schools

Press release:

On May 27, Byron-Bergen first-graders learned about the history and meaning of the United States' flag from people who proudly fought for it – prominent members of the Genesee County American Legion and Auxiliary. The students welcomed Genesee County American Legion Commander Dave Henry, Chaplain Don Nagle, Post & County Adjutant Jim Neider, and Auxiliary President Jane Fox, and listened intently to their presentation.

Neider, who was recently named to the New York State Veterans' Hall of Fame in honor of gallantry in the Armed Forces and service to the community, made history come alive with stories of Betsy Ross and the first flag. He explained that Flag Day – June 14 – celebrates the birthday of our national symbol. He described the meaning of the flag’s stars and stripes, and the significance of the red, white, and blue. He also encouraged the young patriots to remind their parents and other adults of the many ways to honor the flag.

“As vets, we enjoy helping children connect with history, and get an understanding for the importance of our flag and our country,” says Neider, who also taught elementary school for 30 years at Alexander Central School. “The kids at Byron-Bergen are especially knowledgeable and enthusiastic. They make doing this a lot of fun.”

Notre Dame High School held its graduation service Saturday evening outside on the north side of the campus. Bishop Richard Malone spoke at the commencement ceremony.

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It was Agricultural Appreciation Day at Byron-Bergen High School. Senior students drove their tractors to school.

Photos submitted by Gayla Starowitz.

Connor Nesbitt

In Chef K's kitchen, if it's not right, it's wrong

Even without the profanity, celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay is profane. He’s mean even when his soliloquies aren’t bleepin’ tirades.

Some of the students in the Culinary Arts program at BOCES compare Chef Nathan Koscielski to Gordon Ramsay. Even "Chef K" himself makes the comparison.

“I do yell in the kitchen sometimes,” Koscielski said.

Of course, Chef K never drops f-bombs. No teacher would. But neither is he mean. There are no insults tossed around like pizza dough in Chef K’s kitchen. If he raises his voice, it’s more like a stern version of Hugh Beaumont than a vein-popping drill sergeant.

Ramsay — star of such shows as "Hell’s Kitchen" and "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" — has high standards and high expectations, which seems to be the fuse that ignites his expletive-deleted critiques of other chefs and restaurant owners.

Driving home those same points about quality and consistency is also the growl in Chef K’s bark.

“There have got to be standards,” Koscielski said. “Everything has got to be uniform and everything has got to be high quality. It’s got to be done the right way, the perfect way, or it’s wrong. If it’s wrong, we’re not going to sell it to a customer.”

Click here for the full story.

Oh, that smell. That whiff of manure spread on a farmfield. The odor of animal waste in a barn filled with holsteins or jerseys. The stench of a pigsty.

The first time Chef Nathan Koscielski brought a group of his Culinary Arts students into the animal science department at BOCES, their instant response was to pinch noses firmly between thumbs and forefingers. "Oh, that smell."

Animal Science instructor Holly Partridge remembers it well.

“They walked in and said, ‘oh, this is gross. What a disgusting stink,’ ” Partridge said. “Chef turned to them and said, ‘that is the smell of money, because without that smell, you don’t have anything to sell. You don’t have anything to cook. You don’t have a restaurant.’ ”

That visit came near the start of what has turned into a fertile partnership between Koscielski and Partridge, one that is perhaps unique in culinary education circles.

“We had a documentary film producer come in to show us his film ‘American Meat’ and he said visited 150 FFA (Future Farmers of America) programs and he saw what we were doing and said he had seen nothing like it,” Partridge said.

For the past three years, the animal science program has been producing the meat used in the meals prepared by the Culinary Arts students — chicken, eggs, lamb, pork and guinea hens. The partnership has helped the BOCES culinary program produce a three-peat in the Taste of Culinary Competition hosted by the American Culinary Federation of Greater Buffalo, but it’s also produced a new recipe for educating high school students about the source of their meals.

“If you ask my students at the beginning of the year where food comes from, they say it comes from the grocery store,” Partridge said. “Where’s your eggs come from? It comes from the grocery store? Where’s your milk come from? It comes from the grocery store. That’s the mindset that Americans tend to have now because we’re so far removed from production.”

Both Partridge and Koscielski said that by bringing the two programs closer together, they’re teaching future cooks to respect the ingredients that go into their recipes and teaching future farmers about quality ingredients. The farmers learn about how to raise animals properly and the cooks learn to reuse waste in a way that is better for the planet.

