QUESTION: How many members serve on other schools in NYS, and how long are their terms of office?

According to the NYS School Board Association, there are some 620 or so school districts in NYS.  Among them, more than half (53%) are comprised of 7 board members, another quarter have 5 members (25%), and one in five have 9 members (20%). Most typically these members serve three year terms of office (71%). Most of the rest (27%) have terms of five years.

Of course these schools are of varying sizes. What if we look at schools that are within 200 students (plus or minus) of what we would have in the merged district of Herkimer, Ilion and Mohawk?  In that case almost all of the schools have 3 year terms of office and more than half have 7 board members.

Hopefully this type of data can help you decide how many board members and how long the terms of office should be when you enter the booth to vote on October 18th !

QUESTION: What Will We Be Voting On For The Final October 18 Ballot?

Many people are wondering what the actual ballot on October 18th will look like? 




Well the exact layout and wording is not finalized yet, however we do know that voting there will be three parts to the ballot.

First, we have to vote (ONE MORE TIME) to support the merger of the Herkimer, Ilion, and Mohawk school districts. While this has passed twice already, DON'T FORGET TO STILL VOTE IN FAVOR OF THE MERGER ! This is the single most important part of the ballot ! We need to make a stand and pass this once again!

Second, we will be asked how many school board members we'd like to have represent the new district. Typically this is 3,5,7, or 9. A future post will talk about what other NYS schools have in terms of the number of board members.

Third, we will be asked how long the terms of members of the new board will be. Again, this tends to be either 3, 5, or 7 years. Information about the typical lengths of terms will be found in a future post.

So as you can see, there will be three questions - should we merge, how many board member should represent us, and how long should those board members serve. It's as easy as...