At a glance
The Hudson City School District Board of Education filled its vacant seat and swore in Michael Zibella the same night, after a first round of comments split three to two and one of the other applicants, Christina Asby, asked to withdraw. Matthew Mackerer was absent, which for a while left the board one vote short of the four it needed. The board also opened its search for a permanent superintendent, with a goal of having someone in place by July 1 of next year and search firm options to weigh in October. Superintendent Dr. Bailey reported a smooth start to the school year and said the district's insurance carrier would cover a proposed clay target club at no extra charge if the district follows a list of safety conditions. The board went into executive session twice, once early in the meeting and once at the end, and reviewed a charter for a new finance committee it plans to vote on next month.
Roll Call and the Student Report
The meeting opened after technical difficulties, with the board clerk calling the roll and the board accepting the agenda by voice vote. The student representative ran through fundraisers, homecoming plans, and how the phone ban is going.
Key points
- Matthew Mackerer was not attending and sent his regrets, which came back later when the board needed four votes to fill its vacant seat
- The board stood for the pledge, the clerk called the roll, and the agenda was accepted on a motion, a second, and a voice vote
- The class of 2027 is selling hot cocoa at lunch and holding a car wash the weekend after the meeting
- Homecoming is October 3 and the dance is October 4, with tickets from any class of 2026 officer, and student council has planned a field day for October 3
- Mock trial and another club met that Monday and will keep meeting, and the environmental club has its first meeting the following Thursday
- On the phone ban, the student representative said it has been a rough process with clear improvement in class, but that passing periods and lunch still need work
The transcript starts at 04:10, mid sentence, with a speaker thanking people for waiting while the board dealt with technical issues. Whatever happened before that, including the call to order, is not in the record this summary was written from. The captions also garbled two club names in the student report, so only the ones that were clear are listed.
Facilities: A Pool Motor, a Collapsed Sewer Line, and the Capital Project
The facilities committee had met earlier that day and brought back a long list of building updates. The audit committee had nothing to report.
Key points
- A kindergarten bike rack has been installed to serve young riders who enter through a different part of the building
- The maintenance staff is now fully staffed after taking on two new employees
- The pool motor is being replaced in house rather than by a contractor to conserve funds, and the committee declined to name a reopening date so as not to put a deadline on the facilities director
- A sewer line that collapsed before the start of school has been fixed, and the committee said it was an old repair that failed and took a complex dig to redo
- The music room at MCS is getting updates, the greenhouse groundbreaking was completed before the last meeting, evacuation drills have gone well, and a lockdown drill is coming
- The capital project is still moving through contracts, reviews, and legal reviews
- The audit committee has not met since its last report and expects to schedule a meeting for later in October or November
This transcript is a YouTube auto caption with no speaker labels. Board reports are attributed here only where someone in the room said the speaker's name out loud.
The Policy Committee Adds Four Community Members
The expanded policy committee held its first meeting and was big enough to split into two working groups. The committee chair welcomed four new members from outside the board.
Key points
- Crystal Jeffs, Ely Hilton, Nikki Janeito, and Walter Voss have joined the policy committee, bringing parent, community, middle school, and high school perspectives
- One group worked on instructional technology and AI use, and the other worked on finance, including the reimbursement policy and how the district pays for staff conferences
- The second group also updated the records management policy so it reflects the actual roles and responsibilities in the district
- The committee has three board members and the superintendent plus the four new members, with two more seats kept for central office staff who come in as needed, and the chair said the board had agreed on no more than 10 people
- Two central office staff members attended the first meeting to cover finance questions, and the chair said she will work with the clerk and Dr. Bailey to invite the right staff for each topic
- There was more interest than there were seats, and the chair said selections were made for diversity of perspective, professional background, and connection to younger or older students
- The revised policies will come back on next month's board agenda so every committee member can review the changes first
The chair described the membership as three board members, the superintendent, four new members, and two as needed seats, and then said that puts the committee at eight, with a cap of no more than 10. Those numbers do not add up cleanly in the transcript, so they are reported here as she said them rather than reconciled. Community members' names are spelled the way the captions rendered them.
