Spring Has Finally Sprung at Central Square

UNIFIED BASKETBALL

Our unified basketball team is having a fantastic start to their season. They were extremely impressive against Fulton High School in a pre-season scrimmage and then dominated play against a strong Hannibal team at their opening game this week.

This year's Unified Redhawk Basketball Team consisted of Alexis Foster (12), Alex Foster (10), Logan Cottrell (12), Nick Ransom (12), Paige winks (12), Eric Tsosie (9), Natalie Maher (12), Aleiah Stoutenger (12), Gordon Fregoe (9), Kevin Radziseski (11), Jared Lozano (11), Adrianna Cottrell (11), Elijah Harris (12), Victoria Tyrrell (12), Kennith Kenyon (11), Neo Schwartz (10), Henry Landers (9), Coaches: Dan Scicchitano and Lincoln Marlon, and a special thank you to the Teaching Assistants that come to all the games to support the students.

The New York State Public High School Athletic Association and Special Olympics New York are proud to offer Unified Sports to NYSPHSAA member schools. Project Unify is made up of three main components: 1. Inclusive Sports: combines athletes (players with intellectual disabilities) and athletes (players without intellectual disabilities) to create athletic teams for training and competition. Participation is rooted in the principle of meaningful involvement which ensures that every player is given an opportunity to contribute to the success of his or her team through their unique skills. Inclusive activity is among the most conducive ways to break down stereotypes and foster relationships. 2. Youth Leadership & Advocacy: provides students with and without intellectual disabilities opportunities to take on leadership roles in promoting Project Unify activities in their schools and in their communities. 3. Whole-School Engagement: provides opportunities for all students to participate in school-wide campaigns and activities such as Fans in the Stands, Pledge and Plunge, and the R-word Campaign.

Embracing unified sports at Central Square in basketball and bowling aligns to our mission "to empower all students to excel as citizens in a changing world." It shows all students that whether or not they have a disability,
they can excel in athletics and experience teamwork, hard work, problem-solving, empathy, and many more of the Attributes of a Central Square Learner seen here, https://tinyurl.com/Key-Attributes-of-a-CS-Learner. It is a pleasure watching the unified team compete, and it is equally satisfying to see the look of pride on the staff members and parents of the players' faces as they cheer on their children. The entire gymnasium is filled with pride! Their next home game is May 6 at 4 pm in the PVM Gym against Oswego.

Cabaret Concert and Hall of Fame For The Visual and Performing Arts Induction Ceremony




This year's Cabaret Concert was another illustration of how talented our student performers are and why our music department (in my opinion) is the best in the Country! Congratulations to all of the music instructors for all of the hard work and dedication you provide our students on a daily basis, and a very special congratulations to retired music teacher, Craig Elwood, for being inducted into the Central Square Hall of Fame For The Visual and Performing Arts, a truly remarkable honor. It was a packed gymnasium, full of students, staff, parents, and community members joining in on our wonderful celebration.

Art in the Atrium
Hours before the Cabaret Concert and Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony garnered a thunderous applause in our PVM gymnasium, students, staff, parents and community members flooded the large cafeteria where our students had their artwork on display. Some amazing pieces of art were bid on and sold for a lot of money, which was very exciting for our students to witness people paying money for their creations. Mark Rio (seen below to the left) had one of his photographs (seen below it, titled "Game Face") nationally recognized by The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers with a Gold Medal distinction, the highest attainable award for photography. Mark will be headed to NYC in June to receive this extremely prestigious award. If I were Nick Ransom, I'd hang a copy of it in his dorm room next year as that picture truly captures the moment!

Everyone I spoke with in the cafeteria that evening was amazed by how talented our students at PVM are. I don't want to leave out that our amazing art program, similar to our amazing music program, starts at the elementary level where art teachers help ignite the creativity and artistic expression that seems to be contagious across Central Square. This helps us produce and cultivate well rounded students that will be highly successful no matter which career pathway they select.
SKILLS USA
We had several of our PVM BOCES students compete in the SKILLS USA regional competition at held at the New York State Fairgrounds. Attending this event is always the highlight of my year, and last week's SKILLS USA was no different. I greatly enjoyed watching our PVM students excel in the numerous career categories that they are currently studying at Citi BOCES. To view all 104 career categories, view the following link that allows you to click on each category for a description and brief video, https://www.skillsusa.org/competitions/skillsusa-championships/contest-descriptions/. I am always fascinated by the look of pride on the students' faces as they showcase their talents in in amazing competition. These students have incredible skills that will bring them far in life. Watching students perform at the highest level doing something that they are truly passionate about is our goal for all students.

