Students Join School Board, District Signs EV Bus Contract and More from the Scarsdale Schools

Monday, August 25th was a busy day for the Scarsdale School District. Not only did it have faculty and teachers returning to their classrooms for the first official school day of the 2025-2026 school year, but later that evening the Board of Education convened for a business meeting where they discussed topics like new hires, a brief education report, and consent agenda items such as an approved contract with Highland Electric Fleets.

To kick off the meeting, both BOE President James Dugan and Superintendent Dr. Drew Patrick, extended a warm welcome to new faculty members, highlighted events such as new student orientations, and expressed their gratitude for the hard work that took place over the summer in preparation for the start of the new school year. You can read more from Mr. Dugan here and from Dr. Patrick here.

In their second official BOE meeting, Student Board members Anish Mehta and Lucy Eisenberg described their ideas for improving communication between the Board of Education and the student body at Scarsdale High School. Mehta discussed the possibility of utilizing mediums such as the school newspaper and homeroom videos to share information, raise awareness, and to collect student feedback.

In his Cabinet Update, Dr. Edgar McIntosh shared a brief Education Report that highlighted how Scarsdale teachers and faculty were actively engaged in program improvement over the summer, focusing on three main areas: collaborative work to align practices and grading across grades and departments, updates to existing curriculum materials and assessments, and the creation of new courses and performance assessments.

McIntosh also stated, “This year's educational reports will highlight how we are adapting our practices and priorities to better serve our students now and in the future. Both short cabinet updates and detailed reports will show how ongoing assessments and research guide our evidence based changes. Education reports will align with our strategic plan of Living, Leading and Learning.”

Going forward, the Board will be informed of Education Report topics in advance of the next meeting. Dr. McIntosh related, “For the next Board of Education Meeting, in my cabinet update, I'll be focused on the updates to elementary math resources, focusing on benchmark assessments at every grade, language, and formatting modifications for early grades and K-5 enrichment strategies.”

In addition to announcing that former Scarsdale High School head custodian, Luis Magalhaes, will be appointed the position of Assistant Director of Facilities, Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Meghan Troy, welcomed and introduced several new hires to the Scarsdale School District. You can see the complete list of new faculty appointments in Troy’s Personnel Report here.

Later in the meeting Andrew Lennon, Assistant Superintendent for Business, provided a brief overview of the District’s new contract with Highland Electric Fleets. In the overview he described an eight-year agreement with Highland Electric Fleets for electric bus charging infrastructure, funded partly by $800,000 in EPA grants.

As is also stated in his report: “The New York State Zero-Emission Bus mandate requires all new school bus purchases to be zero-emissions beginning in 2027 and the entire fleet to be zero-emissions by 2037. As part of the 2023-2024 budget, the Board of Education funded a Transportation Study to assist the district in planning for this transition. The Transportation Study was completed by Highland Fleets and presented to the Board in October 2024. Highland also assisted the District with the successful application to the United State Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which awarded the district $800,000 towards four (4) electric school buses. Additionally, the Board authorized the District’s internal auditor, Nawrocki Smith, LLP to perform an Focus Audit of the transportation operations to further help with long term planning and improvement.

As part of the 2025-2026 Budget, the district proposed and the voters approved the funding for an 8-year agreement to partner with a firm to design, procure, install and manage all infrastructure required to charge 4 electric vehicles. The district has been in negotiations with Highland Electric Fleets to provide these services and we are prepared to recommend the contract for approval this evening.”

Of course these are only a few of the highlights discussed at Monday night’s meeting. To watch the full BOE meeting see here.