Superintendent Evaluation and the Search for a Permanent Hire
Board president Mark DePace opened the two pieces of superintendent business: filing notice of how the board will evaluate the superintendent, and starting a search for a permanent one. He said he would bring search firm options to the board in October.
Key points
- The first evaluation milestone is filing a notice of which standards the board will use, and the president recommended switching to a set he called more pointed, saying the current standards are broader, vaguer, and overlap each other
- One member noted that the current standards line up more closely with the system used to observe and evaluate teachers, and that both use the same scale
- The board will again use the same online evaluation tool it used last year, which takes the administrative back and forth out of the process, and members asked to be added to it
- The goal is a full time superintendent in place by July 1 of next year, so the president wants a few firm options for the board to weigh at the October meeting
- Firms mentioned were Questar, HYA, and Allen Pole, and the president estimated the cost at roughly $10,000 to $20,000 while saying he did not have exact figures in front of him
- The president said Questar ran the earlier search for free with more robust community engagement and stakeholder committees that interviewed candidates, but took longer, while HYA ran focus groups that produced a rubric the board used to grade candidates
- Members were told the board still conducts the final interviews and makes the final decision either way, and the president said the whole process runs anywhere from six to eight months
The captions render the names of both sets of evaluation standards as strings that are not recognizable acronyms, so they are described here rather than named. The names of two former superintendents mentioned in passing were garbled the same way and are left out.
Board Goals, a Possible Change of Venue, and an October Retreat
The president asked the board to think about its goals for the year before a fuller conversation next meeting, and floated holding some meetings somewhere other than the high school. He also proposed a board retreat in early October.
Key points
- Finishing the board self evaluation, started last year and never completed, is at the top of the president's list, and he said it has not been done in his time on the board
- Last year's goals centered on a student first mentality applied to policies and presentations, the self evaluation, policy work including the code of conduct, and community engagement
- The welcome brochure on the table and the effort to pass along compliments about teachers and staff both came out of the community engagement goal
- A member asked about moving meetings around from time to time, and said Mr. Wheeler told them he could still film and go live as long as there is Wi-Fi
- The board has met at MC Smith in the past, and members said they would need to check policy and law before meeting anywhere the district does not own
- The president proposed a two or three hour retreat in early October on board communication and norms, since a new member would be joining shortly, and said he would send out an availability form
- The board's next regular meeting is October 21, which members noted is more than a month away
Executive Session and the Personnel Agenda
The board went into an early executive session to discuss the employment history of a particular person or persons, then returned and approved the personnel agenda.
Key points
- The board voted to enter executive session at 6:22 p.m. on a motion and a second
- It voted to exit executive session at 6:48 p.m.
- Back in public session, the board approved personnel agenda items A 1 through 5 and B 1 through 10 on a motion, a second, and a voice vote
- There was brief confusion about which items belonged to the personnel agenda and which to the consent agenda before the board moved on
The transcript jumps from 24:47 to 49:34 with nothing in between. That is the executive session, which is closed to the public by design, so nothing said in it appears in the record. The transcript does not show the personnel items being read aloud, so this page cannot say what they were.
Public Forum: A Teacher on How the Last Two Searches Went
One person had signed up to speak, and he used his three minutes to weigh in on the superintendent search the board had just discussed.
Key points
- Wayne Kenny introduced himself as a science teacher at the high school and a past president of Hudson Teachers, and said he was involved in the last two searches
- He said the first process was better because it involved more people at more steps, with an interview committee of union presidents and community members interviewing first
- Under that process the board still did the final interviews and made the final decision
- He said the difference mattered afterward: when members asked him whether the district had hired the best candidate, he could answer, where the second time around he could only say he did not know
- He told the board the choice of firm is theirs, but urged them to pick one that can run that kind of process
- The board chair reminded speakers that each gets three minutes and that comments about district personnel or students cannot be entertained
Superintendent's Report: A Good Opening, a Clay Target Club, and Lifeguards
Dr. Bailey reported that the school year opened well and thanked the staff who made it happen. He then brought back the proposed clay target club with an answer from the district's insurer, explained a contract resolution, and asked the board for room to hire lifeguards.
