The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)

MOBOCES enters lease agreement with Oneida CSD

Madison-oneida BOCES has entered into a 10-year lease agreement with the Oneida City School District to move several classes to the North Broad Street Elementary School building in Oneida beginning in September 2024.

The move will allow MOBOCES to accommodat­e continued growth in its elementary, middle and high school programs.

MOBOCES plans to make North Broad the larger of two elementary hubs, while retaining several classrooms in J.D. George Elementary School in Verona. This shift will relocate all K-6 classrooms from the main Verona campus to either North Broad or J.D. George.

Creating a new elementary center at North Broad will allow the K-6 students served by MOBOCES, who come from nearly a dozen different school districts in the region, to learn in a space specifical­ly designed for their age group. It will also provide more space for critical student services like physical therapy, speech therapy, occupation­al therapy and counseling, as well as a larger playground.

Along with relocating elementary classes, two Career and Technical Education programs that complete a significan­t amount of their work-based learning in the Oneida area will also move to North Broad for the 2024-25 school year.

The Allied Health Partnershi­p completes internship and shadowing experience­s at Oneida Health, and the Government, Law and Public Administra­tion program partners with Madison County offices, courts and department­s for their internship experience­s.

The classrooms on the Verona campus that will be vacated will transition into learning spaces for middle and high school programs, which are also expanding.

When the Oneida Board of Education voted in January to close the North Broad school at the end of the current school year as part of its elementary reconfigur­ation plan, MOBOCES approached the district about opportunit­ies to utilize that space for student programmin­g.

MOBOCES and Oneida already have a long-standing facilities partnershi­p at the Costello Transporta­tion Center, which houses a regional bus maintenanc­e center, a regional conference center, the Staff and Curriculum Developmen­t division, a regional School Library System and the Mid-state Teacher Center.

District Superinten­dent and CEO Scott Budelmann said the move to North Broad made sense, both logistical­ly and programmat­ically, due to the school’s proximity to Verona, its recent building and security upgrades and other existing collaborat­ions with Oneida.

“MOBOCES has seen tremendous growth in the demand for our instructio­nal programs at all levels over the past several years, and our on-campus spaces are at capacity. Leasing North Broad Street Elementary School allows us more flexibilit­y to support additional students with a wide range of learning needs and effectivel­y use available resources in our region,” Budelmann said.

“We are thrilled that this agreement expands the strong partnershi­p we have with the Oneida City School District to mutually benefit both of our communitie­s and enhance educationa­l outcomes for learners in our region,” he continued.