Region 14 Board of Ed Candidate: Stephen Paluskas

Stephen Paluskas, Bethlehem

Stephen Paluskas served on the Region 14 Board of Education in the past and said when it comes to priorities, building maintenance is a big one.

Top Priorities

"Well, I entered the board 12 years ago and we inherited, six years before then, maintenance problems we're still trying to address," he said. "They just got swept under the rug so the big priority is to get the referendum passed so we can start improving our schools."

Paluskas said people sometimes say it would be cheaper to building a new school than renovate but the problem with that is location.

"All the better spots have been selected and developed over the years," he said.
Paluskas said the auditorium at Nonnewaug High School is in need of an upgrade.

"The auditorium at Nonnewaug is a nightmare," he said. "The original construction materials used to build it were determined afterward to be substandard. We have an inadequate cafeteria system now - we have kids who start eating lunch at 10 a.m. and some who eat at 2 p.m. The science labs are a joke."

Agriscience at NHS

Paluskas said that if elected to the board, he wants to take a look at the district's agriscience department. He said expanding the agriscience program will bring in tuition-paying students. 

"The vo-ag program is one of the best programs in the state and the more people that can take advantage of it, the better off we will be," he said.

During his stint on the Board of Education, Paluskas said he is most proud of how the board assisted with choosing administrators for the district.

"We go through administrators so much," he said. "The problem is we're a smaller system and they can find bigger jobs that pay better, so we have quite a bit of turnover, but I think we did pretty good picking and choosing the people we had to supervise."