Tony Fletcher, Onteora School Board Vice-President

Having served my three-year term since being elected by the community in 2009, the last year-plus as Vice President, I am seeking your vote for re-election to the Onteora School Board on TUESDAY MAY 15th, from 2-9pm, at your town Elementary School, because I believe in the following:

1) Accountability. I was one of the six board members (out of seven) who supported the specific reconfiguration model for our elementary schools that will go into effect in September. I desire to see this model succeed, and I am willing to hold both myself as an individual Trustee, and the Superintendent of Schools as the Board’s sole direct employee, accountable to that end. I know that the reconfiguration makes significant short-term demands on our elementary parents which, being one such parent, I have never attempted to underplay; to that end, I am thrilled that the Administration was able to provide an alternate transportation model for Grades 4-6, which the Board has now approved, and only regret that this option was not on the table back in January. (These grades will now have their own busing and stay on the later, Elementary schedule.)

The reconfiguration provides a positive long-term solution for many of the District’s perceived problems. It allows us to improve educational opportunities, as parents have long been demanding, via the establishment of Early Literacy Centered Environments at the Woodstock and Phoenicia K-3 Elementary schools, and Project Based Learning at the Bennett Grades 4-6 School. It addresses the years of declining enrollment (which have thankfully now bottomed out) by reducing our number of classes per grade. In turn, this has allowed us to reduce the budget for the first time in memory, and with it present a 0% tax levy increase at a time when the recession and years of hefty tax increases still threaten the finances of many home-owners. And it has kept all three Elementary schools open, great news for a District spanning almost 300 square miles.

2) Continuity. After years of rapid turn-over, the Onteora School Board has become settled in recent years, allowing business to be conducted in a civil and productive manner. The hiring of a new Superintendent dedicated to the education and welfare of all our students has been a major step in the right direction. Beyond the configuration of the District, the School Board’s responsibilities extend from Pre-Kindergarten to Graduation, from the annual Budget to Policy. Over my three years’ volunteer service (the role is entirely unpaid), as well as District Board and committee meetings and countless school events, I have chosen to attend various conferences across the State, been a regular presence with the Ulster County School Boards Association, championed public education in letters to regional newspapers and magazines, and sat down with our State politicians to ensure they understand our needs. I greatly enjoy contributing – positively I hope – to the culture and success of the Onteora School District, and to that of public education in New York State in general. I would like to continue in that role, as does Laurie Osmond, my fellow Trustee who is also seeking re-election, and I believe our proven commitment and what is now considerable experience is an asset for the District as we move forward.

3) Community. My social, shopping and sporting time is divided almost equally across the entire District; I have become familiar with most of our 300 square miles. I do not get embroiled in the town politics that have proven such a distraction to the District over the years. Unlike the two challengers for the School Board seats currently held by myself and Laurie Osmond, I have never called for the closure of another child’s school over that of my own; I do not think that is a positive way to represent a District as an elected official. I believe in the big picture of the Onteora School District. We have considerable work to do, especially to ensure the successful transition into the new model in September. But we are absolutely on the right path. I would appreciate your support at the Budget Vote and election on May 15, 2-9pm at your town Elementary school, so that we can continue down that path.

Sincerely,

Tony Fletcher
tfletcherboe@ijamming.net
http://www.facebook.com/FletcherOsmond2012

Tony Fletcher is a professional author with several music biographies to his name, a keen runner with many marathons under his belt, and an amateur musician who can occasionally be seen playing in the group the Catskill 45s. He has two children in the Onteora School District. He joined the School Board in 2009, was elected Vice-President in 2011, and also serves on the Health and Wellness Committee. A strong supporter of public education, he considers himself an advocate for children across the entire District, working to ensure that they get the most thorough and creative education possible within budgetary constraints. His biography of the band The Smiths, “A Light That Never Goes Out,” is being published by Crown in September 2012.

