T IMES
MID
HUDSON
Vol. 30, No 15
3
APRIL 11 - 17, 2018
3
ONE DOLLAR
Goldbacks
win Remember
him?
Page 39 Page 10
SERVING NEWBURGH AND NEW WINDSOR
Newburgh Prep Charter School to close Skartados
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
After five years of providing students
with an alternative path to graduation,
the Newburgh Preparatory Charter High
School will close. Located on Broadway
in the City of Newburgh, the charter
school will shut its doors following a final
graduation ceremony in June.
“On behalf of the staff and the teachers
and the board, I want to say how proud we
all are of what we’ve been able to do with
the school and what the students have
been able to accomplish,” said Newburgh
Prep Board President Lisa Silverstone
last Friday.
The main cause of the closure is
low enrollment, Silverstone said. “The
crux of it is the issues we’ve had with
enrollment, retention and attendance,
which have resulted in issues of long-term
financial viability,” she explained. “We’re
compensated per pupil. That means we
are paid a fee per student, per attendance.
When we have low enrollment, it’s very
difficult to make the numbers work.”
The school budget is based on having
75 students enrolled during the school
year, said Newburgh Prep Comptroller
Cheryl Gross. “The minute we go below
that, we have to review the budget to
ensure we meet our fiscal responsibility,”
said Gross. The current enrollment is 64
students, she said.
A total of 65 students have so far
graduated from the school with New
York State regents degrees. Another ten
Continued on page 4
Winter carnival?
Inflatable toys get caked with snow last Friday, at the Newburgh’s Mall’s annual spring carnival. The weather wasn’t always cooperative with
snow showers last Monday, Friday and Sunday, the last day of the fair.
WWW.MIDHUDSONTIMES.COM
dealing with
health issues
By MARK REYNOLDS
[email protected]
New York State Assemblyman Frank
Skartados (D-Milton) is presently dealing
with a serious illness, according to
his Chief of Staff Steve Gold. He said
Skartados entered the hospital on March
23 to attend to this matter.
Skartados was born in 1956 on
Astypalaia, Greece, a small island in the
Aegean Sea. He immigrated to the U.S. at
the age of 14 with his mother, settling in
Riverdale, NY.
Gold
said
S k a r t a d o s
focused
on
his education,
graduating
from
George
Washington
High
School
and went on to
earn a BA in
Political Science
Frank Skartados
from SUNY New
Paltz and a MA in
International Studies from the University
of California at Sacramento.
After graduation, Skartados entered
an internship at the Center Against
Apartheid at the United Nations.
Eventually Skartados returned
to the Hudson Valley and was a small
businessman and later purchased a small
farm in Milton.
Skartados lost a bid for a seat on the
Marlborough Town Board but got back
in the game and won a seat in the New
York State Assembly in 2008. Two years
Continued on page 4