BOCES Employee Newsletter
March 2023
From Rebecca's Desk- Celebrate May- A Time to Honor Our Remarkable Staff
Dear BOCES Employees,
Get ready for a month of celebration! May is brimming with opportunities to honor the hard work and dedication of our incredible staff. Join us as we commemorate a series of national employee recognition days and weeks, such as School Principal Day on May 1, School Lunch Hero Day on May 5, Teacher Appreciation Week from May 8-12, School Nurse Day on May 10, National School Communicator Day on May 12 and Speech Pathologist Day on May 16. These special occasions remind us of the essential roles you all play in "enriching lives through education."
Whether you're directly interacting with students or working behind the scenes, each of you contributes to the success of our educational community. Your collective efforts, from providing nutrition, guidance, and healthcare to ensuring our districts have the technology, communication, and funding for a thriving learning environment, make a significant impact on the students in our community.
As the superintendent of BOCES, I am honored to convey my heartfelt gratitude and admiration to all of you. Witnessing the positive impact you have on our students' lives and your unwavering commitment to their success is truly inspiring.
In a few days, we'll be celebrating employees who have reached significant milestones with BOCES. These milestones remind us of the tremendous influence that experienced, passionate, and knowledgeable individuals have on our students, colleagues, and the organization's overall success. By honoring them, we express our appreciation and inspire others to pursue excellence and career longevity at BOCES. We will also be celebrating our retirees and announcing the prestigious Ron Dougherty Award winner during the ceremony.
Join us for our employee recognition ceremony on May 10 at 3 p.m. in the education center cafeteria, or catch the live stream if you can't attend in person.
As we move closer to the end of the school year, the pace of activities and events naturally increases. It's essential to stay engaged and maintain our focus during this busy time. Your dedication to staying present and involved not only helps ensure a successful conclusion to the academic year but also creates lasting memories for our students. Let's continue to work together, fostering a strong sense of community and collaboration, as we navigate through these final weeks of the school year, making the most of every opportunity to celebrate our students' achievements and growth.
Lastly, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for your unwavering commitment, passion, and dedication to the BOCES community. Your work transcends the classroom and shapes the lives of our students and the future of our society. You deserve to be celebrated not just during recognition days, but every day. Thank you for your invaluable service.
Sincerely,
Rebecca
This week we celebrate YOU!
Get ready for a fantastic Employee Recognition event this year! We've been listening to your suggestions and comments, and we're determined to make this celebration truly about you and your achievements. One of the top requests was the ability to choose your own milestone award. So, milestone recipients and this year's retirees, keep an eye on your inbox for an email containing a link to the award selection form. We're sure you'll be thrilled with this personalized touch!
We also heard your desire for a hybrid event, so we're going all-in by offering both an in-person ceremony and a live-streamed experience! Just click the link below to join the live stream during the event. And to make it even more exciting, we're hosting live raffles for employees, so don't miss out – tune in to see if you're one of the lucky winners!
Budget Season is Wrapping Up!
Budget season for our component districts is wrapping up! The state budget is expected in early May. With the full funding of foundation aid (the main unrestricted source of state aid), the districts in our region are finally receiving the promised amounts from nearly 15 years ago! Please take a few minutes to locate the budget information for the district you live, and cast your vote on Tuesday, May 16.
Steve Moschak Receives Cornerstone Award at Skills USA
Congratulations to Steve Moschak, Broome-Tioga BOCES assistant principal for CTE and key adviser for our SkillsUSA students, as he received a Cornerstone Award at the state SkillsUSA conference Wednesday, April 26 in Syracuse.
Moschak received the recognition for his unyielding support for SkillsUSA and our students who are a part of this terrific program.
Oak Tree/ Evertech Celebrate Baseball in Education Day
To help celebrate Baseball in Education Day, our Broome-Tioga BOCES Oak Tree/Evertech sophomore Connor McGurrin tossed out the first pitch at the Rumble Ponies game at Mirabito Stadium.
Connor, whose home district is Maine-Endwell, was joined on the field by BOCES teacher Mike Wharton and teacher aide Morgan MacBlane.
New Visions Health Team Wins Competition
New Visions teacher Maureen Malloy stated, “All of our students on both teams, UHS and Lourdes, worked extra hours with medical students on Zoom to prepare for this. They had sessions with medical students between competition rounds, and they learned how to suture with their own kits. After each round of competition, they received valuable professional feedback from physicians and fourth year medical students.”
BOCES Receives Gold Chapter Distinction
Long-time Broome-Tioga BOCES SkillsUSA adviser Angel Mead, alongside student Ava Stacy, represented our district as they were called to the stage at the SkillsUSA awards ceremony April 28 to receive the GOLD Chapter of Distinction recognition for our chapter.
A prepared SkillsUSA statement read, in part: “By participating in the SkillsUSA Chapter Excellence Program, Broome-Tioga BOCES has excelled, and for your chapter’s efforts and intentionality around ensuring that students receive Framework skill development, we at SkillsUSA want to honor and recognize your effort and achievement.”
