Tagged: north country

New York NOW traveled to one of the most remote parts of the Adirondack Park to tell the story of a rural school district that has been able to stave off closing its doors - by opening them to international students. 

Smaller districts like this one in Newcomb, N.Y. are now pushing for a new law that will allow foreign students to stay longer than the one year currently allowed. 

Watch the full story:

A rural school district in a remote corner of the Adirondack Park is a hotbed of internationalism.

This week, New York NOW travels to Newcomb, N.Y. to tell the story of how one school district has been able to stave off closing its doors - by opening them to international students.

Students from as far away as Spain and Brazil make up about half of the total number in most high school classes. Since the international students pay tuition, the tiny Newcomb Central School District is thriving.

Now a group of New York legislators is pushing for a new federal law that would allow foreign students to stay longer than the one year currently allowed.

See the entire story this weekend on your local PBS station.

The Innovation Trail is taking a closer look at New York State’s industrial development agencies, or IDAs. Follow our coverage by subscribing to the IDA RSS feed.

Don Alexander and the Jefferson County Industrial Development Agency (JCIDA) like to show off local business Timeless Frames as one of their success stories.

And what better way - with a company that makes custom picture frames - than by hanging a picture in the JCIDA’s office.

Timeless Frames was purchased by Lisa Weber in 1999. It had just seven employees then, and what Weber describes as an “at risk” customer base.

With some help from the local IDA, the Watertown company now has more than 200 employees spread over three buildings.

But attracting similar companies with big job creation plans is a special challenge for Jefferson County’s IDA, according to Alexander.

What if you had to drive 50 miles just to pick up a pair of underwear?

The geographically isolated town of Saranac Lake, N.Y. has fewer than 5,000 residents and no "big box" stores like Target or Wal-Mart.

So the people there decided to create their own department store.

See the story from this weekend's episode of New York NOW:

This story is the second part of a series following New York's power lines to Canada.  You can read the second part here.

Say you're a big state, in need of a lot of electric power. Specifically, you're the fifth largest power consumer in the nation.

And let's also say you have a newfound zeal for shutting down a large nuclear facility, one that's unsettlingly close to a major city (for these purposes we'll call it "Indian Point").

In this scenario, if your northern neighbor swooped in with an offer to provide you with hydroelectric power, produced by massive dams, you'd say yes - right?