Meeting of the Board of Regents | November 2010

Summary
 

Issue for Discussion

Will the Board of Regents approve recommendations for increasing the role of the District Superintendent and BOCES as Regional Leader?

Reason(s) for Consideration

Review of Policy.

Proposed Handling

This item will come before the P-12 Education Committee for discussion at the November 2010 meeting.

Background Information

Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) help increase the effective and efficient delivery of educational services in New York State through sharing among school districts. The District Superintendent is both chief executive of the BOCES and the Commissioner's representative in the field to promote education reforms and solve local problems. Increasingly the District Superintendent is being asked to serve as Regional Leader as well as Regional Service Provider.  Recommendations for increasing the role of the District Superintendent and BOCES as Regional Leader include:

• Using BOCES-led panels to study the restructuring of Building Aid. 
• Extend the existing BOCES capacity to provide all BOCES services available to school districts to charter schools as well.
• Encourage BOCES participation in regional transportation pilots required by the laws of 2010 to identify legislative and other obstacles in implementing regional pupil transportation.
• Provide authority for BOCES to contract with agencies that educate children under the care of the Office of Children and Family Services to provide special education related services to children that need them.
• Advocate for the enactment of the legislative proposal to allow BOCES to do claims auditing for component school districts as part of the Central Business Office shared service.

Provide authority for BOCES to provide services to the Big Four city school districts (Yonkers, Rochester, Syracuse and Buffalo).  These city districts should be given the authority to contract with a neighboring BOCES in critical service areas where BOCES’ capacity is greater than that of the respective city and to receive aid for those services. A corresponding increase in aid should be provided to the New York City school district to allow it to fund similar programs within the city district without BOCES.  Such regional services can include:

Next Steps

            Staff will be directed to develop legislative proposals or implement the recommendations as noted. These will be included in the 2011 Department Legislative Agenda and the Regents 2011-12 proposal on State aid to school districts as appropriate.