The Jamestown Public Schools Board of Education approved a resolution to “provide funding for the P-TECH Program through use of existing funding within the current school district budget” during Tuesday night’s special meeting via teleconference.

After discussion, the motion passed unanimously.

Dr. Kevin Whitaker explained that the district will find the funding without going over the budget to provide for the students.

“What I’m proposing to the board is that it’s not so much the movement of funds within our budget lines, it’s that the total will be a large sum,” he explained.

“We’re looking at something less than $400,000 this year which is then aidable, so we’d get $250,000ish dollars back in that from BOCES aid next year which is going to help us in our budget crisis and our fiscal stress next year. In order to accomplish this task, I’ll be going through — and I’ve been working with Lisa (Almasi, chief operations officer) — and we’ll be working to go through the hundreds and hundreds of budget lines and find the funding without going over the budget.”

He added, “These are a lot of small pieces that add up to a big figure and we wanted to bring it before the board so that we knew that these transfers would end up to a total of a little bit less than $400,000.”

The motivation, he noted, is that the district will be able to fulfill a promise made to the district’s 17 P-TECH students who might not have otherwise been able to continue in the program next year.

“These are kids who are ready to move on and graduate with their associate’s degree and careers that six years ago they may not have six years ago were possible,” Whitaker said. “The most important thing here is that I feel like we can’t pull the rug out from beneath these students and families so quickly. We should be sure we’re watching out for kids and their programs, no matter what happens in our fiscal stress here. We’re here for the kids and this task, this undertaking is for the purpose of their futures.”

The board’s vice president, Patrick Slagle, was encouraged by the superintendent’s work to continue to provide for these students but explained that there should be “more discussion moving forward as to what the future of this program looks like as well.”

“I’m glad that we’re going down this path of reinstating it,” he said. “We have 17 students and the former superintendent, Dr. (Bret) Apthorpe talked about that we should have 100 students or more in this program, so while I think we do need to uphold this promise to these students, I do think we also need to continue to look at ways to improve the program — whether that’s a partnership with JCC or something, I think those are further discussions we need to have and talk about how we can move forward in a bigger program.”

“This is bigger than Jamestown Public Schools,” school board president, Paul Abbott said. “It does affect our manufacturing in our areas and a number of partners that we have.”

School board member Nina Karbacka also praised the district’s decision to move forward with the program.

“It was becoming an awfully political issue, not only locally with our local manufacturers that wanted us to continue, but the fact that we were getting letters from the state Education Department, phone calls from the governor’s office, some of which were not replied to very positively,” Karbacka said.”It was putting us in a very dangerous political place. We need — as much as this governor is difficult — we need as much support as we can get out of him. We don’t want to be the person that is on his bad list. I didn’t want to see P-TECH put us there.”

The Western New York Pathways in Technology Early College High School, known as P-TECH Academy, is located in Dunkirk and provides students a pathway technology program for those looking to pursue a career in manufacturing or technology.

Because of the projected decrease in state aid of around 20%, the board reduced its originally approved 2020-21 budget by around $3 million and chose to disenroll students in the program. Last year, 17 students were enrolled. The district also eliminated the Success Academy, a 5-12 school that provides a range of resources for students who are falling behind in school due to previous traumatic events.

Bret Apthorpe, former JPS superintendent, said in June that the P-TECH program costs the district $400,000 a year. He said the district funds $140,000, with state aid covering the rest of the costs. Because of the expected decrease in state aid, Apthorpe said district officials are not sure the additional funding for the program will be available next school year.

“If our funding was restored to those levels, approximately another $3 million, we could do these things,” Apthorpe said on June 2, noting that if the funding became available, the programs could be saved.

The district also discussed the reopening of schools during Tuesday’s meeting, one day after the state and Gov. Andrew Cuomo released additional guidance.

“We’re at the page now where I’ve met with the district’s chiefs, I’ve learned what’s been underway for the next several months and also we have created a template that will help us put those things together in a cohesive and understandable format which will then allow us to compare what we currently have with the guidance that was released Monday,” Whitaker said.

He added, “We’ll see what needs to be done, and then that will be the task of our reopening committee, which wil break into subcommittees to address some of those components. We have an existing reopening committee and it is 40-some people. That group, as we gather our information from the state and department of health this week and talk about what we have and put it into our format, that group will pick up work hopefully next week.”