadline meant it couldn’t be used in any upcoming school programs, and the 50-50 split was a good compromise.

Still, he feels the district should not balk at raising taxes.

“There has to be an incremental, measured move forward,” he said.

He added that simply increasing tax revenues is not an easy answer to some of the district’s problems, but he feels that there are long-term goals and other opportunities the school could take advantage of by funding with an increased tax levy, and that the return results would benefit everyone in the community.

In his opinion, the board should serve the students first, then the staff, and then the community. He said the students are the one group without any other organization speaking for them or serving them.

“It feels like we’ve lost some the shared vision...a sense of pride in the school,” he said.

Szinger said that he feels the district is doing a good job on addressing students who may be in poverty with its school programs. However, he has some concerns about the school lunch program, which serves students who may qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

Szinger feels that the nutritional value of the meals may just meet federal guidelines, describing how a hard roll and two sugary yogurts can count as a lunch. This could mean preparing food onsite and using local products through a farm-to-school program, although it may mean the school would have to pay out of pocket rather than use federal money.

School lunches are required to have a serving of grains, fruit, vegetables, protein, and low-fat or fat-free milk. The United States Department of Agriculture states that school lunches may substitute a meat component of a meal (the protein) with yogurt, and a roll as a serving of grains.

Szinger said he doesn’t have a strong opinion on changing the term lengths of school board members from three years to five, saying that someone serving three three-year terms would have been on the board a similar amount of time as two five-year terms.

Szinger said the board could open up new channels of communications that could better provide information to parents.

 

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Helen Lounsbury

 

 

 

BERNE — Helen Lounsbury, a former Berne-Knox-Westerlo School Board member, is looking to serve again. Although originally from New Jersey, she is a graduate of BKW. She later taught at the school for over 30 years, and her four brothers and three children also graduated from the district.

She also worked for the State University of New York College at Oneonta as a Clinical Education supervisor and supervised student teachers.

“I have very deep roots in BKW,” she said.

Lounsbury served for over 15 years on the BKW Board following her retirement from the district. Lounsbury said she is looking to return to the board because she cares deeply about her community, and she sees difficult decisions that will need to be made in the near future.

Lounsbury believes her background in education, in the community surrounding the school, and in the school-board make her well-equipped to serve again. She cited projects she had done on the board, such as providing information about the board of education at open houses and establishing the annual community forum.

Should she return to the board, Lounsbury said she would like to bring back an open forum on setting the yearly goals for the board, as well as having the board indicate at each meeting how far along it is on its annual goals. She would also like to bring in representatives from each school department and have a presentation from a different department each month.

Lounsbury is in favor of accountability and transparency from the board, she said. She also is in favor of a student member serving on the board, and feels he or she should be chosen by students or staff at BKW.

Lounsbury also would like to approach the budget carefully, with the understanding that some Hilltown residents may have inherited land that they are not able to afford to pay high property taxes on. She likes that the board is keeping the cost baseline, but would like to see a line-by-line presentation of expenses and revenues.

“I thought that Lillian made a really good point,” she said, referring to board member Lilliam Sisson-Chrysler’s remarks about taking the entire surplus of state aid and using it to decrease the tax levy. “I like that idea in principal.”

Lounsbury added that she hadn’t seen enough detail to make an informed decision about how the district should have allocated the extra state aid.

In general, she said, she would like to see the board go into detail at the meetings about agenda items and the reasons behind its decisions. She gave an example of how the board approved a school trip to Peru at a recent meeting but didn’t consider details such as the liability of sending students in their custody to another country. She also noted that it appears board members are communicating by email more and, while she understands it’s a modern way to communicate, it makes it difficult to share the decision-making process with the public.

Lounsbury would like to see the board change its members’ term lengths from three years to five, as well as reinstate a rotating role as board president. When Lounsbury last served on the board both of these were in place. The current board votes for its president.

Lounsbury also feels the capital project needs to be presented with better details on what is being offered. She believes the first priority should be maintaining the building’s infrastructure, but also feels technological upgrades and an elementary-school science lab would be beneficial.