Key points
- Dr. Bailey credited facilities director Tyler Kurtzman and his staff, Lisa McGovern and food service, and Bill Mohead and transportation, noting the district contracts with at least eight different bus companies, and said he has seen calamitous first days and this was not one
- The district's insurance agent was skeptical at first, but after he named other districts with clay target programs the carrier said it would cover such a club at no charge, and he said the carrier represents something like 400 districts in New York State
- The carrier's conditions include a hold harmless agreement reviewed by the school attorney, firearms stored at the facility and not transported by children, weapons stored separately from ammunition and out of students' reach, written rules and expectations around safety, and training following the shooting association's guidance
- A member asked how student interest gets gauged before the district does all that work, and was told the club charter process requires at least four students to serve as officers, which is itself a test of interest
- Dr. Bailey said it was not a vote, just a read on whether the board wanted him to proceed, and members told him to keep going
- About 11 substantial changes to the APC contract were flagged by the district's attorney, covering warranty, ownership, and communication, and the company has sent back a response that leaves two or three points open, so the resolution was written to let the board president and superintendent approve the final contract in order to meet the summer timeline and the supply chain lead times
- With the pool heavily used and lifeguard shifts scattered from early morning to evening, Dr. Bailey asked to onboard certified, fingerprinted, eligible lifeguards before the next meeting and appoint them retroactively, and members said yes
No vote was taken. The board gave Dr. Bailey a verbal go ahead to follow the district's extracurricular club development process, which involves the union, staff, and the board.
Consent Agenda, With One Item Pulled for a Separate Vote
The board approved most of the consent agenda in one motion and pulled item E, a staffing plan, for its own discussion and vote.
Key points
- The board approved consent agenda items A through D and F through O on a motion, a second, and a voice vote
- Item E covers Dr. Bailey's plan to bring in two part time consultants rather than add full time central office positions
- The board president said he appreciated that approach as fiscally responsible while still meeting students' needs, and noted the community has given feedback in the past about the size of the central office administrative team and that there are fewer bodies now than in the past
- Another member added that the district has to keep up with grant funding and title funding, because if the district lapses on that, students lose
- The board then voted on item E, and one member said they believed they were the only one not in favor
A New Finance Committee, Separate From the Audit Committee
Under new business, the policy committee chair presented a charter that would launch a standing finance committee. The board did not vote; the president asked to take it up at the next meeting with a full board.
Key points
- The charter describes the committee as providing independent advice, assistance, and recommendations to the board on the district's financial planning process, including budget development, implementation, and evaluation, maintenance of dedicated reserves, monitoring of unreserved fund balance, and fiscal reporting and transparency
- A member asked how it differs from the audit committee, and was told the audit committee is mandated by New York State, covers the controls that guard against fraud or malfeasance, and has a narrow charter limited to the internal and external audit
- Members said they had repeatedly bumped into topics in audit committee meetings that they wanted to discuss but could not under that charter
- The board's attorneys recommended keeping the two committees separate, though the board was told some districts combine them
- The stated goal is to make the district's short term and long term finances a year round conversation instead of something the board talks about for three months during budget season, and to build a long term plan alongside the next budget
- The president recommended voting on the charter at the next meeting, when a full board can also decide committee appointments and any changes to other committees
The charter was presented and discussed only. The board plans to vote on it at the October 21 meeting and to sort out committee appointments at the same time.
Filling the Vacant Seat: Michael Zibella Appointed and Sworn In
Four people applied for the seat vacated by Calvin Lewis. The board split three to two, one applicant withdrew, a member shifted her position, and Michael Zibella was appointed and sworn in on the spot.