“I make every student hold a little chick that was just hatched in their hands and tell them that in 16 weeks, that chicken is going to be on your cutting board,” Kosciekski said. “I don’t do that to be mean. I do that to teach them respect for the ingredients. When you’re holding a living animal and you know in 16 weeks, that’s going to be on your cutting board and you’re going to cook it, well, I can’t teach that through a textbook. There’s no better way to teach them to respect the animals.”

Carrot tops, loose cabbage leafs, potato skins and the other scraps of cooking that come out of Chef K’s kitchen go into a red bucket and are rolled down to the animal science department to feed pigs, lamb and chickens.

“When they wheel it down, they wheel it down knowing it will feed animals that they will eventually use in their class,” Partridge said.

It’s a long walk down hallways with tile on the walls and past many, many classrooms to get from the cooking class to the animal class. There’s a right turn, a left, a right and a left again. A walker might be tempted to leave breadcrumbs the first time on the trail, but it is a two-way path. Students from both classes will visit each other during the course of a school year as eggs hatch, grow into chickens, are sent off to a meat processing house and finally return to Chef K’s kitchen so they can fulfill their culinary destiny.

When chicks grow into chickens, the culinary students weave through those hallways to pay a final visit to the birds that will soon provide broth for their noodle soups or thighs for their cacciatores.

“They get to feel what a live bird feels like; to feel what the breast of a live bird feels like; to feel the weight of a live bird; to feel its breathing and its warmth,” Partridge said.

Poultry is slaughtered off campus by professionals. The plucked and dressed birds are returned to BOCES frozen and ready for whatever recipe Chef K might be cooking up for his students to learn. The Animal Science students are then invited into the kitchen to see how a bird is broken down for meal preparation.

“I don’t know of a college that is doing what we’re doing here with the integration of the farm,” Koscielski said. “That’s one of the reasons I work here, because I can’t get this anywhere else. Being able to work with my farmer on a daily basis, I don’t get that anywhere else.”

Two years ago, BOCES hosted members from throughout WNY of the American Culinary Federation. The main course: chicken. The cooks: students. The guest speaker: Holly Partridge. The federation members learned about the breed of bird and how it was raised and then got a taste of what Partridge preached.

“They were blown away,” Partridge said. “I showed them the difference between a commercial chicken, which is a very different breed of bird, and the chickens we produced. They were amazed at the difference in flavor because of how they were raised and the breed of the animal.”

The animals raised by Animal Science are farm fresh, which makes for a better meal, but they’re also organic, which Koscielski said not only means a richer flavor, but also a farming process that is healthier for the environment.

Books such as "The Omnivore's Dilemma," "Food Inc." and "King Corn" are required reading in Koscielski’s class, he said.

“We want students to learn about organic, healthy food that leaves a small footprint on the environment,” Koscielski said. “It’s something I’m very passionate about.”

The partnership is only going to expand in the coming years, both Koscielski and Partridge said.

By next year, Animal Science will have an expanded hen house, producing more eggs — enough eggs to stock Koscielski kitchen for the entire school year. With 100 percent of the culinary program’s eggs grown on campus, BOCES will save money on egg purchases.

Partridge and Koscielski are also hatching a plan to sell duck eggs along with breads and pastries at a local farmers market this fall.

Partridge said duck eggs have a leavening agent that consumers will crave once they taste and see better breads and pastries. Dough rises better with duck eggs and the flavor is richer. When Partridge asked Koscielski if he would make some sample products to give away to help sell the eggs, Koscielski said he would go a step better, baking bread and rolling pastries to sell along with the eggs.

“The goal is to not only promote the Animal Science Program, but also give kids an opportunity to run a business venture,” Partridge said.

The plan will need approval of the BOCES board.

Animal Science students spend a lot of time with the pigs, lambs, ducks and chickens they raise. They hold them, feed them, shepherd them and learn their traits and personalities. Learning to read an animal is an important skill to develop, Partridge said. They’re easier to herd when you can predict their next move and you can avoid trouble if you understand their moods.

Students also help care for the dogs of BOCES faculty and students. There are lessons, too, in canine socialization, grooming, feeding and walking.

Rather than a contradiction between mixing household pets with animals raised purely to provide sustenance, Partridge said students learn valuable lessons about farming and the humane treatment of livestock.

“They understand that if you want to eat meat, you’re going to raise the animal humanely, but you’re not going to raise them like your dogs,” Partridge said. “You’re going to raise them in an environment that is economical and humane for that animal. The needs of a pig are different than the needs of your dog. The needs of a chicken are different than the needs of your canary. They understand that food comes from an agriculture process. It comes from driving down the road and watching that manure spread on the field and understanding it’s not just there to make your life miserable because it smells. It’s a byproduct of what we’re doing so you can eat.”

