This story begins in the Helderberg mountains in Albany County, where four hill towns sit overlooking the valley cut by the Hudson River. These communities make up about 40 percent of Albany county’s geography, but they make up less than 4 percent of its population.
The people here enjoy their small neighboring towns and their shared experience on the hill.
They are also linked through Berne-Knox-Westerlo schools, a bustling central complex where students are 3D-printing using the schools’ recycled plastics, restoring classic cars, and thriving academically.
A Career and Technical Education learning revolution might not be what most people expect from a mostly rural district of just over 650 students in a region where large numbers of households still don’t have stable internet connections.
But over the past decade the district has made smart investments that are now bearing amazing fruit.
The district's two full-day pre-K programs, for example, came after officials realized third grade reading scores were low because many students lacked the foundational skills in their younger grades. Now there are waiting lists for the pre-K seats, and students who started there are entering third grade with soaring literacy rates.
Berne-Knox-Westerlo is one of the few districts across the state and country that actually saw academic improvement since the pandemic, including for students with disabilities.
It wasn’t always this way. Fifteen years ago the district was making news for outrageous senior pranks that destroyed school property and resulted in arrests. Now teachers joke that seniors can’t stop making their school and community a better place.
Students are excited about learning — every morning kids arrive before teachers to work in the Lab, a computer and gaming incubator where students are learning to code, organize E-Sports tournaments and build racing simulation programs.
When equipment breaks, teachers don’t buy replacements. Students learn how to repair it.
Students are welding bikes in class and spending their weekends focused on conservation of the limestone plateau they live on while they’re camping, ice fishing and skeet shooting.
Last year the district became the first public school system in New York state — one of just 27 in the country — to achieve trauma-skilled certification by the National Dropout Prevention Center. Administration, faculty and staff committed to three years of training to recognize, engage, and build student resilience after traumatic events.
The district has one of the lowest chronic absenteeism rates in the state.
When I met Superintendent Tim Mundell, he told me this program is helping students to have a sense that they have a voice here and they learn how to use it effectively.
None of it has been by accident. The district is targeting resources to ensure the students in Berne-Knox-Westerlo have the same opportunities as their peers in surrounding suburban schools.
But just as Berne-Knox-Westerlo is hitting its stride and becoming a model of how schools serve and interact with their communities, the district has been hit with a daunting blow.
This year the governor proposed a budget that would underfund schools across the state by $419 million. It would affect every district in the state by sending less money, than they had been promised.
At Berne-Knox-Westerlo that would be a roughly 8.8 percent loss, or $624,000 in the next year. And it would be devastating.
To rebalance its budget, the district could have to eliminate 12 to 15 teaching positions, increase elementary class sizes, and limit the special education program.
The cuts could also require the district to slash its only afterschool program, end summer courses, and reduce counseling services and CTE offerings.
The shortfall would endanger the co-teaching model and support staff positions, two things that played critical roles in improving math and reading skills across the district.
The proposal is baffling to educators and officials, who cannot believe the state would cut aid to schools just as many are finally investing in the resources and programs that are showing clear results.
It would effectively push the district back to 2009, when students, staff and administrators struggled to see a path to success for hill town kids.
Unfortunately, the story of Berne-Knox-Westerlo is the story of many of our public schools right now — a warning of the terrible consequences for entire communities if the governor’s proposal moves forward.
Great things are happening in New York’s public schools. We see everyday that students and educators are bravely meeting challenges that rose after the pandemic. State and local leaders know that now is the time to reimagine the way we teach, learn and measure progress in a modern, high-tech world.
Now is NOT the time to limit our public education programs by cutting their budgets for miniscule state savings.
No one benefits from cuts to education, and the consequences ripple generations into the future. Now is the time to uplift the programs that are working; encourage our educators and students toward inventive, experiential learning; and fund public schools for what they are — the centers of our communities and the future of our state.
Melinda Person is president of the nearly 700,000-member New York State United Teachers.
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