Southern Ulster Times Feb. 21 2018

T IMES SOUTHERN ULSTER Vol. 15, No. 8 3 FEBRUARY 21 - 27, 2018 3 ONE DOLLAR Huskies hope to make some noise Puppets delight audience Page 32 Page 18 SERVING HIGHLAND, MARLBOROUGH AND PLATTEKILL Parting of the ways Ward declines to sign ‘last chance agreement’ offered by district Community College nixes expansion in Marlborough By MARK REYNOLDS [email protected] Last week Marlboro School Superintendent Michael Brooks announced that after a year in discussions with SUNY Ulster the community college has decided not to establish a southern campus in M a rl b o ro u g h . The college had been considering moving into the school district side of the Marlborough town offices and the district offices would then move into the Middle Hope School building. SUPERINTENDENT “It was really MICHAEL BROOKS a fantastic opportunity to bring a college satellite campus to Marlborough,” Brooks said. “Unfortunately tonight I am announcing that the college has notified the school district that they are not going to be moving into the southern section of Ulster ” T hey don’t feel that they can compete with the offerings of SUNY Dutchess and SUNY Orange just to our south in Newburgh.” Football player Matt Jackson said Coach Ward and his players are like a family. By MARK REYNOLDS [email protected] Last week the Marlboro School Administration and Board of Education officially parted ways with Rich Ward, who has been the district’s Varsity Football Coach for the past eight seasons. Previously, the district indicated that they were not going to rehire Ward for the upcoming fall season, citing an incident of unprofessional texting behavior in December with a parent of one of his football players. This all played out against a lawsuit that was filed against Ward in 2014, alleging inappropriate actions and language that he used against his players. The lawsuit was eventually tossed out. Several weeks ago, after again listening to nearly unanimous positive comments from the public about Ward, the district decided to give him another shot and offered him a four- page, “Last Chance Agreement” on Continued on page 5 WWW.SOUTHERNULSTERTIMES.COM Continued on page 4