It’s a lesson that doesn’t take long for students to learn, Partridge said.

“The kids have really gotten over that, ‘oh, I don’t want to eat that pig, it’s so cute,’ to ‘we are raising a quality product for a reason,’ ” Partridge said. “I’m not getting kids coming in crying that that little pig is going to get killed for somebody to eat. I’m getting kids with the understanding that production animals that we raise, we handle different than the companion animals that we raise.”

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Press release:

Notre Dame High School will publically launch a $5 million capital campaign on Tuesday evening at Stafford Country Club. This will be the most significant capital campaign in the school’s 62-year history. The "Faith in the Future" capital campaign will allow the school to invest in facility improvements, technology upgrades, and endowment fund growth.

“We are excited to be investing not only in our school, but in the lives of many students from the Western New York area,” said Joseph D. Scanlan, Ph.D., principal. “Providing a world-class education is costly. As our building ages, there is an increasing need for repairs and improvements. This holds true for the physical structure, building utilities and internal technology capabilities.

"Additionally, for an increasing number of families the cost of a Notre Dame education remains challenging and tuition assistance funded by an endowment can often be the deciding factor in a student enrolling.”

Co-chairpersons Don and Joan Bausch, Thomas and Lynn Houseknecht, and Jerry and Carmela Reinhart, along with Major Gift chairpersons Bill and Terry Fritts, are also pleased to announce the significant progress made toward the $5 million goal. During the early phases of the campaign, the school has been successful in securing more than $2 million due to the generosity of friends and alumni of the school.  

The capital campaign will be a five-year effort with the active portions of the campaign running through the end of the year. Notre Dame will be asking for support from the school’s family, friends, faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and the general community.

Notre Dame High School has been named as Buffalo Business First’s  #1 Private Catholic Co-educational High School in Western New York; #1 Academic High School in Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming counties; and ranks in the top 15 percent academically for all Western New York high schools for the last six consecutive years.

For more information on the capital campaign and how you can support Notre Dame High School, please contact Gloria Snyder in the school Advancement Office at 585-343-2798.

This is Batavia High School student Ross Chua busting out with his beatboxing talent at the 2014 "Batavia High School Talent Show" last night, which aimed to raise funds for Thomas Ackley, a former student of the Batavia City School District who is fighting cancer (see April 7 article).

Masters of Ceremony Amanda Schelemanow (member, BHS chapter of the Tri-M Music Honor Society) and Spencer Hubbard (Mr. Batavia 2013) introduced 16 entertaining performances by students and faculty. Here they are (all performances are vocal unless otherwise specified):

Tim Martin and Lauren Dunn, piano/vocal performance of "Little Talks"

Steven O'Brien doing yo-yo tricks (which the event's faculty supervisor, BHS chorus teacher Dan Grillo, called the best he has ever seen in person).

Darneisha Thomas, "Bound to You"

Mason Russ, "Boss of Me" (theme from the TV show "Malcolm in the Middle")

Nephy Williams, "Beautiful"

Kesa Janes, "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" (from "The Phantom of the Opera")

Justin Baiocco, "My My, Hey Hey" (from the Neil Young album Out of the Blue). Baiocco's talent consisted not only of the vocal performance, but also his ability to play the guitar and the harmonica at the same time.

Laura Guiste, "Hallelujah"

Marissa Carbonell, "Oh! Darlin' "

Andrea Gilebarto, "Nightingale" (vocals and piano)

Hannah Bluhm, "If I Die Young"

Dan Grillo, "Good Bye Yellow Brick Road" (piano and vocals)

Rachel Flint and Ashley Williams, "There You'll Be"

McKenna Dziemian, "Set Me Free" (sung in both English and Korean)

And finally, there was the "Faculty Dixieland Band" playing "Down By the Riverside" and "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue"

Dan Grillo (drums), Stuart McLean (bass)...

Sean Krauss (clarinet), Brandon Ricci (trumpet) and Jane Haggett (piano)

At Jackson School today, Christine Bow received her official certificate and recognition for being named 2014 New York Agriculture in the Classroom Teacher of the Year from Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Above, Bow shares her bouquet of flowers with some of her students.

Barb Sturm, Cornell Cooperative Extension, handed out seeds to teachers to give to their students. Above, Bill Calandra collects seed packets for his class.

Press release:

Fourth-graders at Byron-Bergen Elementary School are on track to making a substantial economic impact on their state and their community. The class has created a well-researched rationale for designating yogurt as the Official New York State Snack, based on job creation and promoting healthy eating.