However, she noted proposed costs generally run higher, giving the $1.5 million proposed to secure the elementary school’s cafeteria entrance as an example. She wondered what costs could be saved by simply paying a security guard. The $13 million currently being proposed to spend on the project seems a little too high, she said, given the school’s declining enrollment.

However, she feels the declining enrollment could be beneficial in some ways, providing small class sizes to students with individual students getting more attention. She added that it may come down to determining if the staff size or allocation is appropriate for the current student population.

Lounsbury said the free and reduced-price lunch guidelines have changed over the years, and a student who qualifies may be someone perceived of as middle-class. She added that some individual staff members also provide services to impoverished students.

“We don’t have a social ladder,” she said of the school’s community, describing how on her own road she has neighbors who are both doctors and mechanics. “So we don’t look at people that...way.”

Lounsbury acknowledged that the district has a large special-education program and it spends a high amount of money on students’ Individual Education Plans, but added that it would have to be looked into to see if that money were being spent wisely.

“Education is not just about money as how the money is used,” she said.

Lounsbury said the board of education is there to serve a district’s community, but noted that students and teachers are part of that community.

She also noted that staff need more training in order to be introduced to using technology in the classroom, noting how some teachers have created their own websites for students and parents to use and others have not.

Training staff would be a way to resolve issues she’s seen come to light since she last served on the board, describing lower graduation rates, lower enrollment rates, and lower test scores in recent years.

 

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Randy Bashwinger

 

 

BERNE — Randy Bashwinger, who has been the town of Berne’s highway superintendent since 2015, is now looking to serve the school district, running for the Berne-Knox-Westerlo Board of Education for the first time. Before serving as highway superintendent, he worked in the building industry, he said.

He also is the chairman of the Berne Republican Party and recently began serving as the vice president of the Helderberg Rescue Squad and on the BKW Board of Education’s Budget Advisory Panel. A graduate of BKW, Bashwinger has four children in the district and one entering preschool in the fall.

Bashwinger said he feels it’s important to be involved with the board even if he’s not part of it, because he finds many aspects of the district need to be updated.

“A lot of things haven’t changed since then,” he said, referring to when he graduated from BKW in 1989. “It’s very tough on kids in school.”

Bashwinger believes he could contribute his knowledge of the building industry to planning for the capital project, like budgeting for materials. He also feels his experience in dealing with the public as Berne’s highway superintendent would help as a school board member.

Regarding the capital project, Bashwinger said he felt there were certain things that still needed to be discussed. He said there are issues with parking and the school’s façade that he could address as someone who use to work in the building trade.

The façade and parking could also improve security, which he said should be one of the priorities in the project, but he also said employing a security guard could be beneficial.

He said the current projected cost may need to be cut back, but also said the school shouldn’t invest $12 million only to repair something years later that had been left out of the project for another $5 million or $6 million. He has not seen any exact plans but noted the district should be aware that costs could change over a matter of years.

He is especially frustrated with the staff turnover rate, noting there have been several different administrators appointed over the last few years as well as teachers and other faculty members entering and then leaving the district.

According to Bashwinger, one of the reasons for turnover is that employees are paid less at BKW than other districts nearby like Voorheesville and Guilderland. Living in a “salary and bonus world,” he believes monetary incentives could keep faculty and staff in the district.

Although he is wary of taxing the community too much, Bashwinger acknowledges that revenue would have to come from somewhere to provide better pay and benefits to keep faculty, staff, and administrators for a longer term, saying that the district would have to “meet in the middle.” Bashwinger said he feels the priority of the board should be a mix of supporting teachers and faculty, students, and the community.

He noted that there are people in the community barely able to pay taxes now, but he would not rule out increasing taxes slightly in order to benefit district employees and school functions.

“To me, because I have kids, I look at it a little differently,” he said.

He also said better school programs could increase property values.

Bashwinger said he approved of the way the final budget was drafted, noting that there will always be someone unhappy with the outcome. He said that he found splitting the unplanned-for state aid between the tax levy and fund balance a “decent deal.”

