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.
In addition to relocating elementary classes, two Career and Technical Education (CTE) 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 our 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.”