Dear RCSD Community,

As a reminder, we have a short week next week. There is no school for students on Tuesday, November 7: Election Day. Voting will be taking place at the RMS gym and teachers, staff, and administrators will be attending Superintendent’s Conference Day at the High School and Osborn School. Our faculty and staff will spend the day learning and planning across a variety of content areas with a focus on critical thinking.

There is no school for students or faculty and staff on Friday, November 10, and school offices are closed in observance of Veterans Day. We are going to have to pack a lot into three short days, folks!

Ballot Proposition 

One of the two propositions on the ballot on Tuesday impacts small city school districts like the RCSD. It’s related to allowing schools in towns with fewer than 125k residents to borrow the same percentage of taxable value as other New York school districts for capital projects. The rule stems from a 1951 amendment designed to curb spending when there was not an annual budget vote in place in these districts. Now we have one. An excerpt from the Journal News is at the bottom and it sums the proposition up fairly succinctly. Locally, there are three school districts that are impacted by this proposition: Rye, New Rochelle and White Plains school districts.

More Playoff Action

The girls varsity swimming and diving team competed in the Section 1 Championship Meet yesterday finishing 7th out of 27 teams. Six RHS athletes will go on to the State Championship Meet in Rochester November 16th-18th. 

The girls varsity soccer team topped off its already incredible season by defeating the current New York State champion team Albertus Magnus this past Sunday, then beating Oswego Free Academy 4-0 on Wednesday. On Saturday at 5:30 p.m., they will take on Section 9 champs Our Lady of Lourdes in Walkill, NY. Tickets and game location are available here, or watch the game here.

The undefeated JV football team delivered a walloping to Harrison last weekend and we’re hoping the varsity team can do the same as they take on Ardsley in the semi-finals tonight at 7:00 p.m. at home. If you’d rather, you can stay toasty and warm and watch on LocalLive here. Go Garnets!

Rye Fund for Education

This week, the Rye Fund for Education launched their annual appeal. We are so grateful for the financial support that RFE has given our schools. Last year alone the Fund provided nearly $200,000 in support for our educational programs such as elementary makerspaces, Promethean boards, music education, engineering and RHS graphic design technology. To learn more about RFE and the annual appeal, please check out their website.

Matilda The Musical JR

RMS is putting on Roald Dahl’s “Matilda The Musical JR” this weekend in two shows: tonight and tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. Based on Dahl's Tony-award winning hit musical, “Matilda” is the fantastical story of a precocious five-year-old prodigy with telekinesis who contends with uncaring parents and an overbearing school headmistress while befriending a supportive young teacher.

Enjoy the weekend and don’t forget to “fall back” on Saturday night!

Sincerely, 
Eric Byrne, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools

ALBANY WATCH

School debt, sewers: What questions will NY voters answer on November ballots?

Chris McKenna New York State Team    Updated September 19, 2023

Allowing small-city schools to borrow more money

Under state law, most of New York's 731 school districts can borrow up to 10% of their total taxable property value. But the small-city group is allowed only half that debt — 5% of taxable value — under a 1951 constitutional amendment.

Why the difference? At the time, small-city districts — those containing cities with fewer than 125,000 residents — were exempt from the annual school budget votes that other districts hold. A tighter debt limit was put in place as a substitute for voter involvement in spending.

That became obsolete in 1997 when New York passed a law extending budget votes to small-city districts.

But the lower debt limit remained in the constitution. That has put tighter constraints on districts such as Kingston, Batavia and Binghamton as they plan new buildings, renovations, sports fields, technology upgrades and other big projects that they pay for through bonding.

"They just have that much less flexibility, at best, when pursuing capital projects," said Brian Fessler, director of governmental relations for the New York State School Boards Association.