Research


Scope and Content Note

This series consists of subject files of the Assistant Commissioner for District Organization and District Superintendents, a post abolished in 1982. The files contain correspondence, reports, and memoranda of committees of District Superintendents of Schools; minutes and agendas of the Planning Council of District Superintendents, of which the Assistant Commissioner was a member; and related correspondence and memoranda, as well as of committees on reading, school district organization, Project Redesign, health and pupil services, and information systems for education.

There are also memoranda and correspondence about the Commission on the Quality, Cost and Finance of Elementary and Secondary Education (Fleischmann Commission); as well as summaries of comments about the recommendations of Chapter 9 in the Fleischmann Commission report, concerning "Children with Special Needs" (i.e., the mentally or physically handicapped). The commission, 1969-1972, developed recommendations for reforming education, among them a complete state takeover of education financing through a statewide real property tax.Other files pertain to professional organizations, the Legislative Commission on Expenditure Review, the Office of Education Performance Review, and district superintendents generally.

Of note in the series are original typescripts ("master copies") of addresses by the Assistant Commissioner, papers by him concerning regional cooperation among Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), memoranda from the Assistant Commissioner to the District Superintendents of Schools, and a directory of BOCES executive staff (1978). These records were produced or received by Dr. Leo A. Soucy, who was appointed Assistant Commissioner for School Services in 1970. The title of his position later became Assistant Commissioner for District Organization, Health Education and Pupil Services, but these files contain relatively little about health education and pupil services.