SMETHPORT — The directors of the Seneca Highlands Intermediate Unit 9 Educational Services have approved a memorandum of understanding between the Seneca Highlands Career and Technical Center and the Potter County Education Council.
The measure will allow program funding for the Homeland Security Program to be accepted and managed by the PCEC through the 2023 school year.
Center director James Young told The Era, “This (memo) allows funding received through the advisory board to be collected and distributed to the CTC.”
Beginning in the 2018-19 school year, students at the center in Port Allegany, the former area vocational-technical school, will be enrolled in the protective services curriculum offering studies for firefighters, law enforcement and emergency medical services.
With the metalworking curriculum curtailed at the center effective in 2018-19, a decision that reflects the decision of the center’s ten participating school districts, this course of study will be replaced by the engineering technology curriculum.
According to Young, “Interviews for the homeland security instructor’s position are closed; those for the engineering technology position close in July.”
This was the directors’ reorganizational meeting. All current officers were re-elected for one-year terms. They are President Paul Ridley, Bradford Area School District; and Vice-President Bill Funk, Smethport Area School District. Secretary Melissa Shields and Treasurer Kim DeGolier are non-members. Thomas Kerek of the Kane Area School District, was reelected Pennsylvania School Boards Association legislative chairman.
Eldred attorney Christian T. Mattie was renamed solicitor. Buffamante, Whipple Buttafaro, PC, of Olean, N.Y., was approved to perform the IU9 and CTC budgets for the fiscal year ending June 30, at an annual fee of $25,500, a $500 increase over last year.
Several fiscal matters also gained approval. One was the Act 89 Non-Public School Services Budget for 2018-2019, with estimated revenues and expenditures of $452,051. The Act 89 auxiliary services program provides remedial reading and math enrichment and standard testing services to non-public schools.
Under an agreement with Capital Area Intermediate Unit 15, on behalf of the PA Institute for Correctional Coaching, IU9 will receive $35,000 for promoting instructional coaching in its 14 school districts in McKean, Elk, Cameron and Potter counties.
The following special education budget received unanimous approvals: core services, $1,143,881; State Early Intervention, $2,286,062; IDEA, $2,042,201.9; medical access, $558.487; and transportation, $961,068.
The 2018-19 Perkins Budget, which amounts to $112,241 in federal grant funding, will be used for providing math and facilitator services at the CTC.
CARE for Children will provide physical therapy services beginning June 12 through July 31 at a rate of $31.76 per therapy unit.
In remarks to the board, Kerek urged his colleagues to contact State Sen. Joe Scarnati, R-Brockway, voicing their opposition to Senate Bill 2, which could cost public schools $500 million.