FletcherOsmond2012 Vote Tony Fletcher and Laurie Osmond, ballot lines 1 & 4,Tues May 15, 2-9pm, at your town elementary…

Phoenicia Elementary School

An online poll has been created to gauge area opinion about the future of our elementary school education. It is important to maintain educational quality while preserving our tax base- a delicate balance. If Onteora District School Board closes the Phoenicia School, we will see a deterioration in the tax base of the Town of Shandaken and ultimately, in the district as a whole. If Phoenicia remains open, the District can accommodate growth and maintain smaller (22 kids per class as opposed to 27) class sizes in the important K-3 grades. The Elementary Schools will also have the resources to implement a more progressive educational plan involving parents as co-educators. By investing in quality education for our youngest children, our District will serve as a magnet for families looking to move to the area. Please vote and let us know where you stand! Local resident Nick Alba writes: “We’ve been hearing threats about closing the Phoenicia School for so many years that many of us are not taking this seriously. However, at this point, the possibility is very real and a decision by the School Board may be imminent. If we want to keep the Phoenicia School open, actually improve the quality of education for our children and save tax dollars, we must tell the School Board that we support the “bookends plan”. This is the only plan on the table that will allow the Phoenicia School to remain open. Our School Board will be meeting at the Phoenicia School next Tues, Jan 24th, an 6:45PM”

Click here to vote: ON LINE POLL

Travel Maven Peter Greenberg interviews Emerson's Chef Curt Robair for his next broadcast

Worldwide Radio Travel Guru Peter Greenberg Explores the Catskills
New York, N.Y. – January 10, 2012 The Catskills Park Resource Foundation (CPR) is attracting more attention and tourists to the region with its latest visitor, Worldwide Radio host Peter Greenberg.  Mr. Greenberg arrived Tues, January 10, 2012 and interviewed tourism representatives of the Catskills at The Emerson Resort and Spa in Mount Tremper.

Interview guests included: Steve Turk, proprietor, Rocking Horse Dude Ranch, Dean Gitter; Founder of Catskill Park Resource Foundation (CPR), Kimberly Richmond; Founder and Owner of Runaway Bride Destination Weddings, Devin and Mary Beth Mills, owners of the Peekamoose Restaurant, Tony Lanza; Superintendent, The Belleayre Ski Center and Richard Heppner, Woodstock Town Historian.

“Catskill Park Resource Foundation’s core mission is to promote the Catskills to increase tourism that will aid with the post Hurricane Irene recovery,” said Dean Gitter, founder of Catskill Park Resource Foundation. “We welcome Peter Greenberg and his three million listeners with open arms. The Catskills is a great place any time of year, but truly spectacular in the winter with its superb skiing facilities. We look forward to welcoming Peter’s audience in person this season. We are open for business.”

“I was honored to be invited to the Catskills, which was my backyard for many years growing up in New York City. The Catskills has so much to offer and is a hidden gem that deserves to sparkle once again,” said radio host Peter Greenberg.

Known as one of the most well-respected and recognized travel news journalists in the world, Peter Greenberg’s radio show is a national syndicated radio travel show that currently has 425 affiliates around the country that carry the show at various times over each weekend. The Catskill piece will air on Saturday, January 21, from 10-1pm ET. You can also listen to the stream online as well, via http://www.petergreenberg.com/ (10-1pm ET) or by podcast download.
Affiliate highlights include: WNYM 970 AM – New York, KLAA 830 AM – Los Angeles, WCMY 1430 AM – Chicago, IL, KWBC 1550 AM – Houston, TX, CKLW 800 AM – Detroit, MI
WLKF 1430 AM – Tampa, Fl

*Gov Cuomo’s recent speech about the State of Education 2011-2012 can be seen here: http://bit.ly/xDmP5G

