The email came in from Dr. Matthew Landahl, Superintendent of the Beacon City School District, at 10:24 pm, just hours after polling had closed and the votes were counted. He was announcing the passing of the BCSD budget and additional buses for kids in the district. We asked him for his highlights of the budget, in a Cliffs Notes fashion. You can read the 2019/2020 budget presentation in full here.

Proposition 1 - The Budget

Beacon City School District 2019 Vote Results:

Proposition 1 Budget
Yes- 749
No-193
Total- 942

Proposition 2 Buses

Yes 727
No- 243
Total- 970

Proposition 3- Capital Transfer

Yes- 740
No- 232
Total- 972

Board Election
Meredith Heuer-814
Michael Rutkoske- 786
Antony Tseng- 678

Highlights Include:

• Additional Class Size Reduction: Teaching position at the elementary level. “We have added seven of these positions the previous two years,” says the superintendent.

• Music: Continuation of the currently grant-funded fourth-grade instrumental music program with district funding of the band teacher position. A Little Beacon Blog wrote about that here when it started.

• Business: Addition of Business teacher position at the high school to begin a Business education program for high school students.

• Art + Computers: Addition of a half-time Art teacher position at the high school to begin some digital design programming.

• Social Worker: Addition of a full-time Social Worker position at the high school to complement the social worker and psychologist already there. “We are hoping to hire someone with expertise in drug and alcohol counseling. The position would also work with middle-school students,” said the Superintendent.

• Professional Development: Greatly expanded professional development for teachers.

• 1:1 Chromebook Initiative at the high school for all students.

• Interactive Whiteboards in all high school classes.

• Farming and Food: Expanded partnership with Common Ground Farm and continued partnership with Hudson Valley Seed.

• School Garden at Rombout Middle School.

• Additional coursework at the high school which will not necessitate additional staff.

From the Budget Power Point, there will be additional high school programming in these areas:

• Business Education Program - Planning year for internship model for 2020-2021

• PLTW - Computer Science Program - Year 1 Computer Science Essentials

• Italian Course

• Art Coursework - Architecture Design, Interior Design, Sculpture

• English Department

• AP Language & Composition Course

• Magic Realism in Literature

• Media Literacy

• Research Literacy

Proposition 2 - The Buses

What does a vote of Yes mean? It grants two buses that can seat 72 passengers each, and four buses that can seat 20 passengers.

Speaking of buses, the April deadline of getting in your request for your child to be bused has passed. But maybe there’s still hope? So you better get on it if you need busing. This is for kids who live in the designated busing areas, or are bused to childcare locations.

Proposition 3 - Capital Transfer

When A Little Beacon Blog inquired as to the details of the Capital Transfer, the superintendent explained: “The Capital Transfer allows us to move money from a Capital Reserve to our Capital Project, namely to fund lights at the new turf field behind the high school being built this summer. Lights will help us use the field more often and also will allow the community to use the field more as well.”

In his email to Beacon families, and on the Beacon City School District website, Dr. Landahl concluded: “I want to give a huge thanks to the community for supporting our budget this year. We can't wait to start the new programs in this year's budget to help our students!”