The board has three options and about four weeks to choose. All three are built around the same idea: renovate and expand the Clough building so it can hold fifth and sixth graders, which would relieve crowding at the elementary schools. The largest version, roughly $59 million, adds 20 classrooms plus a combined gym, cafeteria and auditorium, tears down Staley, and rebuilds the grandstand at the stadium. The middle version drops the 20 classrooms. The leanest, about $25 million, also skips rebuilding the stadium grandstand and simply clears the space for future bleachers. District advisers said all three are being designed to avoid a tax increase by using reserves, though the board can choose a version that does raise taxes if it decides the extra work is worth it. No decision was made, and the board was told to send questions in the meantime.

Because we'll be voting on this in December, we're giving it its own page. The board is expected to choose a scenario at its next meeting, formally adopt it on October 8, and put it before voters in the second or third week of December. Between now and then this site will create a separate page devoted to the referendum. It will show what each option costs, what it builds, what it means for taxes, and the arguments on both sides.

The deadline comes from FEMA, and the money works differently than people assume. The district was awarded roughly $19 million in FEMA funds connected to Staley, which was lost to flooding in 2021. But it is a grant, not a check. The district has to spend its own money first, document the work, and then get reimbursed. All of it has to be spent by October 2029. Working backward through a public vote, design, state review, bidding and construction, there is not a lot of time to spare, which is why the board is being pushed to decide now.

There's a catch buried in the state aid that could cost the other schools. The district asked the state to move building aid from Staley over to Clough. The state said no. Instead it offered to recalculate building aid across the district. This would add about $8.8 million in spending allowance at Clough while cutting roughly $15.5 million from the seven other elementary schools, a net loss. Rome currently gets back about 96.5 cents on the dollar for work that qualifies for building aid, so those allowances matter for every future project. The district's financial adviser cautioned against the trade, and one board member said she couldn't support something that helps one building at the expense of all the others. The practical effect is that the biggest option may carry a hidden long-term cost, and the district is leaning toward doing the work in phases instead.

Staley is sitting empty, and board members want to know what it's costing. Capponi pressed the district's advisers on exactly what Rome received from FEMA and insurance for Staley and where that money went, saying he had read the full 180-page report on the building. He described a roughly 30-acre "zombie property" that was broken into the day before by a dozen young people, on top of ongoing break-ins, each drawing city emergency services. Demolition is required as a condition of the FEMA grant and is estimated at about $3.3 million. But it won't be simple. Archaeological survey work found part of the site was used as a Revolutionary War camp and may contain burial grounds, so the building can only be taken down to about two or three feet below ground level.

The Rome Catholic School lease costs far more than the state will cover. The five-year lease on the Cypress Street building, which would temporarily house pre-K and district offices while Clough is renovated, runs about $7.1 million. The state approved only $2.2 million in aid toward it, and with roughly $1 million in local and other identified funding, that leaves a gap of about $3.9 million. The district has gone back to the state asking for more and is waiting on an answer, which the superintendent described as a holding pattern. She credited the building's developer with staying patient through a year and a half of negotiations even as he faces pressure to close on the property. Asked why the district didn't simply buy the building, which board members said would have cost a little over $1 million, it was explained that purchasing it would trigger the same building aid recalculation problem and would require the district to pay prevailing wage rates on renovations. These are costs the lease avoids.

Two staff members were promoted from within. Allison Johnson, a special education teacher at John Joy, was appointed assistant principal at Rome Free Academy, and Megan Longo, a school social worker, was appointed assistant principal at Denti. Both finished administrative degrees while working in the district, and both were praised by the superintendent as examples of a homegrown pipeline. The consent agenda showed movement in the other direction as well. An assistant principal at Strough resigned effective August 7, along with a technology teacher, an elementary music teacher, an elementary classroom teacher, and several teacher aides and assistants. The board took no action on a permanent principal for Rome Free Academy, which has been led on an interim basis since early August.

A resident said a program was cut and students are being sent elsewhere. During public comment, a Rome resident objected that a course involving drones had been discontinued and that students who want it are being told to attend another district, arguing an administrative position should have been cut instead. She tied it to a broader frustration about what the city has lost. The superintendent responded that Rome students have long enrolled in that program through BOCES, that some are already enrolled for the coming year, and that the arrangement will continue.

Routine business. The board approved a contract with the Central Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired to provide vision services for up to 25 students this year, at a cost not to exceed $50,000, and leased classroom space at Strough to BOCES for evening adult education, bringing in $3,203.50. They approved a fall conference for the superintendent at a cost not to exceed $2,000. Board member Jeffrey DeMatteis, re-elected in May, took his oath of office at the district office on July 23. A public hearing on the district safety plan, code of conduct and attendance protocol is set for August 17 at 5:15 p.m.