While he said the school is heading in the right direction by creating agricultural science classes, Bashwinger said the school should create more vocational programs or even establish “in-house” vocational courses or more technology courses. He also noted that a Berne resident instructs a Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program in Guilderland, and a similar program at BKW could provide another option for students.

“They give you something to look forward to right out of school,” he said, referring to companies that sometimes seek out students in vocational programs for employment.

Bashwinger supports the idea of having a student serve as an ex officio member of the board, saying that it could turn into an opportunity for students to learn about elections and voting. He noted that all elections cost money to run, and suggested holding a student election alongside a regular board election.

The board is also currently looking at changing the three-year terms served by board members back to five-year terms. Bashwinger said that his term as a highway superintendent is a four-year term, while other highway departments use two-year terms, which he finds are not effective. With that in mind, he said he thought longer terms would generally be more beneficial than shorter terms, and suggested that the board could compromise and have members serve four-year terms.

Bashwinger said that livestreaming meetings on Facebook — one of the board’s attempts to better communicate with the public — was a great idea and made the meetings more accessible to elderly community members who couldn’t leave their homes. He suggested the board consider broadcasting meetings on cable and also getting various town boards in the district to run school information in their newsletters.

He said that the district would have to look for grants and “be creative” in order to create programs for impoverished  students. He added that this is a problem afflicting other areas as well, and acknowledged some people may be upset that the high free and reduced-price lunch rate may cause shame, but sometimes people need to accept help, he said.

He also said that school districts can be negatively affected by “battling” in local town governments that could drive away families who may looking at moving or settling down in the area. He said that towns need to take responsibility for this.

Bashwinger said his position in the highway department will not make it a conflict of interest to serve on the school board, despite the fact the school and town highway department can collaborate such as by sharing services. Bashwinger said he does not control a budget at the highway department, and no town meetings he has to attend should conflict with board meetings.

 

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Nathan Elble 

 

 

BERNE — After being elected 14 months ago in a special election where he finished first in a five-way race for two seats, Nathan Elble is running to keep his seat. The election last February was due to the departure of two board members who were elected to the Knox Town Board. A 1999 graduate of Berne-Knox-Westerlo, Elble works as a union electrician and volunteers for youth softball and T-ball teams as well as on the Knox Youth Council. Three of his four children currently attend BKW.

Elble said he is an advocate for children in the school district. When he first ran, he said, it was after seeing what the district offered and feeling that it could do better. Now pursuing a full three-year term, Elble said he will bring undivided energy to his time on the board.

“My kids are going to be enrolled at BKW for the next 15 years,” he said, explaining that he is invested in the school for at least that amount of time.

Elble said that the district must serve the students, staff, and community. “You’re hands are tied to all three,” he concluded. But, he said, students get only one period of time at BKW, and Elbe said that the board owes the students the best experience.

He said that he is supportive of the school’s capital project to be voted on in the fall, and he is in favor of the adopted district budget to be voted on next month.

“I was really excited for that budget,” he said, because of a combination of both added programs for students and a tax cut for the community.

Elble said he originally thought the surplus of state aid should go entirely into the district’s tax levy and offer a bigger tax cut, but later felt that it was better to leave some of the revenue in the district’s fund balance.

He also said he is satisfied with the current scope proposed for the capital project, noting that schools have spent more and done less with similar projects. The estimated cost began at over $17 million, he said, and has since dropped to a little over $14 million. The scope also outlines four different areas to be improved: infrastructure, instruction, sitework, and security.

“It’s kind of all tied together,” said Elble, of the four different elements of the project, although he noted infrastructure improvements were a mandatory section, and also said that the school needs instructional and safety improvements.

School security can best be improved through sitework and other building changes rather than by hiring a resource officer or security guard, Elble said.

“In five years, if we have a budget crunch, that’d be a first person to go,” he said. Security improvements, paid for now, would last for the long term.

Elble also supports the idea of having a student at BKW serve as an ex officio member of the board.