There is an important school board meeting Tues 1/10 6pm at Bennett Elementary and it is critical that Phoenicians attend and speak up in order for your point of view to be on the record. There are three plans on the table to reconfigure the elementary schools in the Onteora district in order to improve services and save money. All three save at least 2 million dollars. But the one that will negatively impact us is the choice that involves closing Phoenicia Elementary. Phoenicia Shopkeepers depend on the business generated by the school. If the Phoenicia School is shut down, a significant percentage of local business will be gone. Our small shopkeepers are the backbone of this rural economy and if Phoenicia businesses suffer or atrophy, the value of the real estate in our area will stagnate and this can have a negative impact on the tax base for the entire Onteora School district for years to come. If the alternative is to designate the elementary schools at Phoenicia and Woodstock and make Bennett the middle school, with a minimum of job losses and 2 million in savings, then that would be the good sense thing to do, right? Especially since this year’s kindergarten class at Phoenicia Elementary is the largest ever! Sadly, some neighbors in Olive don’t agree and have begun a hostile campaign against our town and advocating loudly to shutter our School. Please let your voice be heard! Even if you say one sentence, it’s critical that we speak up at the meeting so the Board can understand that a loud minority does not speak for all of us! Please read below the letter from the School Superintendent outlining the 3 choices so you can understand the current issue and please join us tomorrow night at 6pm at the Bennett School.

Dear Community Members:
 
This fall, as Superintendent of Schools, I have been coming out to different community forums, sometimes alone and sometimes with Board of Education members, to share information about the Onteora Central School District.  To summarize, the Onteora Central School District, like many other school districts in rural New York, is experiencing the challenges of increasing State mandates at a time of reduced State resources, while at the same time wanting to improve student learning and retain the cherished qualities of the District.
 
To meet the aforementioned goals, the Board of Education is considering plans to reconfigure and consolidate our educational programs, services, and schools to meet the challenges of decreasing financial resources from the State and Federal governments along with a decreasing student enrollment. Currently three models are being considered.
 
The first two models focus on clustering students based on grade levels to allow for a greater focus on student learning and professional staff development and collaboration.  These models are being proposed because they consolidate services and, therefore, save the District money, while enhancing the educational program for students. 
 
The first model is to keep all three schools open, with both Phoenicia and Woodstock educating all students in smaller K-3 primary schools and Bennett educating students in an intermediate school for students in grades 4-6.  The vision for this model is to have two small primary schools that would serve as early literacy centers with a focus on ensuring each student successfully completing school at grade three with being competent in their reading, writing, math, and learning skills.  Parent workshops focusing on child development and fostering learning would be offered to round out the curriculum.  Bennett Elementary would focus on the intermediate curriculum through a commitment to project-based learning with an emphasis on the humanities and the integration of the arts to enrich and challenge all students.  Parents would be offered workshops to teach them about the new Common Core Learning Standards and how to help their children.  This model could potentially save the district two million dollars annually based on staffing reductions.
 
A second model, similar to the first model, would make Woodstock Elementary School the only primary school, and Bennett would be the only intermediate school.  This model would have all of the advantages stated above, but would result in a larger primary school and the loss of a local community elementary school; also some primary students  would need to travel from the far western part of the district to attend Woodstock.  Because this model further reduces staffing and closes a school building, the savings would be approximately closer to three million dollars annually. 
 
The third model would make both Bennett and Woodstock the only two K-6 schools.  Students from Phoenicia would be reassigned to Bennett and Woodstock, depending on the location of their residence; some Bennett children may also need to attend Woodstock.  This model saves approximately two million dollars annually because it closes a school and consolidates some services.  This model would probably be easiest to implement, however, it would be mostly a financial decision as it would not contribute to enhancing the educational program.

In summary, the Onteora Central School District will being going through major changes for the start of the 2012-13 school year.  All three plans call for changes, transitions, and adjustments by the children, families, communities, and staff. The Board of Education is committed to making the best decision for the future of the children and our school district community.  On behalf of the Board of Education and myself, we encourage you to attend our Board of Education meetings; the next one is January 10th and then January 24th.  Please check our district website and Facebook to stay connected.
 
