BERNE —   The Berne-Knox-Westerlo Board of Education  wrestled Monday with how best to fill a vacancy left by the resignation of Susan Kendall Schanz, one of the board’s newest members.

Schanz was elected in May when she was the second highest vote-getter in a three-person contest that saw Schanz and Matthew Tedeschi, the highest vote-getter, win board seats.  Joan Adriance, the board president at the time, was unseated. Tedeschi went on to be elected the new board president.

Schanz closely questioned some personnel decisions during her brief tenure. When the board was asked at a meeting last fall, for example,  to give wholesale approval to a list of appointments, including two administrative posts, Schanz balked and urged that  two of the appointments  be considered separately. But she and fellow board member Lillian Sisson-Chrysler were outvoted 3-to-2.

Schanz could not be reached for comment on the reasons for her resignation.

The remaining four board members discussed when and how to fill the vacancy, whether by public vote in May, or sooner by appointment.

Tedeschi asked if the vacancy might be “an opportunity” to restructure board-member term lengths in such a way that “one term would be expiring every year.” He suggested that one way to do that might be to award a highest vote-getter in a school board election with a five-year term, and the second highest with a four-year term.  Currently, board members serve for three years.

For decades, BKW board members served five-year terms and rotated into the presidency. The terms were shortened to encourage more candidates to run.

For now, the board decided to worry only about the vacancy and voted unanimously to advertise the position on the district’s website and its school news notifier system, with the aim of making an appointment at its Feb. 13 meeting.

The meeting convened in the secondary school auditorium before a small group of onlookers, some of whom offered comments during the two public-comment periods provided for by a new agenda format: the first, near the start,  for making comments on agenda items, and a second, at the end,  for commentary on items not on the agenda.

This change, along with some other innovations, suggests  Tedeschi wants to make meetings more efficient and productive. Before this, audience members have been commenting freely throughout.

Each board member now has  an electronic tablet for reading the document under discussion. Documents are also projected onto a large screen for the audience’s benefit.

Board meetings up to now have usually been held in a  small meeting room in the administrative building located across Helderberg Trail from the main campus, in a room with space for fewer than 20 persons in the gallery.

The auditorium seats several hundred.

The ins and outs

Prior to the meeting, board member and residents gathered for a tour of entrances: two entrances at the elementary school and a third at the secondary school.  Improvements in security are among the goals as the board considers extensive renovations to the entire campus.

Jim Graham, a principal in the Schenectady architectural firm, Synthesis,  listened and commented as ideas were put forth on how to achieve better security by enhancing sight lines at entrances while also improving student access, including for students with disabilities.

Synthesis has been retained by the district to plan, design. and oversee the renovations which, once decided upon by the board, will go before district voters for bond-issue financing.

Graham said security goals should include improving “visibility from the inside to the outside” and “admitting  visitors via  spaces where there are no students.”

Time lines

During the board meeting that followed, Graham presented two possible timelines for a major renovations project if launched this year. One — the fast track — calls for going to voters for approval of a bond issue in May and completion of the work toward the end of 2018. The other timeline calls for a October referendum and project completion in the second quarter of 2019.

Board discussion took up a question posed by Tedeschi, “How much is it costing us to wait,” referring to possible rising costs for  construction and  borrowing as time goes by.

District officials are stressing  the preliminary nature of current discussion and planning, and  are careful to distinguish between “must-dos” and “maybes.”  The must-do’s — including replacement of aged infrastructure — will cost about $7 million they say. The recently completed state-mandated Building Condition Survey generated a  list of not-to-be-postponed repairs and replacements that should trigger generous state aid.

The “maybe’s” are a wish list: renovations that would serve to bring the buildings closer to state-of-the-art instructional standards. Adding those renovations to the project could bring the total cost up to more than $17 million according  to “very preliminary estimates” provided by the architects.

The board members, with the help of public input,  must decide how ambitious they want the project to be.

Other business

Among other business, the board:

— Approved the expenditure of $3,850 to commission an enrollment study by the Capital Area School Development Association;

— Approved a memorandum of agreement for the teachers’ support staff;

—  Reviewed second readings of board policies in the areas of entitlement to attend, and age of entrance,; and first readings of board policies governing student attendance, diagnostic student screening, and education of homeless children and  youth;

—   Accepted the resignation of Maria Tedeschi as a personnel assistant. She is the wife of the board president;

—  Approved the 2017-18 curriculum handbook; and

—   Authorized Katrina Emmerich, a district school psychologist, to proceed with the training and certification of her dog, Maggie, as a therapy dog. Once certified, Maggie will be with Emmerich as she works with students in one-on-one counseling sessions. District Superintendent Timothy Mundell said board policies governing the presence of animals in school buildings may have to be modified to allow for the beneficent presence of Maggie.