Elementary Restructuring Updates

April 17, 2024

• A lease for the North Broad Street Elementary School building is in place and was approved at the BOE meeting on April 16, 2024. Madison-Oneida BOCES is leasing the entire building. The Community Cupboard currently housed in the basement of North Broad Street Elementary School will be housed in a space at another district-owned building. Community Liaisons will share logistics and how families and community members can access this.

• Elementary teachers are all placed for the next school year. Teachers have started meeting with principals and in grade-band groups.

• Elementary principals are scheduling days in May and June for students to meet together at the school they will be assigned to for the 2024-2025 school year.

• Our routing company, Traversa, spent two days in the District in early April working on routing all students to grade-banded schools for next year. They will be back in late April — early May to fine-tune this process. The goal is to reduce average bus ride times for students wherever possible. In June, bus drivers will practice the new runs.

• District Office staff met with YMCA leadership. We are writing a grant that will cover all costs of before- and after-school care at our three elementary schools. The grant was due this week, and we are confident we will receive it.

Superintendent’s Report

February 13, 2024

• Format for Restructuring:

  We will have 3 elementary schools next year:

• Willard Prior: Grades Pre-K, K & 1. Mrs. Penny Houser will be the Principal.
• Seneca Street: Grades 2 & 3. Mr. Eric Coriale will be the Principal.
• Durhamville: Grades 4 & 5. Mrs. Megan Rose will be the Principal.

• Teacher Movement: The District has had regular meetings with the Oneida Teacher’s Union. We are working together to chart the smoothest path forward for teacher movement. OTA is meeting with their members today.

• Non-Instructional Staff Movement: I have had initial meetings with the OSEU regarding the movement of Aides, Custodians and Secretaries. We are working on what that will look like.

• Transportation: We have met with our routing company, Traversa. We will have Traversa in District in the coming month to work on routing our PreK-5 students from across the District to the 3 schools. We have asked Traversa to outline how many routes we need and how we can reduce routes times from an average of 60 minutes or more to 45 minutes or less.

• Before & After School Care: The District is exploring options for providing before and after school care to elementary families at limited or no cost to families. We are just starting to look at costs and will hopefully be able to offer this resource in some form to our families.

• Repurposing of North Broad: We’ve met twice with a local education organization who has interest in leasing North Broad. We are awaiting a formal contract and will then be able to announce this.