Throughout the SJ coverage areas school districts of Ellenville, Pine Bush and Rondout Valley, only the latter will have races of any importance or impact this year, where five will be running for three seats, representing a wide array of political and educational stances in a district that's seen some controversy this year surrounding student political interests as expressed in school activities. Ellenville will have three incumbents seeking reelection against a candidate who's been running regularly, without success, for years.

In Pine Bush, meanwhile, a year of petition activity geared towards changing the way local school candidates are chosen has resulted in... one incumbent running for two seats, meaning the other open one will go to whoever wins the most number of write-ins come May 19. Which is usually a number in the one dozen range.

For the Rondout Valley race, for the seats currently filled by Wayne Beckerman, Breanna Costello and Rebecca Versace, only Beckerman and Versace will be seeking reelection. Facing them will be Gerry Fornino, Rochester's Conservative Party chairman and his town's Emergency Management Coordinator; Nicole Parete of Stone Ridge, wife of a former county legislator, daughter-in-law of Ulster County's legislative chairman, and the mother of a toddler; and Pamela Longley of High Falls, who has also expressed interest with the Marbletown Democratic Committee about running for a seat on her town board.

The Rondout budget that will be up for adoption May 19 is for $60,700,937 for the 2015-2016 school year, under the state's mandate 2 percent tax cap.

In Ellenville, residents will vote May 19 on a proposed 2015-2016 ECSD budget of $48,442,900, with a proposed tax levy of $23,082,461 — an increase of $485,870 from last year, or a 2.15% increase... still under the cap, given its individual quirks.

Those running for the three board trustee seats up this year include incumbents Maxine Chapin, Iris Friedman and Wayne Storey. Running against the current trustees is Napanoch resident, Francis Gurgui, who has run each year for about the past decade.

A budget hearing will be held May 5 at the high school media center, at 5 p.m.

Finally, in Pine Bush — where hundreds of petitions were gathered this past year to try and have the state legislature shift the district's voting from an at-large to a ward district basis — only one set of petitions were submitted on this past Monday's April 20 deadline... from incumbent Roseanne Sullivan, who also serves as an Orange County legislator. A second seat, vacated earlier this year by longtime educator Judith Pulver without explanation, saw no one submitting petitions.

That leaves the filling of Pulver's seat to whomever gets the highest number of write-in votes or, if no one comes forward in that fashion, to whomever the board decides to appoint after their reorganization meeting this summer.

A final budget figure was to be arrived at, under the tax cap percentage year-to-year rise figure as promised, at a special meeting to be held this Thursday, April 23.

School board and budget votes will take place in all school districts, in the schools themselves, on Tuesday May 19, with exact times shifting only slightly across the region.