Key points
- The board received four letters of interest, from Christina Asby, Michael Zibella, Peter Meyer, and Steve Pek, and under board policy an appointment takes a majority, which members said meant four of them
- One member said her choice was Zibella because he has been at every board meeting since the election, went through the election process and came close, and would help with the capital project given his professional and business experience, and that with three seats open he finished fourth out of what she believed were six candidates
- A second member said Zibella was nominated by 100 community members at the last election, was questioned by the student council, had community members come out to vote for him, and would be an asset to the facilities team. Two other members backed Asby, pointing to her experience as a civil rights attorney and with grant funding as skill sets not currently on the board, and to her community presence
- The board president said he appreciated all four applicants, mentioned Peter Meyer's experience and Steve Pek's background as a graduate and as editor of an academic journal, and then added his own support for Zibella
- At three to two the board was a vote short, and members discussed tabling the decision until Matthew Mackerer could take part on October 21 or at a special meeting, noting there is no proxy policy
- Christina Asby, who was in the room without a microphone, asked to withdraw, and the president repeated it aloud for people watching at home, then one member said she could shift her vote, a motion to appoint Michael Zibella passed on a voice vote, and the board clerk swore him in immediately
- Members were told that a seat filled by public vote would have to be filled within 90 days but that an appointment is at the board's discretion, and that the appointee serves until the May 2026 election, when whoever gets the highest number of votes is sworn in that night
Michael Zibella took the oath at the meeting but will not join the evening's second executive session. The president said the clerk would be in touch about his email address and board member packet, and that he would bring the new member up to speed over the following week. Committee assignments were deferred until the finance committee is up and running so the board can reshuffle everyone at once.
The captions render the new member's surname four different ways in the space of ten minutes. It is spelled here as the district lists it. Applicants who are not district officials are spelled as the captions rendered them, so those spellings may be off.
A Safety Complaint, PTO News, and Meeting Dates
A resident used the second public forum to raise a building safety concern from that afternoon. The board then ran through PTO news, website calendar improvements, and its October meeting dates before going into a second executive session.
Key points
- Sam Santiago said he was at the building that afternoon watching a game, went into a restroom, found kids everywhere, and saw one rolling up contraband, and told the board that with kids all over the place the situation is not safe
- He also raised the possibility of someone slipping into the building and staying overnight unnoticed, and the president said the clerk has his contact information and the district will follow up
- A member praised the chalk the walk back to school night at the elementary school, put on by school staff and the PTO, and said it helped with beginning of year jitters
- Some junior high PTO leaders have moved over to restart the booster club, and the junior high PTO is now run by Richard Scofier, who helped put on last year's trivia nights and is looking for help
- The district's new communications person from BOCES has been filling in the Google calendar on the district website homepage, with each building's page showing just that building, and members asked that board committee meetings be added too
- Members raised accessibility again, noting the district office conference room is not easy to get into, and said meetings should be somewhere the public can enter the building and reach the room
- Dates announced: policy committee October 14 in the high school library from 5 to 7 p.m., facilities committee October 21 in the district conference room with the time moved from 4 to 5 p.m. to 5 to 6 p.m., and the regular board meeting October 21 in the high school auditorium
The board voted to enter a second executive session at 7:23 p.m. to discuss the employment history of a particular person or persons, and the president said there would be no further business after it. The transcript stops there, so if anything else was said, it is not in this record.
About this page
FUTURE HUDSON is an experiment in civic engagement: every public meeting of the City of Hudson since January 2026, transcribed and made readable, so any resident can follow what the city is deciding without attending every meeting. This page covers one meeting; see the full archive.
How it was made
The meeting video was transcribed automatically; the transcript was then organized into sections and summarized. The raw transcript is above, every claim can be checked against it.
What to be skeptical of
The transcript is automated and contains speech-recognition errors; names and numbers may be wrong. This page has not been reviewed by a human. Nothing here is an official record, the school district's official minutes are authoritative.
About coverage of this body
Board of Education meetings are livestreamed by the Hudson City School District to its own YouTube channel. The school district is a separate government from the City of Hudson. If a meeting is missing from the archive, the recording was likely not posted. See the archive index for the full coverage note.