The work continues...

As you are aware by now we are well into budget work for the 2012-2013 school year. We have had two public forums with very good discussion taking place.  We face challenges unlike any other budget development processes in the past and continue to work tirelessly to provide a spending plan that continues to support students while being responsible to the taxpayers of our community.

In the April issue of Knight Insight we hope to include a listing of all of the budget information sessions that will be held around the community. We encourage you to contact the district or business office to get answers to your questions as well as take advantage of any opportunities to learn about the spending plan in these information sessions.

A special thank you to all of those who were able to attend and participate in the community input sessions held in December and February.  The work continues.

Economy and Efficiency: What are we doing?

Part 1 in a three month series.

At the first community forum related to the 2012-2013 spending plan for the Tully Central School District a number of items were discussed. School Business Administrator Tiffany Nesbitt spent some time reviewing basic information related to the Tax Levy Limit imposed upon schools through legislation. Other discussion took place around funding inequities between poor schools and wealthy schools as well as legislative concerns.

Throughout the dialogue that took place during the evening, two questions were asked that prompted this commentary which will continue for the next few issues of Knight Insight. The first question was “what are we doing” in taking steps to reduce costs in all areas of the district. The other was “why aren’t we letting people know” the steps that are being taken to address the fiscal challenges that we and every other school district in the area are facing.

So begins a series of articles about what we are doing to become more efficient and responsible for the taxpayer dollars.

• Based upon our reviews and suggestions from staff and community steps have been taken to produce savings in the area of energy. Below you will find some examples of these steps.
• New lighting has been installed in the high school bus garage that will reduce costs by a little more than $1,000 per year in that facility alone. The investment for this change will be repaid in as little as 3 years.
• During the recent renovation project in 2009, the elementary school was zoned in order to provide better control over heating and cooling areas.
• In that same project the Junior-Senior High School received energy efficient windows to replace single pane windows that were originally installed in that building.
• Another part of the 2009 project installed a waste oil heater system in the Junior-Senior High School transportation facility that makes use of oil removed from vehicles to heat the building thus reducing fuel costs in this area.
• We are currently investigating grant funding to work with students on a project to install lighting sensors in rooms to turn lights off after the room is vacant for a period of time.

We are monitoring the positive impacts of these changes to assess the financial savings that will result both now and into the future. The district is also regularly reviewing our energy use and seeking opportunities to save on these costs.

Next month we will focus on the topic of grant funding to provide additional opportunities for our students.

Everything Old is New Again

Some programs are just too valuable to let them fade away. In past issues you may have read about the Tully Rotary Books for the World program to help children around the world benefit from age appropriate reading materials that might not otherwise be available. This year’s Tully Rotary President also set forth a charge to develop an extension to that program to have a local impact as well. The local project would provide books for children right here in Tully.

Several years ago, under the Literacy Across the Ages banner, a collaboration between the Tully Teachers’ Association, the Tully Elementary School PTO and the district provided books for two year olds and four year olds in the district. That old program will soon be new again with Tully Rotary joining the collaboration and a new program name—Books for the World: Tully Edition.

Watch in the March Knight Insight for details on how you can register your children to receive a free book on their second and fourth birthday through this community partnership. Together we will work to address literacy worldwide and right here in Tully.

Tully Students Present Art Show and Sale

The Tully High School Art Club will present a Fall into the Holidays Art Show and Sale on Saturday, November 19 from 10:00 am until 4 pm. The show and sale will be held at the Tully Train Station on Grove Street in the village of Tully and will feature more than 40 pieces of creative visual arts in the areas of drawing, painting, photography and wearable art all created by Tully students. Many of the works will be for sale to benefit the activities of the High School Art Club.

Admission to the show and sale is free. If you have questions in advance of the show, please contact the Tully Junior-Senior High School Office at 315-696-6235.

Happy Holidays

It seems hard to believe that we are once again in the flurry of the holiday season. Concerts, new sports seasons underway, shopping, decorations all contribute to the joy of the season. We begin our holiday season in our learning community by saying “G’day Mates” to our visitors from Australia.  Three teachers (and two spouses) will be living with families in our community and immersing themselves in our school and region for the week of December 4.

As our teachers and administrators visited their schools we were greeted warmly and openly into their schools and culture. If you get a chance to see them in school or in town, please welcome them in the same manner.

Both Deborah and I wish you all a safe and joyous holiday season!

