Board wary of class/activity format switch

PINE PLAINS — The Pine Plains Central School District’s Board of Education May 16 split on whether or not Stissing Mountain High School’s theater arts program should become a class.

John Howe, Stissing Mountain’s principal, as well as theater arts director Sarah Combs, recently presented the idea to the board.

The program is currently an extracurricular activity. It puts on one production per year at the high school.

"I think it’s a valuable program," board President Helene McQuade said. "It seems like an asset to the district. [The class] would lead students through the process on how to put on a production."

Board Vice-President Bruce Kimball said he had some issues with Howe and Combs’ presentation.

"It seemed like they were making it up as you’re going along," he said. "I don’t understand why it wasn’t brought up earlier in the year."

The Pine Plains Central School District’s 2007-2008 fiscal plan, which was approved by voters last Tuesday, has been described as a "maintenance budget."

Some employees, mostly in the field of interscholastic athletics, requested that new sports be introduced in the district.

However, the district couldn’t entertain their requests because of its efforts to keep the budget-to-budget increase, as well as the tax levy, down.

"We cut money from the athletic budget," Kimball noted. "It’s not fair [to add the class] when we asked everybody to keep their budgets in line. I have a problem with it for all of those reasons. It’s very shallow what we were presented."

Sara Doar, board member, disagreed. She said the presentation was "quite detailed" and "had more substance than other things that have come across our table."

She also said the idea is consistent with the Board of Education’s goals, particularly to enrich the curriculum and offer more electives.

"I’d like to see a more in-depth presentation and have some more of the questions we asked ... answered," said Mary Zayas, board member.

However, Zayas did say the class proposed and others like it have been proven to encourage more students to stay with the district until they graduate.

"They stay with us because there’s more opportunities," she said, referring to recently introduced elective classes, such as anthropology.

Board member Maureen Hebert said she’s in favor of providing more electives. However, she’s wary of this particular one because an after-school activity has never been changed into a class in the district before.

"I have a problem with presenting an independent type of curriculum that has no model," said Hebert, who also wondered exactly how students will be graded if Howe and Combs’ proposition comes to fruition. "It was a little vague on how it would equal a class. I love the idea of having an extra class, but combining it with an extracurricular activity is spooky."

"I’m happy to go back to [Howe] and share the perspectives you shared tonight. We’ll take it back to the drawing board," said Linda Kaumeyer, the district’s superintendent of schools.