by Alex Brooks
The Hoosick Falls School Board was in a celebratory mood at its meeting on November 26. The primary reason for the celebration was that Hoosick Falls Senior Luis Weierbach received a “letter of assurance” confirming his acceptance at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. [private]Next year he will be a Cadet, and competing for the Academy in Division 1 wrestling. In addition to being a State champion wrestler, Weierbach is an impressive young man, involved in a great many leadership activities at the school.
Superintendent Ken Facin, the wrestling coaches, and several Board members had high praise for him. Weierbach said he would like to thank the community of Hoosick Falls and the school for giving him the many opportunities to grow and to excel that he has found here.
The School Board meeting took a short break to hold a reception in Weierbach’s honor, eating a cake that somehow had the West Point logo made out of icing adorning the center of it.
But that was not all there was to celebrate. There were a series of happy pieces of news discussed at the meeting.
On November 16 the Hoosick Falls High School Choir, led by Ambigay Yudkoff, performed in Carnegie Hall as part of a concert produced by Tim Janis called “Music of Hope.” It is not the first time the Hoosick Falls Choir has performed in Carnegie Hall, and the Board was very pleased that Yudkoff has been able to keep the choir at a level at which they can participate in a Carnegie Hall production along with professional musicians.
High School Principal Stacy Vadney announced that the Hoosick Falls District has been named by the College Board as one of 477 districts in all of the U.S. and Canada to the AP District Honor Roll (there are over 16,000 school districts in the United States). The College Board said these districts “are honored for increasing access to AP course work while simultaneously maintaining or increasing the percentage of students earning scores of 3 or higher on AP Exams. Reaching these goals indicates that these districts are successfully identifying motivated, academically prepared students who are likely to benefit from rigorous AP course work.” This is the fourth year that the College Board has put together this honor roll, and the first time that the Hoosick Falls District has made the list. Vadney said the increasing success of Hoosick Falls students on AP tests is an important metric of the school’s overall success in raising student achievement.
Vadney also announced that middle school Special Education teacher Kelli Grennan has successfully achieved National Board Certification. This is an extremely difficult and rigorous certification achieved by very few teachers. There are only 1,400 National Board certified teachers in New York State, which on average, is less than 2 per district.
The Hoosick Falls District has five other teachers who are working toward their National Board Certification but have not achieved it yet.
APPR Leadership
School Superintendent Ken Facin said the Hoosick Falls administrators, High School Principal Stacy Vadney, Elementary School Principal Amy Netti and Director of Curriculum and Assessment Pat Dailey, were the best presenters at a conference in Latham sponsored by EdVistas on the annual teacher performance reviews known as “APPR” (Annual Professional Performance Review). Over a hundred people attended the conference from many Capital District school districts.
Hoosick Falls was one of the first districts to have an APPR agreement in place and has had a productive collaborative relationship with the Hoosick Falls Teachers Association in implementing the state mandated teacher performance reviews.
Vadney attributed the District’s success to putting student achievement first and allowing teachers and administrators to use the APPR program as an opportunity to work together to improve teaching performance.
School Board President Greg Laurin said the District has been successful with the APPR program because, “We started early and we had a plan.”
School Board Member Laurie Gormley said she is very proud of the District’s statewide leadership in developing a successful APPR program.
The Board also:
• approved purchase of a new piano for the auditorium, a Yamaha upright piano from Vincitore’s Piano Center, for $4,699, which was described as a great bargain;
• approved a motion under the State’s Environmental Quality Review law, known as SEQR, determining that the proposed pellet heating system is a “Type II” action which will not require any further environmental review; Facin said the final contract with the pellet heating company is being vetted now by the District’s lawyers and engineers;
• accepted the low bid for internal auditing services from Michael Wolff Advisory Services; this will be 6-10 days work per year at an annual cost to the District somewhere between $3,400 and $6,000, and
• approved non-resident tuition of $5,113 for grades k-6 and $7,084 for grades 7-12; Facin said he had signed up the first non-resident, tuition paying student that same day.
The next regular meeting of the School Board will be on Thursday, December 19, at 7 pm in the high school library.[/private]