BOE: Submit technical questions in advance

PINE PLAINS — The Pine Plains Central School District Board of Education (BOE) begin its meeting at the Seymour Smith Intermediate Learning Center on Oct. 12 with the annual tour of the Seymour Smith building, which included a review of the masonry project that was conducted during the summer to repair and improve the drainage and septic systems, sidewalks and leaking roofs. The project was completed under budget.During the first public comment segment of the meeting, a member of the audience asked the board questions about the superintendent’s salary, the heating expenses in the bus garage, the extra money from the 2010-11 budget and the tax levy increase.The board was unable to give detailed responses to these questions due to the technical and specific nature of the questions. The board planned on researching the topics and said the questions would be addressed during the next scheduled board meeting on Oct. 19.During an interview, BOE President Bruce Kimball said he prefers if technical questions are submitted to the board a few days before each meeting so the board can have the necessary material ready and available in order to respond to the questions.At the meeting, the BOE also gave an update regarding the request from the Pine Plains Recreation Department for a reduction in the usage fees for the school fields and facilities.The school district business office has met with the recreation committee’s supervisor, Catherine Prentice, to discuss the costs and the programs offered by the recreation department. Under the current fee schedule, the town would be required to pay the district thousands of dollars for use of the school’s facilities. That high cost has the potential to halt the recreation programs.While under a contingency budget, the district is required to charge for all use of the school facilities if the use takes place outside of normal school operating hours.The business office was scheduled to present the school board with a legal and fair alternative fee schedule during the Oct. 19 BOE meeting.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less