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Several parents recommended to the board that the child be home-schooled, which the district’s lawyer said the board has no legal right to do. Others expressed fear as well as anger while a 13-year-old student, who had been targeted, said he didn’t feel safe despite two adults accompanying the boy during the school day.

Asked if the Superfund site and the neighboring Patroon Creek are now safe, a spokesman for EPA responded, “The February 2024 Five-Year Review indicated that the Mercury Refining site is protective of human health and the environment now that all institutional controls, including environmental easements, are in place.”

Authored by a newly-formed Farmland Protection Committee, the plan will identify threats to the town’s farms and farmers, as well as lay out possible solutions. 

Now that a student who was charged in February with making a threat of mass harm has returned to classes, the mother of one of the 20 students he had targeted wants to know what plan the school has in place to protect them. The superintendent assures that the district has safety plans but says, “There is no information I can share on how we would address the needs of a particular child.”

Although the governor’s office hasn’t confirmed that appointments will be made, Governor Kathy Hochul already made appointments this year to another town board that, like Berne, lost its quorum after a majority of members resigned.