At last night's Board of Education meeting, my fellow Board of Education Members were met with three areas of great news.  The first being that our SPECIALIZED SUMMER PROGRAMS will increase graduation rates and students remaining in school instead of dropping out.  All points lead to an upswing as the critical services are provided for a large number of children at risk.  One excellent point that was made is that children who stay in school for the summer do indeed maintain more knowledge and continue to progress.  Also students were being identified earlier to insure proper intervention.  Since drop out rates are now divised through a "new and uninproved" formula...it is imperative that we focus on early intervention.

Our New High School Principle, Chris Daley, meets with 10 High Risk Students each and every week and so do our High School Counselors.  It has been proven that the individual attention given to a student that is not achieving can actually turn that student around 360 degrees and provide for continued confidence as they progress through High School.

That brings us to our second piece of Good News.  I have never been one to profess great relevance in Business First's Ratings of schools.  This was largely due to a veiled process and a cumbersome explanation form.  Things do change however, and now there is a greater explanation of how ratings are compiled and how schools end up with the compiled number that they do.  OUT OF 97 School Districts in Western New York Batavia City Schools Ranked 38th.  Now I realize that is not TOP 10, but it is our highest ranking ever in the ratings history and shows that we are going in the right direction.  It also proves that we are ONE OF THE TOP CITY SCHOOL DISTRICTS in NEW YORK STATE. 

Business First also produced six categories and benchmarks on how the list was created.  In TWO AREAS Batavia is in the TOP 10 out of 97.  We tied for 7th as one of Western New Yorks Over Achieving School Districts.  This means that in spite of poor socio-economic indicators and financial considerations, our students do extremely well.  In fact one of our students place in the TOP 25 or Western New York and another placed in the 25 Alternates list.  Economic indicators such as the free and reduced lunch percentage of students are used to determine this benchmark.

In the are of Student Access, we ranked SECOND out of all 97 Schools in Western New York.  This is exciting, because it once again shows that we are going in the right direction by making our teachers and professionals more apt to work with students on a one-to-one basis.  The ability to better serve our students while increasing overall success is the NUMBER ONE GOAL of the City of Batavia School District.

The THIRD PIECE OF GOOD NEWS is that YOUR SCHOOL TAX RATES are going DOWN.   There is approximately a 4.4% decrease in the tax rate or on average a $1.10 per thousand reduction.  As late as last night, another $47000 was found in excess and it was returned to the taxpayers to lower the current school tax rate.  This is indeed good news from the standpoint of trying to control the escalating tax issues that this area has and continues to face.  More work in this area has to be done but it is a start.

Comment me with any questions and I will try to answer them.  Also, I am always here to answer your concerns either via this blog or privately.