The event provided an opportunity for board members and superintendents throughout the state to bring concerns from their areas to elected officials at the capitol. Welsh met with state Assemblyman Billy Jones, D-Chateaugay Lake, and state Senator Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, who both represent Tupper Lake in their respective houses of the legislature.

“Since I’m new to the area, I thought it was important that I put Tupper Lake in the conversation in Albany,” she said.

Welsh said they discussed a host of issues facing the TLCSD. Those included the foundation aid formula, the electric bus mandate, rising costs in health care plans for school districts, teacher recruitment difficulties — which she added are largely tethered to the unaffordable cost of living in the area — and the district’s upcoming capital improvement projects. The projects — which have already been approved — include security enhancements to both the L.P. Quinn Elementary School and Middle-High School buildings.

When it comes to electric buses, Welsh said she understands the sustainability premise behind the initiative, but that the technology — while it may make more sense for other areas of the state — is currently not feasible for the North Country, where there are vast distances between districts, frequent bouts of extremely frigid temperatures and hilly roads that all pose difficulties for electric battery ranges.

Tupper Lake Central School District Superintendent Jaycee Welsh and state Assemblyman Billy Jones, D-Chateaugay Lake, at the New York state Capitol Building on Wednesday, Feb. 12. (Provided photo — The offices of state Assemblyman Billy Jones)

“That’s just not a realistic endeavor for North Country schools,” she said. “Our regions are too big. Our landscape is not flat.”

Beginning in 2027, all new buses sold in the state would need to be zero-emission, with all buses in operation by school districts needing to be electric by 2035. Welsh said that both Jones and Stec were hopeful and believed that Gov. Kathy Hochul would delay the mandate, but acknowledged that no official delays had been made yet.

Welsh said she advocated for a bigger increase in Foundation Aid, which uses a formula based on a variety of economic and demographic factors to determine the amount of state aid a district receives, for Tupper Lake, which is currently slated to receive the minimum 2% increase in the Governor’s initial budget proposal.

While Foundation Aid was just one of the ways the district receives state aid, Welsh said the initial proposal leaves Tupper Lake and many surrounding North County districts between a rock and a hard place. At the heart of the problem was declining student enrollment rates, which hampers the district’s ability to secure more aid. Welsh said the decline was driven by an increasingly unaffordable cost of living in the area, which drives many families out. As people continue to leave, and less aid comes in relative to other districts in the state as a result, Welsh said this adds more strain to an already-squeezed tax base.

“When you start talking about declining enrollment, immediately what comes to people’s minds is our affordable housing situation,” she said. “It’s hard to attract new talent to Tupper Lake when we don’t have options and places for them to live.”

Tupper Lake Central School District Superintendent Jaycee Welsh and state Senator Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, at the New York state Capitol Building on Wednesday, Feb. 12. (Provided photo — The offices of state Senator Dan Stec)

The affordability crisis is two-fold, according to Welsh. In addition to jeopardizing aid, it also hampers the district’s ability to recruit new talented teachers and staff — who Welsh said struggle to contend with an already minimal housing stock that is increasingly being converted to short-term rentals, something else she brought up to Jones and Stec.

“Teacher recruitment came up as well,” she said. “It’s hard to get new teaching blood into the district when if they want to set down roots here and it’s hard for them to find a place to live long term … working families can’t compete with some of these real estate costs.”

Welsh also highlighted the school’s significant health care cost increases to both Jones and Stec.

“Rising health care costs in our area are a concern,” she said. “Such a large portion of our school budget is obviously salary and benefits — so anytime those health care costs are increased, that’s a direct expense for the district.”

Welsh also updated Stec on the district’s capital improvement projects set to take place over the summer. She invited him to witness the construction — which will include a new addition at the Middle-High School for visitors to enter into a vestibule and check in before being allowed into the rest of the building. Currently, she said visitors ring to be let in before needing to walk down a hallway, past instructional space, to the main office, to complete their check-in.

Welsh said being in Albany in person also provided a valuable opportunity to learn more about Jones’ and Stec’s offices and become acquainted with each representative’s office staff, who handle much of the legwork of addressing constituent needs.

“We’re fortunate that both Assemblyman Jones and Senator Stec are in our area a good bit,” she said. “But, at the same time, it’s nice to be able to go to their working area and meet their staffers and put Tupper Lake back in the conversation of needing some assistance in order to be successful and both politicians can help with that.”

She thought both Jones and Stec were not just receptive to the issues, but already well aware of them. She indicated that education officials from other school districts throughout the regions they served were facing similar issues.

“When I talked to each of them, they both seemed to have a good historical context of everything that I brought up,” she said. “It was clearly already on their minds and just kind of re-affirmed that some of the biggest issues that are impacting Tupper Lake are impacting the North Country as a whole.”