Parents, teachers and students protest co-curricular stipend reallocation; board explains committee process

Teachers, club advisers and students told the Guilderland Central School District Board of Education on June 10 that a reallocation of co-curricular stipends will reduce or eliminate stipends for several high-school advisers even as the district seeks to add stipends at the elementary level.

The dispute surfaced in public comment during the board’s meeting, when Andy Maycock, a Guilderland High School English teacher and longtime theater adviser, said the new stipend rubric will take money from existing high-school stipends to fund newly stipended elementary positions. "My objection is not to the to for the decision to pay those elementary school advisors. I agree there's no reason they should simply donate their time. My concern is that the funding for those teachers is coming from the previous funding for other teachers, and I'm not sure why that's the case," Maycock told the board.

Why it matters: advisers and students said cuts will shrink extracurricular opportunities and reduce recognition for arts and music. Emlyn (Emmeline) Friedman, president of the high school National Art Honor Society, told the board that removing honor-society funding for arts and music diminishes student recognition and opportunities. "By getting rid of the honor society attached to art, you are showing these artists the work they do isn't impressive enough to be acknowledged," Friedman said.

What the board heard and said: Yearbook advisers Erin McNamara, Melissa Gergen and Marie Jasinski outlined the workload and hours behind producing the annual book and described learning that one advisor position would be removed. "When we inquired as to why our club was to endure the cut, we were essentially told it was because we had 3 advisors," McNamara said. The advisers detailed tasks, deadlines and a combined estimate of roughly 1,200 hours logged on yearbook production platforms and said the cut would amount to both a pay reduction and elimination of a position.

Board members and administrators explained the mechanics. A board member described the co-curricular rubric process as part of the teachers’ bargaining agreement, saying the co-curricular committee reviews stipend rubrics under the district’s contract with the teachers association and allocates the existing pot of money against those criteria rather than unilaterally changing the district budget. "The co curricular committee is a committee established within the bargaining unit between the school district and the teachers association," that board member said during the meeting.

District staff and several board members said the committee did not have the ability to add money to the pool mid-cycle and that any expansion of the overall pot would be considered through the district’s multi-stage budget process (stage 1 and stage 2) next year. Board members acknowledged surprise among advisers and students and said they would continue the discussion about whether the district should add funds to the co-curricular pool in next year’s budget process.

Discussion vs. action: The co-curricular changes were described as committee decisions under the collective bargaining process rather than actions voted on by the full board. Board members said the committee is still finishing its work and that changes to the overall budget would be considered through the formal budget development and stage-two review. No board vote to reallocate stipends was recorded at the June 10 meeting.

Context and next steps: Several board members urged continuing the conversation and exploring whether the board should request adding money to the budget to avoid taking funds from existing secondary-level positions. Some members flagged that the committee’s work began in 2023 and that the board’s budget development timeframe would allow a request to increase the total stipend pool if desired.

Ending: District staff and board members said they will take the public comments under advisement, the co-curricular committee will complete its rubric work, and the board may revisit whether to seek additional budgeted funds for stipends in upcoming budget stages.