Josh McCormick, a 17-year-old senior at Saugerties High, is living and breathing robotics these days.

On February 7, Donovan Barros and Austen Razek will represent Saugerties in the 35th annual Capital Region Spelling Bee at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady, an historic vaudeville house. Barros and Razek finished first and second in the Saugerties Spelling Bee on January 4.

That figure would increase the district’s overall aid amount for 2017-18 by $814,735, potentially good news with the state comptroller’s office last week setting the statewide school property tax levy cap for this May’s budgets at 1.26 percent.

The program, sends elementary school students home with meals on weekends, was founded two years ago and has grown to serve 85 students at Cahill and Mount Marion elementary schools.

Saugerties Central School District’s best spellers waltzed through a tornado of words at the annual district-wide spelling bee on January 4, with eighth grader Donovan Barros emerging as the winner for the second time in three years.

Wednesday evening, Dec. 14, the Saugerties school district will host a public screening of “Audrie & Daisy,” a documentary produced by Netflix which links the topics of sexual assault, cyber-bullying and suicide. School officials say it is important for parents and students to be aware of all three.

School officials budgeted with a greater than 98 percent accuracy, and the district is in good fiscal health.

The Saugerties Central School District recently identified 34 samples from non-potable water outlets as exceeding levels of lead deemed acceptable by the New York State Department of Health, but school officials this week said they’ve already tackled most of the issues.

The 2016 presidential election is over, but some of the campaign rhetoric used by President-elect Donald Trump and intensified by some of his followers has some local children on edge.