BERNE — , the president of the Berne-Knox-Westerlo school board, is making a second run for a three-year term. 

“In the three years that I’ve been on the board, I think I’ve learned a lot,” said Sikule.  “I’ve never been afraid to ask a question, and I think that that’s really important — to at least be willing to ask the questions. 

“And I think that, having my three children go through the school, I understand the process.  And I’ve always advocated for all of the students, and I think that that’s important,” she said.  “Sometimes you get all these ideas and you try and do too much too fast.  And that’s what you realize — that it’s kind of a slow process.  But I think that it can be very rewarding.”

Originally from Buffalo, Sikule attended Mount Mercy Academy and earned her bachelor’s of science degree, majoring in accounting, from the University at Buffalo.  She moved to Westerlo in 1985 and is in her 30^th year working for the state’s Thruway Authority. 

Sikule is married and has three children.  Her son is a junior at the BKW high school, and her two daughters, now in college, graduated from BKW. 

“I had wished that the community had gone back to the five-year term,” Sikule said of board members’ terms, “because I truly believe it takes a little bit of time to get acclimated to being a board member and understanding everything that’s involved. 

“However,” she said, “I did speak to a few members of the community that indicated that, if someone is elected that they decide that they’re not happy with, they didn’t want to see them on five years.  I can understand that viewpoint also.

“But I do think it’s very difficult to be an effective board member if you’re just on for one three-year term,” she said.  “Hence, I’ve decided to run again and, if they are happy with me….”

On budgeting, Sikule said, “I do think that the committee is a good idea.  What the board attempted to do, and I think we were successful, was to have a representative from each of the three towns.  And we tried to get representatives that had some kind of a financial background, which, I think, is very important in the budget process because you don’t  necessarily have that expertise on the board,” she said. 

“And, so, we were looking for that for input.  It was difficult this year because we were without a business administrator until January, and, so, it was difficult to get the process started any sooner,” she said.  “I do want to see the committee continue, but I would like to see the budget process started a little bit earlier and have the committee’s involvement in it.”

Sikule said she’d like to see budgeting start around October. 

“Even through you don’t have numbers,” she said, “I think there’s a lot of expenses and things that they can review to get an idea of where we should be going with the budget.”

On no longer recognizing the BKW’s top two graduates, Sikule said, “It was not my personal choice.  I, personally, voted against eliminating it.  But it was the wish of the majority of the board.

“There have been some questions about it but not a great deal.  So, I’m not really sure that you’re going to be able to gauge the reaction until the year it actually happens,” she said.  “But what I do think is good about the new process is that we’re going to recognize — I believe the grades are going to be 93 and above for the high honors — so we’re hopefully getting a good group of students,” she said.  “I don’t think we’ve decided exactly what we’re going to do for graduation to replace the valedictorian and salutatorian speeches.  I don’t think we’ve addressed that yet.”

On BKW’s programs, Sikule said, “In the last couple of years, we’ve added a couple of [Advanced Placement] programs, which I think was very important for some of the students.  I’d like to see, also, a broad range of classes offered.”

Sikule gave an example.

“When my daughter was here, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to go into in college.  She liked math.  She liked science,” she said. 

Her daughter, Sikule said, had the opportunity to take accounting courses “besides the regular math courses,” and she was able to take a design and drawing class to get an idea if she liked architecture. 

“I think those kinds of opportunities are important and we need to encourage the kids to explore a lot of different areas,” said Sikule.  “They’re doing that with the new science program next year that’s going to be kind of engineering-related.”

She thinks those kinds of opportunities, where BKW can get the students to find areas of interest, are important, she said. 

“But,” said Sikule, “I do think that we need to look at some of the programs that might have become outdated.  I think we used to have a keyboarding class.  Now, you do the Microsoft-Office kind of stuff,” she said.  “So I think we need to look at our programs and make sure that we’re changing with technology and with the opportunities that are out there — that we’re not giving them outdated classes.  And I think I’d like to see an assessment of that to make sure that the classes are all appropriate.” 

On unfunded mandates, Sikule said, “I think the school is in a very difficult position because we don’t have much of a commercial base.  And I think that that’s what makes it so difficult with our tax base. 

“I do think that we need to lobby the legislators.  We always have the annual trip down to visit the legislators, but, in addition to that, I would encourage the community to do some letter-writing and things like that,” Sikule said. 

She said BKW could try and spearhead a movement, possibly with the PTA, and become more involved with the New York State School Boards Association and advocate for the association to pass resolutions at its convention.

“That might be something that we could also do,” she said. 

Asked if the school needs tax relief, Sikule said, “Yes, in some ways…There’s the elderly of the community that are on fixed incomes.”

She said the income base of the community is certainly not as high as that of Voorheesville or Guilderland or Bethlehem. 

“In some cases, I think it makes it very difficult for us to have our residents fund the education,” Sikule said.  “And I guess that’s why I’ve been such an advocate of trying to curb the tax increase in the budget.  I think that we need to find new ways to do things instead of just adding positions.  And I think that’s going to be the challenge — to try and keep the taxes low.” 

On special-education students and the costs associated with these students, Sikule said, “I know Kim [LaBelle] has worked very diligently to try and bring as many of those back into the district as possible.  And I think she’s continuing to do that. 

“You know, it’s very difficult,” she said.  “They’re entitled to the services.  And, again, I think that we’re going to have to look at ways that we can do that, that might not just be adding staff,” she said.  “I think Kim has done a good job of looking at technology — assistive technology — and items like that to try and help the special-ed. population.”