School Board Recognition Week is Oct. 19-23, so we’d like to give a huge shout out of thanks for our very own school board members: Board President Don Marshall, Vice President David Versocki, John Blowers, Jennifer Longtin, Lisa Morse, Lakshmi Nagarajan, and Patrick Ziegler.
Did you know?
School board members take on one of the most important citizen responsibilities: overseeing the education of the community’s youth.
Boards of education guide their local school systems and ensure public schools are flexible and responsive to the needs of the community. School boards are comprised of volunteers, most of whom do not receive any compensation for their service. They are individuals within the community who dedicate their time to improving public education.
School board members statewide collectively oversee more than 2.4 million K-12 students and $85 billion in budgeted spending. With schoolchildren their primary focus, school board members:
- Create a shared vision for the future of education
- Set the direction of the school district to achieve the highest student performance
- Provide accountability for student achievement results
- Develop a budget and present it to the community • Align district resources to improve achievement
- Support a healthy school district culture in which to work and to learn
- And much more!
School Boards in New York
New York has 690 public school districts, each with its own board of education. Except for New York City and Yonkers, board members are publicly elected. The number of board members in these districts ranges from three to 13, with seven being the most common. New York also has 37 Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) that provide shared educational programs and services to school districts across the state. BOCES boards range in size from seven to 15 members, with nine being the most common. BOCES board members are elected by school board members in districts within their service area.