New terms for Bedford Central School District board leaders

District facility use rates 2025-26 school year.

By JEFF MORRIS

Gilian Klein and Steven Matlin have been reelected board president and vice president by the Bedford Central Board of Education.

The July 14 organizational meeting was largely perfunctory in nature.

Consent agenda

The board used a separate organizational meeting consent agenda to dispense with a long list of appointments, contractual agreements and other administrative matters. However, new board member Prasad Krishnan immediately made his presence felt by requesting a number of the items on the consent agenda be pulled for discussion, as he was not familiar with all of the annual appointments and amounts that are typically included each year. 

But Krishnan was not the only one who had questions. In fact, Klein said she wanted to discuss the district’s agreement with the Northwell Health mental health clinic, but Superintendent Robert Glass noted it was not on the agenda. He said the board is going to have to hold an executive session to discuss it.

Among other items on the consent agenda that came up for discussion were acknowledgement of the board’s Jan. 15, 2025 approval of “the Towne Bus extension for transportation during the 2025-2026 school year at CPI, in accordance with law and the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education.” Krishnan asked whether the district had looked into any alternatives to Towne Bus, and whether other districts had better experiences with other arrangements for transportation. Matlin noted that there had been extensive investigations and discussions about such considerations in the past by district committees.

Also questioned was approval of professional development services provided by consultants, including Justin Browning and Mario Palma. The board agreed not to hold up the appointments. Klein made the point that she would like to see all buildings having proportional support.

One item that Matlin wanted pulled was a fee schedule for use of district facilities. He questioned the reasons for charging groups different amounts, and advocated for facilities being open to all because they were already paid for. “I propose we go to a fully open campus,” he said. 

Klein noted that the fields were intended for district-related activities, and there is wear and tear that results. Matlin made the point that the newly constructed fields are fenced off; he said all the fields should be open so everybody doesn’t congregate on the football field. Klein countered that they should be careful about giving unsupervised access to the new fields, and Matlin made the point that there are some groups that are charged and some that they don’t charge. He referred to groups that are “in the middle” that are mostly athletics related, and there are groups that are outside organizations that support only Fox Lane kids. 

“They shouldn’t be charged,” he said.

Glass said once he gets a sense of the will of the board, the administration will conduct a full review of the fee schedule and whether all fields should be open.

The board voted to approve the consent agenda with the facilities fee schedule removed.

Start times

During a discussion of various district committees, Matlin brought up the subject of school start times, wanting to know where that discussion was “now living.” Glass said they were having a separate group discuss it, to look into the “details of the impact on activities, athletics, etc.” and it will meet in November. He said it was more of a “working group” and remarked, “I’m not going to overdo this. I’m going to take the simplest options. I’m not going to over-process.” But, he added, “If you want me to make this a committee and do an ‘all call’ I will.” 

Klein weighed in, saying it was her preference that Glass have his staff do these investigations internally; she said she didn’t like the idea of parents having access to all this information, and Matlin added that “the parents who want to do this all have one point of view.”

But, Matlin said, “You have to have equal community access. We need to put an ‘all call’ out and have fair representation,” to which Glass replied, “I believe we can do that without an all call; the way I was going about it was very informal and having a working group, but I can do it however you want me to do it.” Klein, meanwhile, said she thought it had to include at least one board member.

Asked how long it would take to actually implement a new start time, Glass said he figured most realistically it was going to be at least two years out. “We have a master agreement that runs for two years,” he said, referring to the union contract, “and without a side letter we couldn’t do it.”

Glass concluded, “We’ll call it a working group, we’ll put out an all call.” 

Klein and trustee Blakeley Lowry said they would be interested in joining.

Additional notes

Glass spoke about progress being made on construction projects, and work that is being done during the summer. He also noted that families will be getting information on the new law regarding cellphones in school within the next couple of weeks.

The board also welcomed Marci Tiggs, the new assistant superintendent for human resources and administrative services, and Jose Formoso, the new assistant superintendent for business and operations, who made their first appearances at this meeting.