After slimming the budget by a half million dollars last night, the Batavia City School Board has already cut the proposed property tax increase from 23 to 16 percent, according to WBTA's Dan Fischer. City Schools Superintendent Margaret Puzio told Fischer that she hopes an offer of early retirement option to three labor unions could help stave off any outright layoffs of teachers or staff. Puzio also hopes and expects to further reduce the tax increase. Visit the WBTA Web site to hear her comments on that.

Batavia city schools are closed today for Superintendent's Conference Day. Also, LeRoy BOCES school is closed today due to a water main break.

Batavia's City School Board will meet tonight at 7 o'clock to discuss the proposed budget for next year, WBTA's Dan Fischer reports. In its current version, the budget calls for a 23 percent property tax increase.

Students will not have classes at Notre Dame High School today. A funeral mass will be held this morning at 10 o'clock at St. Anthony's Church for Nadine Netter, the school's cook who died unexpectedly last week.

Batavia's City Board of Education will meet tonight at 7:00pm at the administration building on Washington Avenue, according to WBTA's Dan Fischer. You can download the meeting agenda via the city schools' Web site. Board members are expected to go into an executive session regarding an employment matter.

In other news, Fischer reports that Tops Markets will add as many as ten new stores throughout the region, including several that are planned for Buffalo and Rochester. The supermarket chain will also invest some $150 million in renovations to its existing stores.

Batavia Middle School will get a rock climbing wall. The city School Board approved the purchase of the $55,000 wall at its meeting last night, according to the Daily News. Reporter Joanne Beck writes: "The district can afford the purchase with surplus year-end funds from 2007-08, Business Administrator Scott Rozanski said."

At the same meeting, following the purchase of the rock wall, the board then approved an increase in breakfast and lunch prices at city schools, reported Beck. Breakfast will now be $1.10 at the elementary school and $1.25 at the middle and high schools; lunch will be $1.55 and $1.85, respectively.

Work on the Walnut Street roundabout and street reconstruction will be postponed until next year. City Manager Jason Molino told the Daily News that "the decision was made by contractor CATCO." It was decided to hold off on the project "to minimize disruptions to the normal traffic flow," and meetings will be held in February to "help people understand how best to navigate and use the roundabout."

Mercy Flight and the Batavia Muckdogs will join together for a fundraiser that will grant two lucky raffle winners the chance to ride a helicopter from the airport to Dwyer Stadium and throw out the first pitch of that night's game. A $10 ticket will include admission to the Muckdogs game on August 4, as well as entry into the drawing. "Mercy Flight will get $6 out of every $10 ticket sold." Tickets can be purchased at Dwyer Stadium and at Mercy Flight's base at Genesee County Airport. Winners will be announced at the August 1 Muckdogs game.

Congratulations to Batavia's 11-year-old Little League Baseball all-stars whop took home the District 3 championship last night in the second straight defeat of Oakfield. In its past three games, Batavia has outscored its opponents 34-4. Talk about an offensive powerhouse!

As always, we encourage you to get out and pick up a copy of the Daily News at local newsstands. Or, better yet, subscribe at BataviaNews.com.

Check out WBTA for these and other stories:

• Batavia's city School Board will hold its meeting at 7:00pm tonight in the administration building on Washington Avenue.
• Parent company of the Bank of Castile, Tompkins Financial, was recognized by a "national rating company" for "consistent performance."

OK, so this little blurb about Daily News reporter Joanne Beck's article on yesterday's school board meeting was supposed to be just that: a little blurb. But fool that I am, I let myself get pulled into the article, pulled into the futile quest for comprehension. Is it too much to ask that I want to walk away from the occasional news article feeling like I understand a little more about something, instead of becoming more confused and understanding less?

I'm not yet putting the blame on Joanne Beck here. Not this time, anyway. Sometimes the events themselves are baffling and the reporter gets caught up in the senselessness. Of course, this is part of the challenge of being a reporter who must face committees and boards and councils, because bureaucracy really can't help but breed senselesseness. It's your job, reporters, not to pass that confusion on to your readers. Otherwise, what are you there for? To warrant picking up a paycheck, I guess.

So, somehow the city school board's reorganization meeting yesterday turned into a debate on the youth football program — check out our earlier posts for more on the history.

Beck writes:

City school Board President Pat Burk is willing to consider allowing Youth Football to play on a piece of school property. The president had put a request on Tuesday's agenda for the Building and Grounds staff to review North Street extension as a possible site for the football group.

Then everything changes. Dan Jones stands up and berates the school board for not letting the program play at Van Detta Stadium. The way Beck writes it, Burk was flabbergasted — it "came out of the blue" he told her — and had no idea why Jones "brought up the issue."

"It's unreal to me to say there would be more damage done by Youth Football at Van Detta than by the Batavia Blue Devils," Jones said. "I want to express my disappointment with the board."

So... does everyone follow? Dan Jones comes out of nowhere to yell at the school board who sheepishly has no idea what's going on and seems a little offended that their honor would be called into question. Am I reading too much into this? I don't think so.

From there, after making Jones sound a little crazy for "reprimanding" the board, Beck takes up his argument that city taxpayers will pay for youth football twice if the city relocates the program from Dwyer to a city park.

What!? Where does that come from? What does that have to do with the school board? And how would people pay twice for it? Where is the connection?

[Jones] is concerned that city taxpayers will have to pay twice for Youth Football to play. That would happen if City Council approves funding — a move it has been considering — to move the sports group to another city park. City taxpayers already pay school taxes and therefore would be paying again, Jones said.

That's the only answer we get: "That would happen if..." But why does Council's approval of funding mean the taxpayers pay twice? What's the connection with school taxes?

Taxpayers could get some relief if the school district would allow Youth Football to play games at a school-funded field.

I just don't understand this. I don't understand why Beck inserts it in the article. I don't understand why Jones says it — maybe he can explain it a little more clearly and in detail for us on here.

Batavia's public schools are helping to drive local economic growth, according to observations by Ann Flynn, director of education technology programs for the National School Board Association.

Flynn was recently in Batavia and made these observations:

In driving around the community, I noticed that new commercial development was underway and after meeting the students, teachers, district staff, and board members, it was clear how the quality of the district's schools must surely contribute to that growth. Sixty-seven educators from 10 states joined me last week to gain a deeper understanding about how Batavia developed its vision and found the funding to create student-centered classrooms. A great example was seen during the visit to a middle school social studies class that had students working in three areas of the room: one group completing work sheets by listening to pre-assigned segments of campaign speeches on iPods; another group using an interactive white board with the instructor; and the remaining students working in pairs on a WebQuest with computers located in the rear of the room.

Throughout the visit, we saw excited, engaged students focused on their assigned tasks that encouraged them to think rather than simply recite facts. Although many factors impact an area's economic well being, the visit to Batavia, reminded me how critical it is for school board members to understand the role public schools play in a community's long-term economic health. It is evident that the city of Batavia is now reaping the benefits from years of thoughtful planning by school leaders.

One of the things that excited us about launching The Batavian in Batavia is the strong sense of economic vitality.  If the schools are helping to drive that, all the better for the community's long-term economic health. 

We certainly believe in education.  Education not only helps create entrepreneurs and a talented work force, but it also leads to a better engaged citizenry.  These are the things that make a community strong.