Frankfort-Schuyler Central School District recently received three awards that showcase how the district has supported the school community in priority areas including safety, mental health, enrichment programs and community outreach.
The district’s efforts have been boosted through federal funding in response to COVID-19, but that funding is going away – leaving school leaders concerned about their ability to continue programs they say have had a significant, positive impact for students and their families.
“We won’t have the funds to do the things we’re being rewarded for doing,” Frankfort-Schuyler Superintendent Joseph Palmer said. “Removing the funding for these successful programs would be cutting the legs out from under our school district and our community.”
The awards Frankfort-Schuyler won were the Utica National Insurance Group School Safety Excellence Award for 2023 at the Titanium with Honors Level, the New York State Network for Youth Success Program Award of Excellence and Innovation, and the New York State Office of Mental Health 2023 “What’s Great in Our State” award in the school district category.
While celebrating the awards, district leaders also are preparing for an uncertain future for the programs that led to the awards and keeping their focus on strategic goals including serving students, supporting each other and partnering with parents.
The district established 2022-23 school year goals for attendance, behavior and course success. Updates are regularly provided to the Board of Education and community on the progress. The district’s strategic planning and programs also continue to be based upon character education through the Hi-5 Friends cross-age mentoring program.
The cross-age mentoring program highlights the traits of pride, respect, responsibility, trust and citizenship and involves older students visiting younger students and becoming mentors to them. The program also is the basis for a cooperative service offered by Herkimer-Fulton-Hamilton-Otsego BOCES to other districts in the region.
“I think a lot of districts could benefit from it,” Palmer said, speaking to the value of the Herkimer BOCES cross-age mentoring service. “Mostly, it’s that it comes from the kids.”
The program not only helps younger students but leads to improvements for the older students, Palmer said.
“There’s a responsibility there that they need to be a good example for the younger students,” he said.
‘Proactive and preventative’
The Utica National Insurance Group School Safety Excellence Award for 2023 at the Titanium with Honors Level that Frankfort-Schuyler won was the highest level of the award. Frankfort-Schuyler won the award following a thorough review of safety areas such as bullying prevention, playground safety, transportation safety and overall safety with the support of school resource officers.
“Safety and health concerns continue to be a priority in our school districts,” said Brian Saville, senior vice president in Utica National Insurance Group’s Educational Institutions Unit. “Districts that go above and beyond to provide a safe, healthy and focused culture for learning are to be applauded, and we’re pleased to count Frankfort-Schuyler Central School District among them.”
Palmer said providing school resource officers, responding to issues such as swatting calls and maintaining a strong focus on safety are of utmost importance to the district.
“We’re trying to be proactive and preventative,” Palmer said.
‘A win, win, win’
Frankfort-Schuyler won the New York State Network for Youth Success Program Award of Excellence and Innovation in response to the district instituting successful afterschool and summer enrichment programs to support students and the school community – including weaving in aspects of the Hi-5 Friends cross-age mentoring program.
The award states that it was given to Frankfort-Schuyler “for implementing programming with enrichment activities that promote higher learning and incorporating strategies between family and community to meet afterschool needs.”
The afterschool and summer enrichment program is operated by Frankfort-Schuyler staff, and a community partner provides aftercare for children to help relieve some of the burden for district families, Palmer said. Enrollment in the program has nearly tripled since it started, he said.
Students are able to catch up on academics, receive additional support and participate in fun activities such as basketball, soccer, yoga, dance, board games and more, Palmer said.
“It’s just a win, win, win,” he said.
With help from the federal COVID-19 funding, Frankfort-Schuyler has utilized positions such as a family and community engagement specialist and community engagement coordinator in partnership with Safe Schools Mohawk Valley to support its programs.
‘A strong community’
Frankfort-Schuyler is receiving the New York State Office of Mental Health’s 2023 “What’s Great in Our State” award in the school district category for the various mental health and social emotional learning efforts in the district. Frankfort-Schuyler will receive the award during the What’s Great in Our State – A Celebration of Children’s Mental Health Awareness event on Tuesday, May 9, in Albany.
“This event recognizes and honors the individuals and programs that are doing outstanding work to bring positive mental health outcomes for children, youth, young adults, communities and families,” the New York State Office of Mental Health said in its announcement of the award, adding that the event “is the centerpiece of New York state’s recognition of Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week.”
One important step Frankfort-Schuyler took in the area of mental health was creating a social emotional learning (SEL) team that provides support to students and staff and implements SEL into every class, Palmer said.
Andrea Cordero, Frankfort-Schuyler school counselor for grades 6-9 and a leader on the SEL team as the grades 6-12 “SEL champion,” said the district is teaching students coping skills, how to identify stress and who to reach out when support is needed.
“Our teachers have integrated SEL into the curriculum,” Cordero said. “Our goal is that all of this will help students not only with their mental health, but also with their academics, engagement and behavior.”
The SEL team provides mental health tips for students and staff and plans ongoing activities and guest speakers – including some for Mental Health Awareness Month in May.
“Our SEL team is really committed to the entire district and the community,” Cordero said.
The district also has days to provide mental health support to staff with fun activities such as painting, having a barbecue, playing a cornhole tournament, and receiving paraffin wax spa treatments from Herkimer BOCES Cosmetology students.
