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MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. – After hosting another successful Board President Saturday Conference earlier this month, Mount Vernon schools officials are set to host the next in the series on Saturday, Dec. 6, with a discussion about the district’s strategic plan.
Since taking over for Judith Johnson earlier this year, new Schools Superintendent Kenneth Hamilton has teamed with the Board of Education in an effort to regain the city’s trust and begin building ties between the community and the much-maligned school district.
In September, school board President Elias Gootzeit announced that the district would host a series of weekend conferences, once or twice a month, when members of the community and officials with the district could discuss the issues Mount Vernon faces. At the November conference, officials discussed the budget and the budget process with interested residents.
According to Gootzeit, the conferences provide the district with a unique opportunity to interact with the entire community to confer about what problems plague the city and how they can best go about fixing them.
“These conferences are an opportunity to engage our community and begin important conversations that will address some of the inequalities that students and residents of Mount Vernon experience in their day-to-day lives,” he said.
Saturday’s conference will focus on trustees setting goals for the district as a whole, and what the community believes those goals should be. The first conference in December will kick off at 11 a.m. in the Longfellow Elementary School auditorium. There will be a second, special meeting on Saturday, Dec. 20 regarding the district’s annual Funding Fairness Conference.
Other conferences are planned on the following schedule:
- Dec. 20: Second annual school district funding fairness conference.
- Jan. 17: Decriminalizing parenting behavior.
- Feb. 28: Should legal resident aliens have a right to vote in Mount Vernon school district elections?
- March 14: Dr. Seuss' Birthday: ‘Horton Hears a Who?’ Reader’s Theatre.
- April 18: Budget presentation.
- May 16: Budget presentation and school board debate, which will be chaired by the PTA Council.
- June 19: Who owns the public schools?
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