“A lot of us never see that perspective from the high schoolers,” he said, explaining that his children are enrolled at the elementary school. He also noted that students last year had requested a political science course, and feels this goes along with that interest. He said a student member could be selected by the upcoming fall vote.

Another item that may be voted on this fall is changing term lengths from three years back to the original five, which he would also be in favor of.

“We’ve had a lot of turnover,” said Elble. “And that’s hard for the administrators and the superintendent.” He said the superintendent has seen nine different board members in the last two years, and could potentially work with several other new members depending on the election outcome.

With students now involved with so many activities, said Elble, parents are likewise just as busy. He said with that in mind he thought something like livestreaming board meetings is beneficial. Elble feels broadcasting in some manner is the best means of the board communicating with the public. Newsletters are informative and have been considered being brought back by the board but they are expensive to produce and distribute, he said.

Elble said that, should enrollment rates at BKW continue to drop, “The way we operate is going to change.” But a recent study indicates enrollment rates in the district will level off, and he said he is optimistic that the capital project will help this happen by encouraging families to keep their children in district schools.

He feels BKW is effectively assisting students who may be impoverished, noting that the school is looking to work with the organization Kenneth’s Army — a grassroots group funded after the 2014 murder of a BKW kindergartner — to create a fund for any student to use to pay for lunch, even if they are not enrolled in free or reduced-price lunch. However, he feels the lunch program itself needs help.

“It’s tough to say — the school lunch program needs some assistance,” he said.

Elble said there is a growing number of parents unhappy with the food choices offered to their children attending BKW, himself included. He said that the lunch program allows a hard roll and sugary yogurt to substitute as a meal, while Italian dressing is not allowed, which is something his children put on salads and vegetables.

School lunches are required to have a serving of grains, fruit, vegetables, protein, and low-fat or fat-free milk. The United States Department of Agriculture states that school lunches may substitute a meat component of a meal (the protein) with yogurt, and a roll as a serving of grains. School districts have also been required to reduce the amount of saturated fat and sodium served in breakfasts and lunches; Italian dressing has 230 milligrams of sodium and two grams of saturated fat in every two tablespoons.

Elble says that families should not feel ashamed of signing up for free and reduced-price lunches. He noted that this is why ensuring the meals are healthy is important, since those enrolled are eating them.

Elble said that the large amount of money spent on students with Individual Education Programs is indicative of progress made in the last two years in helping students with special needs. He noted that many of these students have been integrated back into classes at BKW, which gives these students the opportunity to be in a normal classroom and for the general student population a chance to consult classroom aids when needed.

He would like the school to achieve the reputation it had a decade ago; a reputation of great students, staff, funding, and curriculum, Elble said.

“It’s a big responsibility, but I’m really glad I took the leap,” he said, of his initial decision to run for school board.

 

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Kimberly Lovell

 

 

 

BERNE — Kimberly Lovell was appointed to the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School Board in February, following the resignation of Susan Schanz. Now, she is looking to keep her seat. Lovell is a literacy specialist in the Middleburgh School District, and before that worked for eight years as a special-education teacher at Cairo-Durham. One of her three children attends BKW, and she intends to have all of them go to school in the district.

Lovell said she has experience working in schools very similar to BKW, in location, population, and in needs. At Cairo-Durham, she served on several different committees that allowed her to understand such a district. She also feels her experience as an educator will be beneficial, providing a balance on the board, and bringing in an “educator’s eye.”

One of the things Lovell would like push in the school district is 21st-Century learning, which she says is a teaching style that encourages critical thinking, group problem-solving, and using technology rather than the older rote memorization techniques. She said the board is looking toward this style of learning, and said she is supportive of the board.

“They are a very strong team,” she said.

Lovell also acknowledges that she plays a role as a parent as as well as a taxpayer, but she feels that the school board’s first priority should be the students. With that in mind, she said she thinks it’s a good idea to bring a student on as an ex officio member of the school board, saying that it would let the students know they were being heard and understand how the school board runs.

