Please click on the link below to see my video message for August. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to BOCES. We really are Enriching Lives Through Education and I am so proud of our work.

We have many openings available at BOCES! If you know someone who would be a good fit with our organization and is interested please direct them to check out our website for up-to-date career opportunities. We've received some of our best employees as referrals so spread the word.

As we continue to improve our campus you’ll notice a lot more paving trucks this month at the main Glenwood Campus. Over at the West Learning Center you will also notice we are currently working on relocating the playground to the rear of the building to finally make way for the much needed parking lot addition. Inside our buildings we are converting lights to LED, putting up some new walls and adding color to bring our buildings to life. You can also breathe easy knowing that we continue to move forward with the HVAC project over the 100 and 200 wing and on the health and safety front we will be working with a third party to come up with some suggestions to improve the overall safety of our campus.

This month we are preparing for the beginning of the new school year by making sure our buildings and classrooms are as safe as they can be for the return of our students and staff. We will be conducting our annual fire inspections beginning mid August. This involves pre-walk-through inspections, the actual inspections themselves, followed by any recheck inspections required. We have been helping our nursing staff to ensure all of their medical equipment and supplies are well stocked and maintained. We also have been reviewing and updating our emergency response plans to ensure they have the most up- to-date information in the chance of an unforeseen emergency and attending training sessions to stay on top any new requirements or developments from the state education department. We will also be updating our districts PESH plans which include, a confined space plan, integrated pest management plan, exposure control plan, lock out tagout plan, and hazard communications plan.

This month our department has attended two training sessions provided by the New York State Center for School Safety. The first training discussed developing District Wide Safety Plans and Building Level Emergency Response Plans. The second training discussed the functional annexes included in the emergency response plans and the importance of tabletop exercises during routine safety meetings. Some of our district's safety team members attended a Safety Summit held in Oneonta as well. Our Health and Safety Compliance Specialist, Lisa Knewasser, attended an asbestos building inspector certification class held by the Environmental Compliance Management Corporation in Chittenango, NY and obtained her certification as an asbestos building inspector.

A special thanks to BOCES requisitioners and approvers on getting orders in as soon as the 2023-2024 window opened in WinCap. The BBO Purchasing Team was able to send out over 500 purchase orders on July 1!

We are working with external auditors to close and audit 2022-23 financial records and are very busy preparing for the start of the 2023-24 school year. Every department from accounting to purchasing is diligently getting ready for the first days of school!

In the month of July, and August, our always, classrooms and workshops are bustling with several different summer camps. Here are some photos that featured students and our staff during several of them, including special education summer enrichment, CTE fifth-grade summer camp, as well as STEAM Academy and P-Tech offerings.

Taste tests are not just done during the school year… the food service department dedicates endless hours each year to testing new recipes and perfecting the ones we have. This summer was no exception as taste tests were done at multiple locations across our component districts. Pizza taste tests, NY Caesar salad, NY pasta with meatballs, and NY grape juice just to name a few. Taste tests give our department data to know what works and what is not working and how we can better serve our students across all our districts. We hope if you’re in a building holding a taste test you will join us in the voting process!

Join us in celebrating a remarkable colleague and friend as we wish him congratulations on his retirement! Paul Cerasaro has been an invaluable member of our department and his contributions will be forever felt. As Paul enters this new chapter, we wish him all the happiness and fulfillment retirement has to offer him. Thank you, Paul, for your incredible dedication and hard work you devoted to our department and the students in our community. You will be missed, along with your amazing cookies!

The SCRIC renovations are complete in the ISC building, and we invite our BT BOCES colleagues to use the shared desks. To ensure you have a shared desk to work from that meets your technology needs, please make your reservation in the SCRIC Desk Booking software by scanning the QR code shown below. If you would like to learn more about the SCRIC Desk Booking software, please use the link below.

On July 1, the SCRIC released a major update to the ServiceNow customer portal. This update includes new features to make it easier to get support and find helpful information about the services that the SCRIC provides to our customers. The portal knowledge base currently has over 400 customer-facing resources covering a wide range of topics related to services, with more being added daily. To learn more about the new features click on the link below or watch our short two-minute video on YouTube.

Mary O'Neil was promoted from IT Assistant to Software Support Specialist

The Communications and Public Relations Department has been busy at work getting our districts ready for the upcoming school year. Our graphic designers and public information officers have been working on district calendars, school newsletters, student handbooks among other items. Our videographers have been busy documenting the wonderful summer programs available at BOCES and they have been planning out a year of video and photography services.

The team is continuously looking at updating our equipment to enable the department to offer additional products and improve the quality of output. Currently, we are looking into a flatbed wide format printer with cutter. This would enable us to print up to 4' x 8' sheets of various media including materials such as foam board and plywood. Use your imagination to come up with ideas that would be possible on this type of equipment.

We recently upgraded two of our Xerox Versant 2100 color machines to 4100's that will produce better quality output. We have had a busy summer so far producing over 800,000 more copies than during the same period last year.

On July 18 and 19, approximately 175 leaders from across Broome-Tioga and Delaware-Chenango-Madison-Otsego BOCES joined together to continue their learning at the Doubletree in Binghamton. Each year, both BOCES organize an annual leadership academy for building and district-level administrators within their region. This year the two BOCES joined efforts to bring Thomas Murray to the region to address this year’s theme, Leave Your Mark. Tom engaged the audience in fun activities that helped them reflect on and develop their leadership skills.

The second day of the Academy kicked off with a student voices panel, where students from both regions shared their insights into their school experiences. Following the student panel, BOCES and school district staff presented on a variety of topics to share their successes with others.