“We know staff are dealing with a lot of things and need support too,” Palmer said. “If our staff aren’t taken care of, how can we expect them to take care of our students?”
Frankfort-Schuyler also hosted a mental health fair with community organizations that was open to the community and conducted a job fair that was also open for community members to visit and look for employment opportunities. It’s important to provide that support to the community as well, Palmer said.
“If we didn’t have a strong community, we couldn’t have a strong school district,” he said.
Losing the federal COVID-19 funding without new revenue streams would hurt the district’s SEL efforts, Cordero said.
“It would impact us greatly,” Cordero said. “It would be detrimental to our student body as we see the growing concerns of mental health not only in our community but the whole country.”
‘It’s working’
The programs that resulted in the awards have relied in large part on federal funding from the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan that was designated to help school districts recover from the impacts of COVID-19. School officials say the programs the district put in place have been beneficial for students, staff and the community.
School leaders, however, are concerned because the federal funding is winding down – with the nearly $460,000 for Frankfort-Schuyler from the CARES Act dropping out for the 2023-24 school year and the nearly $900,000 the district gets yearly from the American Rescue Plan going away in 2024-25.
“We’re very happy and thankful that we were able to obtain the funds to support these programs, and it’s great to receive these recent awards to recognize the efforts our students, families and staff have put in to make the programs a success,” Palmer said.
The district has essentially been fulfilling exactly what government officials hoped schools would do with the funding, Palmer said.
“We did it, and it’s working, but now we don’t know if we can continue it,” he said.
Frankfort-Schuyler also is only receiving a minimal “hold harmless” 3% increase in state Foundation Aid, $230,000 for 2023-24, while losing another $120,000 in special education funding due to the qualification threshold changing. Another $150,000 the district was receiving to respond to the elementary school being labeled as a “targeted” school is now going away too because the elementary school is no longer on the list due to the hard work of students, families and staff, Palmer said.
With all of these factors, the district faced a $1.2 million deficit as it began putting together the proposed 2023-24 budget. School officials were able to get creative to close that gap and keep programs running for the 2023-24 school year, but that might not be possible for the 2024-25 school year as funding continues to slip away, Palmer said.
“Everybody says they want schools to support student safety, mental health, and afterschool and summer enrichment initiatives,” Palmer said. “We’re doing it, and our reward is to lose over a million dollars. When you talk about losing that much from a district this size, you’re talking about losing programs and people.”
Frankfort-Schuyler Assistant Superintendent of Business and Technology Kacey Sheppard said the COVID-19 funding had to be used as it was coming in and couldn’t be set aside and saved, so there wasn’t really a way for the district to spread out the benefits from it.
That funding is going away annually, so if new funding streams aren’t put in place, the district has to look at cuts to the programs, Sheppard said.
“Sadly, you have to,” she said.
‘Try anything we can’
As the funding cliff has been approaching, district officials have been proactive in applying for competitive grants, but there is limited availability for them, and Frankfort-Schuyler doesn’t qualify for some of them. For example, Frankfort-Schuyler applied for a grant to support Connected Community Schools, which six other districts in the Herkimer BOCES region have, but the grant was denied.
The rural district’s poverty level isn’t as low as some comparable local districts, so Frankfort-Schuyler is getting lower increases in state Foundation Aid, but the poverty level is also disqualifying the district from some of the grants it has been applying for, Sheppard said. That makes it challenging to find ways to sustain the programs, she said.
“Every district still has challenges and responsibilities to their students and families,” Sheppard said.
With many obstacles in the way of the district’s hopes to continue the programs, school leaders are determined find a way.
“It doesn’t mean we’re not trying,” Palmer said. “We’re going to try anything we can.”
Frankfort-Schuyler is continuing to apply for a variety of grants such as safety grants to support school resource officers and social emotional learning grants to support its mental health programs. Administrators and teachers are applying for grants, and the district contracted with Capital Region BOCES for a grant writer for the rest of this school year and next school year.
School leaders are meeting with local and state politicians, the Community Foundation, district alumni, the Frankfort-Schuyler Community Coalition, businesses and others looking for any avenues of support they can find. Palmer said it’s a collaborative effort, and he’ll do anything he can including knocking on doors looking for volunteers.
“We want to continue these programs for our students, our families, our staff and our community,” Palmer said. “I’m passionate about this.”
Palmer and Sheppard said that ways to address the end of the COVID-19 funding on a state level include changing the Foundation Aid formula to add more funding for not just high-needs districts or creating more targeted funding streams that are ongoing and directed at areas such as safety and mental health.
With the awards Frankfort-Schuyler recently won, Palmer would like to see recognitions tied more to an ongoing plan for successful schools across the state. His idea is that if a district gets an award, the district receives additional funding to support continuing the program and commits to mentoring another district on instituting its own version of the program that won the award. “That way, instead of only providing extra support when there is already a problem, you would be investing in and building upon success in a proactive way,” Palmer said.
Frankfort-Schuyler first graders visit with their eighth-grade mentors as part of the Hi-5 Friends cross age mentoring program.
Students enjoy themselves during Frankfort-Schuyler’s Districtwide Health and Wellness Walk, which involves students K-12 and staff walking together around the track in support of mental health awareness.
Frankfort-Schuyler’s Districtwide Health and Wellness Walk, pictured here, involves students K-12 and staff walking together around the track in support of mental health awareness.