Safety and Security Capital Project

We held a community forum at PVM last night (Thursday, May 2) that focused on our proposed Safety and Security Capital Project, which will be voted on May 21, 2019, along with the school budget and Board member vote. I included the cost breakdown on the card above. I have attached the PowerPoint that was used, which is the same presentation that was used at the March 25th Board of Education meeting. It was well attended by staff, parents, some students, and community members. There were excellent questions asked and I feel our team did a great job providing responses. Our three amazing Special Patrol Officers were there, as were our architect from King + King Architects and our Construction Manager. Armoured One was also there to provide information and answer questions as well. This safety and security project is $11,995,000 and the majority of that will go to the much needed infrastructure at the main entrance of every school. We are Creating safe and secure entrances for all of our schools that will bring all visitors into a locked vestibule area, and from there they will enter the main offices where every visitor's ID is run through the Raptor software (as they currently are in all of our schools), and then if everything checks out, they can exit the office into the school. Central Square, like all school districts are mandated every five years to have a building conditions survey completed by a licensed architecture firm. The last building condition survey that was done on all of our schools showed $120 million dollars of work that was needed across the District. When we interviewed architect firms and ultimately selected King + King Architects in 2016, they identified the construction work that was of the highest priority and we wanted to not have it impact the taxes so we kept it at $40.8 million. Phase 1 of the 2017 Capital Project consisted of new roofs to replace our very old roofs (which ate approximately $12 million of the $40.8 million. A complete cost breakdown of the 2017 Capital Project is on the card below. Another huge cost ($11.5 million) went to mechanical/electrical upgrades, as we had not had a significant Capital Project in 14 years (which is why the last building conditions survey identified $120 million in needed renovations and upgrades to bring us to code). Phase 2 of the 2017 Capital Project is underway and the construction crews will be working throughout the summer and throughout the 2019-2020 school year. Some may wonder why our safety and security needs could not be accomplished in the 2017 $40.8 million Capital Project, and the answer is that we could not exceed the voter approved $40.8 million and that is going to the major structural needs, such as roofs, walls, electrical, paving of lots, etc., leaving no extra money for the much needed safety upgrades, specifically the securing of all main entrances of every school. Some may also be wondering why the District waited so many years knowing that we needed a major Capital Project that would impact all of our schools and District Office building, and the answer is that past Boards of Education and District administration had some very difficult questions to answer regarding the future footprint of the District, given the steady decline of student enrollment in Central Square and across all of Oswego County. No one wants to invest millions of dollars into schools if some of those schools will not be there in the foreseeable future. We have recently received the purchase offer from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for Cleveland Elementary and the Board has already approved the offer price at a previous Board meeting so this deal is about to be finalized once our attorneys review the paperwork and the Board approves the actual purchase. That is a school that we will no longer have to maintain, and had we not closed that school 5 years ago, we would have spent millions on much needed renovations and that money would have had to come out of the 2017 $40.8 million. A few moths ago we sold the old District Office building on Main Street, which means we will no longer have to maintain that very old building that received no building aid because there were no students housed in it. We are still putting money into Central Square Intermediate School because we are housing 6 classrooms there for the 2019-2020 school years, as this is allowing us to move all the 4th and 5th grade classrooms currently at Millard Hawk Elementary to CSI. This will allow construction crews to aggressively work at Millard Hawk Elementary in half of the school without having to work only second and third shifts because they would have to make the school operational each night because students would be in all the classrooms. If we did not have CSI as "swing space" for next school year, it would have turned a 1 year construction renovation into at least a two year project. The increased cost as well as the dust in those rooms being worked on would have been an issue for students and staff. Following the 2019-2020 school year, we will be utilizing CSI for specific special education programs and alternative education programs that we are currently bussing students in these specialized programs to BOCES locations across the County. We want these students to be housed in their District and it will also be another cost savings for us. We will make sure we replicate the services they would be receiving in a BOCES program so their unique needs are absolutely met by our teachers here. The following link is the Safety and Security Presentation that was presented at the community safety and security forum May 2:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VO_xgyedEiuBK2ZQGDnw7YjRsvTH6HW1/view
As you can see from the cost breakdown below, the $40.8 million that was from the approved 2017 Capital Project consisted of items that absolutely needed to be upgraded/renovated because of safety concerns, which included the turf and track at PVM Stadium that was 14 years old and had outlived its expected shelf life and had become a safety hazard because it was becoming increasingly hard and if not replaced would have led to injuries.

                                     SPRING IS HERE!!!!!

Our  varsity baseball team battled a great Jamesville-Dewitt team this past week under the lights at Onondaga Community College, and even though they came up just short of the victory, they showed great teamwork throughout the game.  They continue to improve.  We are fortunate to have such a strong athletic program at Central Square.