The 2010-2011 academic school year might see a drastic reduction in Nassau BOCES programs, officials say.

In this uncertain economy, the Nassau Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) is seeing an uneven trend in the number of children who are coming into their programs. As the 2009- 2010 school year draws to a close, school districts in Nassau County face difficult times with low budget increases and massive cuts to their state funding, most schools are scrambling to find ways just to keep afloat. Some have resorted to cutting programs that they can no longer afford like BOCES.

In addition to teaching adult education and training vocations, BOCES is an educational service that provides programs for children with special needs disabilities, behavioral problems and learning disabilities in Nassau County. These children require special attention that often cannot be met in their regular school programs.

In collaboration with the local school districts, BOCES provides services to children from all over the 56 school districts in Nassau County. It is one of the biggest special educational services in the county with over 100 programs offered to 1,800 special-needs students. The biggest challenge of BOCES is that it relies heavily on fees paid to them by the county.

“We do not receive any funding from the state,” says Mary Quinn, executive director of communication and planning for Nassau BOCES.” We receive payment from the local school districts for educating the children.” BOCES also receives money through grants and funds from private donations.

However in this economy such money is hard to come by. 

Under the proposed 2010-2011 New York State budget, Nassau County stands to lose up to $54.3 million, a 6.15 percent decrease in school-aid funds from last year’s budget. The reduction of school aid is structured so that a low-wealth district like the Hempstead School District will see a smaller percentage cut than a higher-wealth district like Garden City. State aid will be adjusted for student need, administrative efficiency and residential tax burden.

According to a report released by the Statewide School Finance Consortium, Nassau County faces a $565 decrease for each student and this includes costs incurred from programs like BOCES. So this year many school districts are choosing not to send their children into the BOCES program.

“We will be sending fewer kids into the BOCES program and keep them in house, we don’t have extra money for programs like BOCES,” says Douglas Pascarella, a member of the Plainedge Board of Education.

Some school districts are doing exactly the same as the Plainedge school district, but creatively. The Mineola school district is finding an alternative plan to the BOCES program by simply starting their own.

“Right now we are in the midst of developing an alternative high school here in the district,” says Michael Nagler, Mineola's superintendent. “We will be removing the kids we have in PACE, an alternative high school of BOCES, and bring them in house.”

Nagler’s plan is an interesting approach in dealing with budget cuts. A similar plan has been adopted by the New York City public schools system that plans to incorporate special-needs children into regular classrooms.

However, not all the districts are following the example of the Plainedge and Mineola school districts. Some school districts plan to continue to use BOCES’s services.

“We see our relationship with BOCES as a partnership. We work together to help our students as best as we can,” says Patricia Watkins, superintendant for the Hempstead school district. 

Hempstead has about 150 students in BOCES special education programs, and they have not made any changes to its funding for the incoming school year.

According to Watkins, special education is a mandatory service which must be maintained.

“BOCES provides the students with special educational help that we don’t have,” she says.

BOCES also lost grant money that the program now looks to school districts to replace, says Douglas Pascerella, a member of the budget advisory board. 

“This will now have to be paid for by the school districts. This will hurt the taxpayer because schools will now have to shoulder the cost, some taxes like property taxes may have to be increased to rise funding for their [BOCES] programs," he says. 

In the meantime lawmakers seem to have come up with a solution to curb educational spending and save costs for school districts. On March 15, the New York Senate passed the Education Mandate Relief Act of 2010 (EMRA).  The bill, which was introduced by state senators Susan Oppenheimer (D -Mamaroneck) and Craig Johnson (D - Port Washington), aims to help contain costs and educational spending for local school districts in the state and lessen the property tax burden for homeowners.

The legislation grants BOCES the ability to perform auditing services for a group of school districts, lowering costs for individual districts. This may come as a big help in helping BOCES and the school districts.

"We have found that as districts reduce the numbers of students they send in one area, they ask us to provide services in other areas,” says Angela Marshall,BOCES communications spokesperson.

Nassau BOCES saves local school districts million of dollars annually through a variety of shared services, according to BOCES officials, something which the Garden City school district is quite pleased about.

Garden City was one of the first districts to sign on to all the initiatives like sharing technical, financial, and equipment services that the Education Mandate Relief Act proposes, Dr. Robert Feirson, superintendent for the district. 

“We are very interested in sharing services and reducing costs," says Feirson.