The Buffalo Board of Education on Thursday elected a new slate of officers during its organizational meeting at Waterfront Elementary School.
Park District board member Louis Petrucci was unanimously elected as the new board president.
Petrucci, who has previously held the position on the board, was nominated by the outgoing board president, Ferry District board member Sharon Belton-Cottman.
The board unanimously elected at-large member Ann Rivera as vice president of executive affairs and Kathy Evans-Brown was unanimously elected vice president of student achievement by the board.
As the board's new leader, Petrucci said he would seek to strive for higher academic achievement from Buffalo Public Schools students.
"This year, as we exit Covid and go back to in-person learning, we're going to have some additional challenges, but there's also that room for growth and opportunity, because during the past year, while we called upon our parents and our educators to do some extraordinary things, we learned a lot also in terms of what can and does work with synchronous and asynchronous learning," Petrucci told reporters after Thursday's School Board meeting.
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Petrucci alluded to how the district might leverage the $289 million in federal pandemic aid that must be spent by September 2024.
"We have a lot of dollars coming in, so it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to make some fundamental changes. We need to get children back up to the level where they need to be, and that's also going to be a challenge for the district," Petrucci said.
He said that four meetings that were held by the School Board allowing community stakeholders to give their opinions on how to spend $200 million in American Rescue Plan funding and $89 million in Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Account money were reasonably well attended.
"We've asked both board members and the community to come up with ideas on how to spend some of these dollars. They can be transformational. They are important. They will be a vital part of our budget and educational process as we go forward to try and raise children up to where they need to be," Petrucci said.
Buffalo Public Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash did not discuss how those funds might be spent at Thursday's meeting, but said he would likely hold a news conference on the issue after the School Board discusses the matter Tuesday.
Petrucci said he planned to bring a new leadership style to the board.
"The one thing I am hoping to do working with my two vice presidents is to flatten the leadership style and to give more board members more authority to work on projects so that they're more engaged," Petrucci said.
"We have a very talented board. They all have a variety of different skill sets that I would like to see them explore," he added.
