Quality EDUCATION  -  Fiscal Responsibility  -  ACCOUNTABILITY

THE ISSUES  

Quality results focused education

• Quality Education is the cornerstone of any community - especially ours.
  I believe in and will be a strong advocate of delivering
  a superior academic education to Shenendehowa students.

• I will focus on the classroom
  Resources need to be focused on the classroom.  We need to have our priorities in order and with our scarce resources we need to not impact the classroom.  Our Teachers and Textbooks will be my top priority when it comes to allocating resources.

Open Transparent budgeting process

• Open Online School District Checkbook Register
  I support a totally transparent budgeting process which must start with a full and transparent accounting of expenditures.  I am proposing and fully support a Open Online School District Checkbook.  New York City Schools became the first in New York State to do this but there are numerous school districts both small and large throughout the nation.  This proposal would make all non personnel related expenditures transaction by transaction available for public review and scrutiny.
  
• Budgets that put priorities on the classroom
  We need to have a full accounting of how and what the spending is.  This is why I am first proposing the Open Checkbook Register.  The best way to drive out waste, fraud and abuses is to put sunshine on the entire spending and budgeting process.
  
• Benchmarking best practices with other high performing school districts.
  In the business world they call it stealing shamelessly.  Smart leaders not only create vision but also know when other ideas exist that work why try to reinvent the wheel.
  

Ethical and Accountable School Board

• I will propose the strongest ethics code for School Boards in New York State
  Ethics and Accountability start with me.  I along with the rest of the School Board members must have no conflicts of interest or even an appearance of a potential conflict.  I will from day 1 put forth a model ethics code for our board to live by.
  
• I will work to hold the School District Administration accountable for our Quality of Education in a fiscally responsible manner.
  We must never compromise on the reason we have schools - to educate our children.  Student to Teacher ratios and educational performance are key pillars I will judge every budget on.  Any excess, inefficiency or non educational costs must be judged and expended very judiciously.  I am committed to doing this from day 1.

Leveraging our central campus

• We must take advantage of our central campus, the attached buildings and technology.
  NY State can not meet its commitment to fund our schools now and into the foreseeable future.  We must control our own destiny and not at the expense of the residential taxpayer.  I will challenge our administration to think out of the box to leverage administrative staff needs, duplication of services and smarter ways to share non classroom resources especially in our attached schools.  I am prepared to take on this challenge.
  
• We must strive to become paperless in as many areas as possible.
  Not only is it environmentally responsible but it drives out administrative overhead costs.  Paperless ways to do as many district functions as possible will allow us to put the resources where they are truly needed - In the classroom.

 

 

 

 

 

Rebecca Telesh discusses the issues with a young couple in Clifton Park

Additional Information:

• There are over 821 school districts in 37 states that post their checkbook register online.

• The current administration claims they are transparent, but if it takes you 4 to 5 hours on line or you need to do a Freedom of Information request then it is not transparent.

• Read more about checkbook Registers at Peyton Wolcott's Education website http://www.peytonwolcott.com/

• See what some other school districts are doing:

  • Miami Dade Schools (FL)

  • Allen Park (MI)

  • Forsan ISD (TX)

 

 

 

 

 

• Rebecca has signed an ethics pledge and will be making it public on her website before the
  election.

• Ethics are needed to protect from any conflicts of interest.

• School Board members and their families should never reap any financial gain - direct or indirect as a result of their service.

• Ethics policies and codes are common place in publicly traded companies and government boards   and instill trust and accountability with the public.

 

 

 

• NY State is broke.  They delayed not only school district payments but also personal income tax payments.  The state has no long term solution to the revenue problem

• We have all but Okte and Chango elementary schools located at or adjacent to the main Shenendehowa Campus.

• Many of our schools have duplicate ancillary services and facilities although the buildings in many scenarios are attached.