International Link Program Brings Australian Educators to Tully

For several years, the Tully School District has been in a relationship with a coalition of schools in Education Queensland. This partnership originated through Tully’s Regional Professional School participation with SUNY Cortland and has resulted in two teachers and two administrators visiting and learning in the Australian education system over the past two years.

For the week of December 4, our Australian counterparts will reciprocate with three educators living in our community with families and learning our schools and cultures. In addition to the Tully schools, the visitors will visit the BOCES to learn about career readiness programs and opportunities for students there as well as some other schools in our region. They will also spend some time at SUNY Cortland to learn about our pre-service teacher preparation programs that send student teachers to practice in the Sunshine Coast area of Australia.

We look forward to our visitors time in our learning community and hope that you have an opportunity to welcome them to Central New York and Tully in particular. 

Sex Offender Notifications to End

The district received the following information from the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Department related to the notification of sex offenders residing in the district.

New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) now offers an alert system regarding level 2 & 3 registered sex offenders. This system allows you to sign up to receive free alerts via e-mail, text message or fax whenever a Level 2 or Level 3 sex offender listed on the DCJS website moves into or out of a community or location of interest to you. You can register with NY-Alert at the following website: http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/nsor/nyalert.htm Once you go to this web site, you will be instructed on how to register for this service.

In an effort to make the exchange of sex offender information more timely and efficient, the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office will no longer send e-mail notifications to school districts. This will be effective November 1, 2011. Once you sign up for NY-Alert, you will be notified immediately of offenders moving into or out of your area. This immediate notification will eliminate any delay in your district receiving information about an offender.

As always, information regarding level 1, 2 & 3 offenders can be obtained by calling the NYS Sex Offender Registry at 1-800-262-3257. Additional information regarding level 2 & 3 offenders may be accessed via the Internet at    criminaljustice.state.ny.us.   

As our district residents are aware the Tully School District includes communities in Cortland County as well as Onondaga County. The Cortland County Sheriff ended this notification practice several years ago.

Since we no longer receive the updates regarding the status of sex offenders within the district boundaries, the schools will be unable to provide this information to our families. 

A time to be thankful…

As we come into what promises to be one of the busiest times of the year, it is always good to think about being thankful. I have the privilege of working alongside an incredible staff here in the Tully learning community. No matter what role they play in the lives of our students, no matter what challenges lie before them, it is appropriate to give thanks for the wonderful environment in which our children grow and learn.

In discussion with colleagues throughout the region, it is clear that Tully is someplace special—not perfect but certainly special in how we are able to bring the focus back to our students. The season of Thanksgiving is one that reaches beyond ourselves and into the very heart of our community. Thank you all for being a part of what makes this place so special.

Testing Schedule Forces Tully Schools to Modify Current Calendar

In a testing schedule for the current year that was released in late August, the State Education Department placed mandatory state testing during the time period that about 10% of the schools in the state, including those in our area, had scheduled the annual April break.  Because of this late release and unexpected conflict with the testing schedule, the Board of Education was forced to modify the school calendar for the current year. The April break will now include Good Friday on April 6 and continue through the week of April 9. Classes will resume on Monday, April 16.

Information on this change and a link to the updated calendar has been on the school website for several weeks. You can always view the up to date calendar on the school website at http://tullyschools.org. Click on Forms/Documents at the top of the page then Parents/Community on the left. You will find a link to the calendar and other useful documents for families at that page.

We apologize for any inconvenience this change on the part of the State Education Department may cause the families of our district.

District to Add Auto Attendant to Phone System

As the finances of the district become more and more restrictive, steps continue to be put into place to make our operations more efficient. As was discussed in budget preparation sessions last year, an administrative support position was not replaced after a planned retirement. As the roles of that position are spread across other people in similar roles, the decision was made to implement an auto attendant system to assist everyone as they work to “do more with less.”

The system will be tied to the district telephone number of 315-696-6200 and will enable the caller to reach most destinations through one menu. The maximum number of menus anyone will need to navigate is two before reaching a destination.  All direct numbers will continue to function in their normal manner but the auto attendant system will provide a single telephone number for users to remember as they seek to make contact within the district.

The menu configuration was designed through consultations with school staff as well as telecommunications consultants. We plan to put the new auto-attendant system into full use upon our return from the Thanksgiving holiday break in late November.

Again the number to use for your single point of access to all areas of the district after the Thanksgiving holiday is 315-696-6200.