Lovell said, given the many different means of choosing a student member, a survey could possibly be given to the students to determine the best way.

She said she particularly approved of the ability for the district to close its $86,000 budget gap before even receiving a higher amount of state aid than anticipated from the legislature. Once the final amount of state aid was approved, the school had a budget with a surplus of funds which was split between the tax levy and the fund balance.

“It’s a budget that shows we support our school, but also have our community’s needs in mind,” she said, adding that she felt it would be approved in May by the voters.

She said it seemed appealing to give all the surplus aid back to the taxpayers, but after thinking it over realized it was more fiscally sound to keep some.

“The economy is constantly changing,” she said.

Lovell began serving at the school board in the midst of plans for the district’s capital project. She said she understands the firm designing the scope of the project can’t give a full breakdown of what will be done yet, but feels the board should go over what is actually needed and attach a price tag to that.

“I would like to look at all of this before I agree to it,” she said.

Still, she is encouraged by the fact the project is at least 79 percent aidable.

“Why wouldn’t we take this opportunity?” she asked.

She emphasized that new families would look at the school district and what it provides, and said that this could drive families to move into the area.

Lovell was not on the board when the cost had been agreed upon, but said she thought it was appropriate, given that around $7 million of the $13 million to $14 million capital project budget is for state-mandated infrastructure upgrades.

Of the components of the project, Lovell said that security is the most important. She said it was one of her first concerns when enrolling her child in kindergarten, and noted that there are some hazards in the elementary school.

“Anybody walking in the building can turn left or right,” she said. She noted that the location of the main office where visitors sign in is not up front. Were it closer to the front entrance, it would be more secure, she said.

She also noticed that classrooms have glass doors, and that the lack of sidewalks and the parking layout can also be a hazard.

“To be proactive, safety should be our top priority as a board,” said Lovell.

Regarding term lengths, Lovell said she initially supported a three-year term because she felt it brought in new people. But after hearing an argument from Helen Lounsbury at a meeting, she changed her mind.

“If you change every three years, how do you become an expert at something?” asked Lovell. She said she thinks a five-year term is not too long and could work.

She said she thinks the board is going in the right direction for communication by broadcasting meetings over Facebook Live, because the public can communicate by commenting on the broadcast. She said the public can also email board members or attend meetings and comment in person.

Lovell said the enrollment data provided from a study needs to be further looked at to determine the reason students may leave at certain grade levels and other factors. She hopes the capital project will increase enrollment by bringing families into the area, and suggests that increasing course options could help draw people as well.

She says the school is already headed in the right direction regarding course options, such as offering science, technology, engineering, and math courses as well as agricultural science courses, but it could do more.

However, Lovell feels the school should not cut back if the population does not increase.

“Our decisions should be based on the children we have in the district now,” she said.

Lovell also thinks the school should get more accurate data on its free and reduced-price lunch rate eligibility, since she imagines there are families who may be eligible but not enrolled. She said it may be possible to do this by going over the registration more clearly during kindergarten enrollment and having the families sign up then, with an explanation about how their names will be confidential.

“As a new parent...it’s very overwhelming filling out all the paperwork,” she said.

She said that families shouldn’t be ashamed of using free or reduced-price lunches, nor should other district residents.

“I don’t see the rate as, ‘I live in a poverty stricken district,’ at all,” said Lovell.

She said it is data that allows the district to be eligible for certain things like state aid, and in that way it can be a good thing to have families report if they are eligible.

Lovell believes the district is doing well with students with Individual Education Plans, by bringing them back to the district from other places they had been attending.

“That’s a fiscally responsible move,” she said, adding that it beneficial to the students as well.

Lovell, after spending only two months on the board, said that she already understands its inner workings as well as the members’ direction and vision.

“The board has made an impact on me,” she said. “As well as me with them.”

Still, she said, she has much to learn, and hopes to help the board pursue goals such as beginning a capital project and bring 21st-Century learning to the district.

Her role, she said, will be based off the students’ needs.

“That is my driving force,” she said.