Teacher Aide Wins Award from Windsor CSD
Congratulations to classroom Teacher Aide Cathy Congdon-Ciminera who recently received a recognition award from Windsor School District. The award thanks Cathy “for going above and beyond, helping other (Windsor) students in classes that she supports, as well as meeting/greeting students at the door in the morning, while waiting for our students to arrive from their buses.”
As you might remember last month in our facilities and planning message, we shared that we were developing a master plan with our architects and engineers. You might also remember taking a facilities priority survey. Where you prioritized the facilities issues that were most important to you.
The top three items were as follows:
- · Address heating/cooling/ventilation and air quality.
- · Renovate and reorganize interior spaces to support student educational needs.
- · Provide stronger/better security and safety systems.
In the survey your highest priority was to address heating/cooling/ventilation and air quality in our building, as such I want to assure you we have made a tremendous investments in our HVAC system and are currently working with our architects and engineers to overhaul the HVAC system in the 100, 200, and 300 wings. Our main hurdle right now is waiting for parts to move many of these jobs forward.
Another high priority item on the survey was to renovate and reorganize interior spaces to support student educational needs. Well, if you haven’t been up to the ISC in recent times I suggest you come up and take a look at what your Operations and Maintenance crew have been working on. The transition of the ISC is almost complete and our next mission is to renovate the Education Center to match.
We have a couple of projects in store for the Education Center in the coming weeks and our end goal is to bring some color and life into the building. One of the first projects we have is to overhaul the indoor playground and the main corridor.
Finally, you were loud and clear about the need for us to provide stronger/better security and safety systems, as such we are overhauling our automated door software adding locks, new cameras, and updated fire panels. Here at BOCES we take safety and security seriously and are making huge investments in that category to ensure the well being of our Broome-Tioga BOCES Community.
Furthermore, aside from the priority items we are addressing there is also a ton of infrastructural items you’ll se us working on. Such as parking lot repairs, a huge electrical project to update the Ed Center electrical infrastructure, parking lots at WLC, windows, ECT….
In closing I want you to know that your BOCES Operations and Maintenance team hear you loud and clear and together we strive to make BTBOCES the premier campus to match the premier staff and student population it serves every day.
Thank You.
Food Services Department Passes Five Audits
Budget Newsletter Season
May 12 is National School Communicator's Day! It's a day to recognize the incredibly valuable work of our team of school public relations professionals. If you see a member of our CPR Team this week, make sure to give them a shout-out for all of their hard work.
This past month, we have been busy working on creating school budget newsletters. We're happy to say that all of our budget newsletters have been printed and mailed. A big thank you to the team over at Document Services for helping us meet some really tight deadlines!
BOCES celebrates students earning the NYS Seal of Biliteracy
For the fifth year, Broome-Tioga BOCES Professional Learning & Innovation Center coordinated a regional consortium of school districts that offer the NYS Seal of Biliteracy (NYSSB) to their students. The NYS Seal of Biliteracy recognizes high school graduates who have demonstrated proficiency in English and one or more world languages. As per the NYS Education Department, “the intent of the NYSSB is to encourage the study of languages, to identify high school graduates with language and biliteracy skills for employers, to provide universities with additional information about applicants seeking admission and placement, to prepare a student with twenty-first-century skills, to recognize the value of language instruction, and to affirm the value of diversity in a multilingual society.” The regional consortium comes together each year to assist participating schools in the region in offering the seal to their students. In order for a student to demonstrate their proficiency, they must complete a culminating project which ends in a presentation to a panel of individuals who speak the language in which they are presenting.
On April 25, the students who had been working hard toward earning the seal came together at the BT BOCES Instructional Support Center for their final presentations. This culminating event is an exciting day for the students to showcase their skills and celebrate their success. The participating students were scheduled for 30 minutes where they present on the topic that they researched in the target language. Following the presentation, there is a question and answer session in the target language, where they dialogue with the panel as part of their evaluation. As a result of the culminating project presentations, there were 59 students across the ten participating districts who successfully earned the NYS Seal of Biliteracy this year. The school districts and numbers of students successfully earning the NYSSB are listed below. Congratulations to all of the students for their hard work and determination to demonstrate proficiency in more than one language!
Binghamton CSD- 1
Chenango Forks CSD- 4
Chenango Valley CSD- 2
Greene CSD- 2
Harpursville CSD- 1
Johnson City CSD- 10
Maine-Endwell CSD- 9
Sidney CSD- 1
Union-Endicott CSD- 9
Vestal CSD- 22
The success of the consortium is largely due to the engagement and leadership of all of the World Language teachers in the region, mentors, administrators, and BT BOCES team members who participate. We look forward to the growth of this program in the BT BOCES region and continue to encourage component districts to consider beginning or expanding the program in their school! In the upcoming months, we will have a promotional video released, highlighting the importance of the Seal and celebrating the work of the students in the BT BOCES region.
Additional information about the NYSSB can be found on the NYSED website here- https://www.nysed.gov/world-languages/new-york-state-seal-biliteracy-nyssb.
