The New York State School Board Association is gearing up for their big event this weekend - the annual Convention and Education Expo. David Albert is the communications director for the association. He says one of the hot topics for this year is the property tax cap.

"That's certainly going to take center stage as school leaders grapple with how they're going to make ends meet after three years of declining state and now caps on property taxes," said Albert.

Not to mention other challenges such as new teacher and principal evaluations. State Education Commissioner John King will be on hand, and will be conducting an interactive session with school board members.

"Where he will be answering their questions and speaking to them about some of the major challenges that lie ahead for schools, certainly the state education department has an ambitious reform agenda," said Albert.

And that agenda includes issues such as Race to the Top and regents exam scoring. The expo, which by the way, is being held at the Buffalo-Niagara Convention Center, isn't a bad place to get these messages out. Nearly 3,000 school board members and educators from across the state are coming in this weekend to learn new ideas and to learn from each other.

"A lot of the benefit of attending an event like this, in addition to the workshops that are held on various topics is the opportunity to talk with colleagues from around the state and see how they’re approaching these same challenges,” said Albert.

With trade shows, workshops, and speaking engagements, this education expo offers the opportunity for administrators to experience new lesson plans...while bringing it all back home to their school districts.

"And they use the knowledge that they gain from the workshops from interacting with their peers as they build their budgets as they engage the community on various initiatives and a lot of that informal dialogue takes place as well,” said Albert.