Batavia Middle School

Earlier this week, Batavia City Schools sent a letter to parents of students at Batavia Middle School notifying them that school has been placed on a "School in Need of Improvement" list by U.S. Department of Education.

This morning, Superintendent Margeret Puzio explained to The Batavian what the letter meant.

As part of "No Child Left Behind," passed in 2001, schools that receive federal aid must ensure certain "subgroups" perform adequately on standardized tests.

Subgroups are groups of students considered disadvantaged, such as students with disabilities, minority students, students who speak English as a second language. 

If a school has 30 or more students qualifying for a subgroup, then the school must meet the standardized test requirements for that subgroup in order to receive continued federal aid.

None of the elementary schools, with only about 300 students each, are large enough that any of the so-called disadvantaged groups have 30 or more students, but the middle school, with 500 students, does.

One such subgroup is students with disabilities.

Within the past year, the state stopped giving schools 34 bonus points on standardized tests for students with disabilities, also the raw score to pass the test has been raised, and the test has been made longer.

Puzio called this a "Bermuda Triangle" for school districts and Batavia isn't alone in falling into the trap.

Because the middle school's students with disabilities subgroup didn't meet the requirements of the standardized tests the last two rounds, the district was required to notify all parents of middle school students that the school is now considered a "School in Need of Improvement."

Also, in order to continue receiving federal aid, called Title I funds, the district must divert some of its Title I money into a program to help disadvantaged students, and in this case help students who are economically disadvantaged.

The district will be required to hire a contractor -- perhaps Sylvan Learning Centers -- to come in and offer tutoring and other help to economically disadvantaged students.

Participation by economically disadvantaged students is optional and entirely up to the parents of the students as to whether their children will participate.

For a year-end project, I thought it would be cool to take some video and pictures of music- and arts-related activities -- respectively -- in the Genesee County schools.

The following video is 20 minutes long and divided into two parts (Youtube limits most users to about 10 minutes per video). It features concert footage from various schools in the county.

PART 1

PART 2

I have to make a quick apology for the poor video quality in a couple of instances. I had to be very careful to protect the identity of the kids (the ones photographed without parental approval), so I made sure none of the students' faces appeared too clearly on camera; plus, to be honest, the first camera I used turned out to be pretty awful when it came to taking video (even while taking decent pictures).

I also feel bad that I couldn't include every group I filmed in the video. My selections were based on a combination of different criteria, including:

•  making sure the best songs were included
•  making sure all of the schools I visited were included
•  arranging the selections in a way that flowed nicely

So there's the music part. Here are some pictures I was able to take of art work done by Elba and Leroy students:

ELBA ELEMENTARY ART

Kindergartener Cody Soules stands in front of his drawing of a tree branch (top right).

First-grader Taylor Augello stands with her rendition of Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" (right above her head).

ELBA HIGH SCHOOL ART

Both of the following pictures were submitted by Dan Carnevale. Sophomore Sydney Gallup (top photo) and two unidentified students stand with their drawings.

LEROY JUNIOR/SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL (art and artists)

Also, see the May 27 announcement on the winners of the Architectural Drawing contest for fourth-graders.

Congratulations all of the students for a job well done!

The cast of "The Mysterious Case of the Missing Ring" (photo by Daniel Crofts)

“Terror!”

“Intrigue!”

“Romance, blooming like a lotus in the springtime…”

Entire cast in unison: “What?!?”

“Just kidding.”

There you have it — the opening lines of “The Mysterious Case of the Missing Ring," the latest play put on by the Drama Club at Batavia Middle School. The first performance took place last night.

The show was directed by Matthew Mayne, English/Drama teacher at Batavia High School, and starred 22 BMS students (grades 6-8) in a variety of comedic roles.

From a stage play written by Janie Downey Maxwell, “Missing Ring” centers around a Queen — played by 7^th grader Mica Pitcher — who has lost her royal ring and hires several competing teams of detectives to find it. All of the detectives — from the pratfall-prone, tap-dancing Oliver (Blake Carter) to the nervous, germaphobic Kat (Spencer Hubbard) — prove to be hysterically incompetent.

