School Board Announces Public Forum Monday (6/29) @ 8:00 PM in HS Cafeteria

First Letter from the School Board (6/29), reproduced below.
The Hastings Alliance for Affordable Taxes doesn’t endorse the thinking set forth in the School Board’s letter. This letter is published because we want to give community members all relevant information, even when we don’t agree with the perspective.

HASTINGS-ON-HUDSON U F S D
Message sent – 6/26/2009
School Board Meeting – Monday, June 29th at 8pm
Dear Hastings Community Members,

A week ago the School Board ignited a controversy when we announced
the promotion of our Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Personnel
(CIP) to Assistant Superintendent. Our intent was to strengthen the
administrative team, which will have four new members this coming
year, and enable them to lead the District forward. Instead we angered
many residents and confused others. We have read the petition signed
by many, many residents demanding a reconsideration of the decision.
We have also received numerous calls and emails both for and against
the decision. While we have issued some early responses, we need to
take the time now to acknowledge what went wrong and what needs to be
done to move forward.

As a Board, we think the CIP position has strong merits and answers a
real need, which was identified in the community’s development of the
Strategic Plan. However, our understanding of the position’s benefits
and the process we used to make the promotion decision needed to be
much more open so that residents could share their opinions. Through
our work on the budget this year with the community and the Citizens
Budget Advisory Committee, we had achieved an unprecedented level of
transparency for this District. However, through our lack of
interaction with the community on this promotion, we have seriously
damaged the trust we built during the budget process. We must now work
to rebuild the community’s trust in us and ask you to join us in that
effort.

We are especially sorry and concerned that this decision came across
as insensitive to the economic hardship the community is facing. In
our deliberations, we looked long and hard at the budget impact of
this move and consciously scaled back on other administrative costs to
make sure the overall administrative budget would stay flat. However,
we understand that any decision to grant a raise and not pass on a
savings to the community should be clearly explained.

In order to give all community members a chance to discuss these
issues and share their opinions, we are scheduling a Board meeting for
Monday, June 29 at 8 p.m. in the Farragut Complex Cafeteria.

We apologize for the tight timeframe but hope you will join us if you
are available. The meeting will be videotaped and available later for
viewing online and on Channel 77.

Later today we will be sending out another broadcast email with more
detailed information on our reasoning for this promotion. At the
meeting on Monday, we will review all the points made and discuss your
concerns and questions. For those who cannot join us and have specific
questions you want the Board to respond to at the meeting, please
forward them via email or phone to either Gabrielle Lesser or Eileen
Baecher so that we can include them in our public discussion (see
contact info below).

Thank you,

Hastings-on-Hudson Board of Education

Eric Sweeting, President
Gabrielle Lesser, Vice President – gablesser@mac.com – cell: 914-318-0783
Eileen Baecher – ebboard@verizon.net – cell: 914-275-7318
Caryn Campbell
Lindsey Hicks
Donna Laing
Jodie Meyer

Posted by Jane Cody

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