Special Community Visioning Issue
Optimizing Onteora: Harnessing Stakeholder Input
Thank you to the community members who participated in our Community Forums and Sharing Sessions for visioning the best future within our reach for the Onteora Central School District. It was so inspiring to see a cross-section of our stakeholders—including parents, teachers, staff, administrators, and local residents of all ages and interests—get together to collaborate on a vision for our future Central Campus in Boiceville.
These sessions, led by community member and trained facilitator Sharon Lipovsky, were designed to help us collect and understand our stakeholders’ unique perspectives on the Central Campus initiative. Ms. Lipovsky’s work started from a blank slate, with no sense of what is the right or wrong direction to which we move. Instead, she worked as a guide to help our community express their ideas with the goal of coming together—clear and connected—so we can get to where we are going with greater ease.
This process proved to be an effective way for the Onteora community to share their input about the future of the District. During the May sessions, participants shared their wishes and worries about the transition to a Central Campus. Then, during the June forums, participants formed small groups, focusing their attention on various issues and ideas that had been raised during the first sessions. Among the topics that were discussed were learning and classroom design, extracurriculars and athletics, equity and inclusion, campus design and infrastructure, culture and place, and wellness. Visual scribe Julia Lipovsky was also in attendance, and translated everyone’s input into an engaging drawing.
Key Insights
Overwhelmingly, the participants stressed placing students front and center in their own learning. In addition, they expressed the wish to bring beloved Woodstock and Phoenicia traditions and cultures to Bennett, and to allow them to take a new shape. Other ideas included having phone-free “hang spaces,” integrating learning and nature, bringing more community members into the classrooms to share their experiences, and so much more. Many participants echoed the need for more opportunities for earlier, deeper connections to be made among all the students, particularly during this transition period between those at Bennett and Woodstock Elementary Schools, a focus that we are already actively working to achieve. We already have begun planning grade-level field trips including students from both buildings, one example that we feel will help students be able to foster new and deeper connections.
VIEW A SUMMARY OF THE IDEAS AND INFORMATION SHARED HERE,
View the Visual Distillation of the ideas from the Community Forum here: Visual Distillation of Community Forums June 2024.
Looking Ahead
What now follows is the critical work of determining what’s possible and HOW we get there. As a reminder, the District plan is to undertake steps regarding the reconfiguration of grade levels, with an ultimate goal of locating all students on one central campus by 2028 (see an infographic of the 2024-2028 Roadmap to Central Campus here), with an acknowledgment and understanding that working toward this goal will require multiple steps and be guided by ongoing collaboration with the Onteora community.
Over the summer, the Board and Administration has begun consulting with the District’s architects and fiscal advisors regarding building conditions and capital project planning, including determining the design and scope of work that would be necessary for a centralized campus, budget planning, and conducting an environmental review. This work will be presented at Board meetings regularly, and once a proposal is ready, it will be presented to the community for approval. We hope to share this plan with you in the fall.
Our guiding focus in this vision process is to create the best learning and developmental experience that our school district can offer for all of our students. Students are at the center of all we do. We will lead with intention as we create our Central Campus, while doing our best to address community concerns. We appreciate your engagement and support through this transition. There will be many more opportunities for community input next year, as well. Stay tuned!
Shape the Fiscal Future of NYS Aid to Onteora CSD
Once again, we need the OCSD community’s participation in ensuring our District receives fair educational funding from New York State. A State-ordered study of the NYS Foundation Aid formula is underway and will inform potential changes to how the formula for education funding works. The study is being conducted by the Rockefeller Institute of Government, and as part of the process, the researchers want to hear from education stakeholders across New York State, including students, their parents and families, teachers, school staff, and administrators.
You can provide input on the Foundation Aid formula in two ways:
- You can submit written comments on the Rockefeller Institute website from now through Friday, September 6, 2024, at 11:59 pm (EST).
- You can register to speak at a public hearing. The closest to us are happening on August 8 in Laurens (Central New York) and August 14 in Guilderland (Capital Region).
It is vitally important that members of small communities, such as Onteora, have their voices heard about the need for a fair and phased-in approach to any proposed changes in the State Aid formula. Any drastic reductions to the level of funding could be catastrophic for students across the State if their school boards are forced to make budget reductions in response to a sudden loss of State support.
You can learn more about how Foundation Aid supports us and the impact changes to the formula could have on our students by visiting our website.
Board Briefs is a monthly email update on the important work being done by the Board of Education and the district. It is distributed to our faculty, staff, families, and those community members who have signed up to receive these updates. If you know community members who are interested in being more informed about issues facing Onteora, please consider forwarding this email to them. They can sign up to receive Board Briefs directly on this page.