Mayne, who is certainly no stranger to local theater (see article about his recent Thornton Wilder production at http://tinyurl.com/yknj4bu), began work on the production of "Missing Ring" in late September. He took Maxwell’s play and made of it an opportunity for everyone involved to bring his/her own ideas to the performance.

"We added a lot to this,” Mayne said. “I added some characters that weren’t in the original script. That’s good for me as a director, because then the story has more characters to work with. And it’s good for the kids, because there are more roles available and they can add their own personal touches to the overall performance.”

Additionally, there were numerous jokes and humorous bits that were not in the script.  Mayne said the students “came up with a lot of ideas and put so much of their own unique humor into it.”

In so doing, they drew plentiful laughter from the audience.

Thursday night’s performance was well performed and well received, but the production was far from easy. Because of his extracurricular duties at BHS, Mayne could only devote three days a week to rehearsals. So with a total of only 20 rehearsals, the cast had to exercise a great deal of dedication in order to make the play work.

If this weren’t enough, a number of students became ill during the course of production and had to quit the play. There was even a last-minute cancellation the night before the performance, forcing one of the cast members to learn new lines overnight.

“I’m amazed at how much the kids care about the show,” Mayne said. “They really pulled themselves together.”

The play also featured set designs made by BMS teacher Lucille DiSanto and BMS students Riley Cole, Megan Draper and Kayla Gannon.

“Missing Ring” will have one more performance, this time intended exclusively for BMS students, faculty and staff; this will take place during the school day Monday.

An automatic general fire alarm has been tripped at Batavia Middle School, 96 Ross St.

Engine 12 is responding.

UPDATE 7:47 a.m.: There was a problem with a relief valve on a water tank. All clear.

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A former Batavia Middle School teacher is being honored by the SUNY Cortland Alumni Association as a Distinquished Alumni of the Year.

Rosa LaSorte Rich, currently living in Brockport, taught at the school from 1973 to 1989.

Richard Boardman, a 1963 SUNY Brockport graduate who met her in 1959 as one of his class advisors and has since followed with admiration her professional and volunteer career.

“I can’t come up with one special act or accomplishment, because there are many, but the success of each was the result of the accumulation of the smaller, day-to-day positive contributions she makes, which are necessary to make individuals and society better,” Boardman wrote in his nomination letter.

BATAVIA, N.Y. — On March 12, Batavia Middle School's eighth-graders will listen to a powerful and emotional story of what it was like for Henry Silberstern to experience the Holocaust at the age of 14 and later be married by the rabbi who liberated him at the end of the war.

Boonie Abrams, Director at the Center for Holocaust Awareness and Information in Rochester, said these lectures are so important for today's eighth-graders because they will likely be the last generation to hear the living survivors speak.

"The survivors who speak will tell kids: You are the next generation; you will be in charge of creating a world where perhaps genocide will disappear," said Abrams.

Silberstern is the only person out of his 54 relatives to survive the Holocaust. Out of the 15,000 boys who came through Terezin, only 150 survived the Holocaust, Silberstern being one of them.

Abrams said most of the survivors lost their parents and some or all of their siblings. She said eighth-graders are old enough to understand this, and young enough to imagine the pain of the loss.

"Sometimes, kids leave these presentations with renewed love and affection for the siblings they fight with and the parents they get mad at," said Abrams.

The emotional impact varies with each student. Abrams said Silberstern speaks in a "matter of fact" way. He explains that this was life as he knew it.

There is a positive influence on students who hear a survivor's story, and studies prove it.

"Studies of students who heard survivor testimony have shown that a higher number of these students go into helping fields or programs designed to bring relief to areas of the world where there is a lot of suffering," said Abrams.

It is important for students to share these stories with others.

"In thirty years, when there is no one left who remembers the Holocaust, and Holocaust deniers say, "It never happened," today's eighth-graders, now middle-aged adults will say, "Yes there was, I met someone who lived through it, and I am a witness to their experience," said Abrams.

She said even those students who dread the lecture for fear it will upset them or even bore them are usually riveted by hearing a survivor speak.

"And the impact lasts a lifetime," said Abrams.

Images courtesy of the Holocaust Resource Center of Buffalo.