They sent handwritten letters – over 200 of them – to state legislators, farm owners, and yogurt companies. Their idea is now a bill sponsored by New York State Senators Mike Ranzenhofer, Kathleen Marchione, and James Seward and by Assemblymen William Magee and Steve Hawley. The bill is currently in committee.

The 17 members of the “Snack Pack,” led by fourth-grade teacher Craig Schroth, say yogurt deserves the title of Official New York State Snack. Student Madelyn Pimm says, “New York is now the biggest yogurt producing state in the U.S., with over 30 processing plants. Governor Cuomo refers to us as the ‘Yogurt Capital of the Country.’ We are the fifth largest milk producing state. We have three yogurt companies right here in our own community – Alpina, Müller-Quaker, and O-At-Ka. Many of us have family members who work there.”

“We want to support the yogurt industry and help create more jobs,” says student Alayna Streeter. “If this becomes law, there will be more opportunities for farmers who milk the cows, for drivers who deliver the milk, for people who make it into yogurt and other products, for distributors, and stores – jobs all down the supply chain.”

“Making yogurt the official snack will help New York promote healthy eating,” says student Caleb Calhoun. “Yogurt tastes great and is really good for you.”

These students are all highly knowledgeable and engaged in the legislative process they started. Letters of support from their representatives line the classroom wall. “Our whole class came up with the idea to promote yogurt,” says student Carly Bergeron. “We’re learning about government in action.” The class is hoping that they may be invited to Albany if their bill becomes law. Follow the progress of the bill at http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S6695-2013.

“We want to get the word out and build backing for our bill. It’s important for everyone to support the yogurt industry because they are also supporting our communities with jobs,” says Alayna.

One yogurt company is already grateful for the assistance being drummed up by the Byron-Bergen students. Chobani plans to send a representative to the school to thank the students in person later this spring.

After the Batavia City Schools entry into a NYS Lottery contest was disqualified, a group of parents were sharing their disappointment on Facebook when some suggested maybe there should be a local fundraiser for the music department.

Allison Chua said, "I can do that."

She's set up a fundraising page at First Giving.

While the page shows no funds raised yet, Chua said she has received $300 in checks and some parents have said they will donate when they get back from Spring Break vacation.

The NYS Lottery contest involved schools making a video of students singing "Thank You for Being a Friend." 

Students were very upset, Chua said, when the lottery disqualified their video after it had already been selected as a finalist and was leading, by a slim margin, in votes.

"This is a way for us to show them we do appreciate what they do," Chua said.

The grand prize for the contest was $10,000, but Chua said the parents are setting a modest goal of $2,500 for their fundraiser, which is equivalent to the third place prize in the contest.

To donate, visit the First Giving Web page. To donate by check, mail your check to Batavia City Schools Parent-Teacher Coalition, attention Allison Chua, 260 State St., Batavia, NY 14020. All donations will go to the music programs of the school district.

For the second year in a row, students at Batavia High School are putting on a Mr. Batavia contest aimed at building relationships between the high school and the community, particularly local nonprofits.

There are 10 contestants this year representing 10 different charities. Money raised will go to the winner's charity.

"We weren't sure how it was going to go last year and we raised $1,700, so we're hoping to exceed that this year," said Lisa Robinson, one of the faculty advisers for student government.

Along with the 10 boys competing, 15 girls are putting together the show (not everybody participating was available for a picture late this afternoon).

The contestants begin the show with a group dance, followed by a lip-sync contest, a talent contest, a swimsuit portion and then the boys come out in tuxedos donated by Charle's Mens Shop for a question-and-answer period.

Nine of the 10 charities have committed to having displays set up in the cafeteria for the evening.

The show starts at 7 p.m., Friday, March 21. Tickets are $7, $5 for students.

Oakfield-Alabama schools are closed this morning, due to weather.

Pavilion school is closed, due to plumbing issues.

Pavilion students scheduled to take a regents exam at Pavilion High School are to report to the elementary building at their scheduled test time.

The National Weather Service has a wind chill advisory in effect until 10 a.m. with wind chills expected to be 15 to 25 degrees below zero.

Photos and information submitted by John Summers.

Genesee Community College held a graduation ceremony Thursday night for its students who successfully completed a two-year registered nursing program.

Top photo, Kathy Palumbo, director of Nursing at GCC, addresses the graduates and audience.

Christy Summers receives her RN pin from Shana Flow and and Patricia Kendall-Cargill.

Graduates Meghan Domm, Angeline Coast, Brandon Richards, Christy Summers, and Jessa Woodley.

From The Batavian's news partner, WBTA:

Batavia Middle School and the high school are OPEN. 