Sincerely,
 
Phyllis McGill
Superintendent of Schools

*This community event is sponsored by Ulster Savings Bank, SHARP and the Emerson

Internet Fundraising and the Arts
The T.M.I. Project out of Rosendale NY facilitates non-fiction writing and performance of personal monologues and has just concluded its fundraising drive gathering $20,000 towards future programming, overhead and outreach. This organization works on a shoe-string budget and thanks to a campaign fueled by Facebook, Twitter, email and hosted by Kickstarter.com, they were able to raise enough money to reach out to underserved communities. The Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice was able to raise enough money via Pledgethis.com to fund a full live orchestra for their 2011 production of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. The organizers of the festival publicized their fund drive through a dedicated twitter account (@voicefest), a blog (phoeniciavoicefest.com) and 2 facebook pages: a mobile profile that acted as a “friend” and the other was a standard static fan page. A local film director, Laurent Rejto, is currently funding his short film, Persephone starring Oscar winner Melissa Leo and Gilles Malkine, through indiegogo.com. This project is a modern day re-telling of the ancient greek myth of Persephone that sought to explain the changing of the seasons. Although this project is a labor of love that depends on volunteers, there are still many costs to meet in order to produce and finish the film. Their donation page can be found here: http://indiegogo.com/Persephone Depending on the level of sponsorship, various “perks” are offered such as a satirical CD by some of the cast members, to T-shirts, signed cast photos to actually being cast as an extra in the movie and recieve an associate producer credit!

Animal Rescue and Disaster Recovery Fundraising with the Internet
After the devastation of Hurricane Irene, local organizations such as the Phoenicia Rotary, Timberland Camp, and Friends of RSK Farm have been using a combination of Facebook, Twitter, email, and webblogging to raise money to help their Catskills Mountain communities recover from the storm floods. An estimated $150,000 was raised in just a few weeks and distributed among the affected mountain towns. Two local gourmet food eateries, Blue Mountain Bistro-To-Go and Peekamoose Restaurant have sponsored fund drives and Peekamoose is donating proceeds from their Thanksgiving dinner to the Bob Kiley who lost his farm’s topsoil to Irene floods. Online donations to the  RSK Farm campaign can still be made securely onnline at http://help-the-farm.org . Crow Dog Farm, of Lexington NY recently won a Pepsi Refresh grant to start a horse rescue operation. Alicia Schaefer used a concentrated Twitter campaign to garner enough votes to earn the seed money to purchase horses earmarked for slaughter from auction and rehabilitate them in safety at her family farm in Lexington, NY.

Communities Come Together

"One Voice For Laos" Teens Sponsor a 5K Run to Raise Money for a Laotian Orphanage

Local teens from Woodstock, Shandaken, Olive, Saugerties and Kingston are working together to raise money for an orphanage in Laos. “One Voice for Laos” has many events planned throughout the year from 5k runs, to a booth at the Woodstock Flea Market, to “teen-only” dances.  Publicity for their events are done through constant contact emails, newsletters, facebook events and an ongoing blog. They plan to travel to Laos later in the year to donate 2 weeks of work and any  monies raised will help offset their costs of travel and materials.  The next One Voice for Laos event is a dance at the Colony Cafe Nov 12 from 6-10pm.
Whether to help the arts or animals or communities in crisis, the internet has become an important fundraising tool for small organizations. The outreach of the web is worldwide and has made it easier for artists, causes, and volunteers to broaden their audience and raise money to make miracles happen.

Fine Art by regional artists including Jenny Nelson, Polly Law, Richard Edelman, Loel Barr, Rita Schwab, Christie Scheele, Andrea Cabane, Dave Channon, Sylvia Weinberg. many more… offered in a silent auction, purchased at retail value at Cabane Studios and Gallery, to be closed out at 7:45pm. Giclee prints accepted, suggested retail value of artwork $500 and under (this is a no-minimum bid auction).
*Crafts, services, gifts, and anything else you can think of can be bid on or purchased at retail price on the spot at Mama’s Boy, 1-6pm.

*Benefit Comedy Performance of “Fully Committed” from 3-4pm at the Shandaken Theatrical Society,

*Receptions 4:30-6pm at Mama’s Boy, 6-8pm at Cabane Studios.

Donations are still being accepted! Drop off the weekends of October 1-2 & 8-9 and Friday, Oct. 14, noon-4pm at Cabane Studios, 38 Main Street, Phoenicia.