Superintendent Marie Wiles said of the Dec. 9 forum, “This will be an information-gathering session for the school community and would help inform a cell phone-free policy.”

The student body at SUNY schools is becoming more diverse. For the first time, enrollment of white students in the SUNY system came in below the 50-percent mark, and is at 49.1 percent this year, down from 59.6 percent a decade ago.

Joseph Slichko wants to highlight the work of both students and staff at the Capital Region BOCES Career and Technical Education Center – Albany Center.

He started work on Nov. 18 as the center’s new principal.

“Even the hardest days,” Wiles told The Enterprise this week, “have the priceless payoff of knowing you’re playing a part in changing the trajectory of lives. In a district this size, that’s close to 5,000 lives. I just feel it is honorable, rewarding, good work to do.”

The New York State Union of Teachers convened experts and educators for a discussion about how phones and social media are influencing children’s lives both at home and at school as Governor Kathy Hochul, who kicked off the event, is fighting to ban phones in classrooms statewide. 

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.

The Rockefeller Institute of Government heard from a variety of education experts and members of the public on what factors need to be front of mind as the institute begins studying the existing Foundation Aid formula on behalf of Governor Kathy Hochul, who was roundly criticized for her proposed changes during the last budget cycle. 

For K-12 students, chronic absenteeism is typically defined as missing at least 10 percent of the school year, for any reason, excused or unexcused. 

Judy Slack, at age 80, says, “I’ve had a good life.” She has spent that lifetime supporting others — babysitting in her youth, becoming a teacher as a young adult, raising her own three children as she worked for decades as a teaching assistant in the Guilderland schools, and finally serving on the school board for 16 years.

Over his nine-plus years as Berne-Knox-Westerlo’s superintendent, Timothy Mundell has led the district through significant challenges, helping to establish a much stronger foundation for the next superintendent than he had coming in.