PINE BUSH – Joan Carbone, who sets off into retirement in two weeks, announced at Tuesday's school board meeting that while Donna Geidel will replace her on an interim basis, during which time a permanent superintendent of schools will be sought, assistant superintendent of instruction at Orange/Ulster Boces Mary Ann Wilson will be stepping in as interim PBSD assistant superintendent of instruction.

Carbone later explained that while there used to be twelve fire drills in a school year, there will now be eight fire drills and four drills for security and safety, practicing skills such as moving to shelter and safe places, as well as lock out/lockdown drills. Eight of the twelve drills must be held prior to December 31 this year.

Geidel announced that the kick off for this year's No Place For Hate campaign went well, with board approvals in place and further work with the Anti-Defamation League planned for the year. Board vice president Gretchen Meier thanked Geidel for the effort she has put in campaign, which has extended to the entire district.

Eric Collier and Geoff Goray gave a presentation of the Architecture/Construction/Engineering after school program, which they described as being is way for students to get hands-on opportunities to explore how things actually work in the fields of architecture, engineering and construction. The program is free and open to all high school students. There are bi-weekly sessions from October to April and students will participate in regular visits to work sites and businesses. The program is funded by local and regional companies and Collier explained that this was the first time the program had been offered in the Hudson Valley. High school assistant principal Andre Spinelli will be the program's Pine Bush anchor.

Board member and county legislator Roseanne Sullivan voiced concern regarding the identity of the mentoring firms and donors to the program and asked what kind of background checks would be performed. Information regarding her concerns will be provided to the administration.

Carbone said she saw this program as being similar to the Academy of Finance program, which runs through the school year and acquaints students with the fundamentals of bookkeeping, accounting and financial management.

Matthew Furdine and Ryan Thordson of Ameresco later presented a plan for the Phase II Energy Performance Contract for the district, which began with an RFP in the summer of 2015. The project will place solar panels on the roofs of five of the district's schools at a projected cost of $7,961,797. Of that, 67 percent can be recovered from the state, while the project will also draw in an income of $203,450. The annual savings on electricity use are estimated at $460,367 meaning that the project will not only pay for itself over the lifetime of the solar panels, but the solar power aspect will fund the lighting system improvement — 8,442 lighting fixtures will be upgraded to LED technologies — and the expensive replacement of all pneumatic control systems throughout the district with state of the art digital controls.

Furdine quipped that once this was done, district operations & maintenance director Jim Licardi could run the school's systems from his phone.

Almost 1.8 megawatts worth of photovoltaic capacity will be installed, led by 805 kW at the high school. Ameresco retains responsibility for any new equipment that they install, and will replace any panels that break.

The school district's attorney will review the projected contract and the administration will then decide whether to go forward with the project.

Meanwhile, Pine Bush's homecoming will be this weekend, with a bonfire at the high school starting at 7 p.m. Homecoming games in various sports have been taking place throughout the week, ending with an anticipated PBHS football game against Newburgh Free Academy on Saturday at 4 p.m. in Pine Bush.