The announcement was made by School Superintendent Christopher Dailey shortly before 6 a.m. this morning in a voice mail message to parents.

Kindergarteners at Jackson School got firsthand experience at a Thanksgiving feast today with all the trimmings. The students filed into the auditorium, some of them dressed as Native Americans and others arrived as Pilgrims on the Mayflower. Teachers then served them a lunch of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, corn and apple sauce.

Above, Colin gets his meal, and below are Julia and Cameron.

Bullies like the passive response. It means they're getting to you. They like the angry or frustrated response. It means they're in control and you're not.

What children need to learn is the confident response. The response that communicates, you're not getting to me, but if you don't stop, I'll take control.

For bullies, that response is no fun.

And teaching children how to respond to bullies with confidence is the goal of a new anti-bullying program instituted by the Pavilion Central School District.

The Bully Boot Camp -- seven lessons that parents complete with their children -- was developed by Timothy Shoemaker primarily as an online course parents purchase from his Web site, timothyshoemaker.com.

One of the social workers at Pavilion, Chuck Kron, saw Shoemaker speak at Genesee Community College for a youth camp last spring and decided to check out his Web site.

"I thought he was a very effective speaker for the kids," Kron said. "You could year a pin drop. So I went to his Web site and checked out his tools and resources and I found them concrete, totally unique, boots on the ground, roll up your sleeves kind of stuff."

After some discussion, Shoemaker developed a plan to make the boot camp available to entire school districts. Kron liked the idea because it would allow school districts -- particularly Pavilion -- to provide the program to parents and students at no cost to the parents.

Pavilion did a trial run with the program last spring and is implementing it this year, making Pavilion the first district to offer the boot camp on a districtwide basis.

The program has already proven its effectiveness, Kron said. There was a student and parent who went through the boot camp in 10 days last spring. A few days after completing the program, the child showed up in Kron's office.

Kron admits that his first thought was along the lines of "oh, no, here we go again," but actually the student was quite proud of himself.

"He used a certain specific exercise to confront a bully in the lunch room and he felt good about it, and a lot more confident," Kron said. "He's been significantly less picked on, but when it happens he feels equipped and confident. He's no longer going home crying. He no longer wants to not come to school any more. Instead, he feels like he's got a little tool box to reach into."

Last night's introduction to the boot camp was attended by maybe a dozen or so Pavilion parents along with six or seven administrators from school districts in the area. Kron and the other administrators in Pavilion walked the group through what most of the seven-day course covers (ideally, a parent goes through the course in seven consecutive days with a child, with each session taking about 30 minutes).

Robin, a parent who attended said she's exicted to get started with her child, who had been a bit picked on last year and it's starting again this year.

"I learned (tonight) that I can give my son really great skills he can use as he is growing up
and can use in the future," Robin said. "It will help him in school and throughout his life. It's really important for my child because he's extremely passive. I'm hoping I can change that and get him to be more confident in himself."

One of the lessons, in fact, covers teaching a child how to act confident even if you don't feel confident. Body language, facial expressions and tone of voice can all be used to convey confidence even when you're trembling inside.

 "What this does is build up the victims' capacity to take the target off their heads," Kron said.

Implementation of the program doesn't mean the school district is letting bullies off the hook. The traditional methods of dealing with bullies -- punishments and consequences -- still exist and the district councelors will still try to bring about mediation and restorative justice, but the program is unique in providing students ways to neutralize bullies and helps give the parents the means to help their children.

"Often parents, when kids come home and say somebody is bothering them or somebody is bullying or harassing them, parents feel very powerless," Kron said. "They say, 'I wish I could just go into that school and tell that bully off myself.' Well, this gives parents something to do and channel that energy in a positive way that benefits their kids."

Top photo: Mike Brown collects examples of bullying from parents at Tuesday evening's introductory session. Bottom photo: Katie Newby tosses a wad of paper at Chuck Kron in a demonstration of the kind of practice a parent and child might do together on how to effectively respond to a bully.

Photos and information submitted by Aaron Brown.

Last week, the Pembroke Intermediate School celebrated Red Ribbon Week. Throughout the week, students and staff participated in Spirit Days, celebrating choosing a life that does not include drugs. The week concluded with a school-wide assembly and balloon launch.

Friday evening John Kennedy School hosted its annual Community Night. Nearly two dozen local businesses participated along with the police and fire departments and Mercy EMS. It was a chance for parents and children to enjoy some free pizza, play games and learn more about what the Batavia community has to offer.

NOTE: I'm a bit slow in getting these posted because the SD card in my camera turned out to be damaged, so it was a bit of a task getting the pictures off.