ATHLETICS AND ACADEMICS!!!

For the first time in over 20 years, all Central Square varsity athletic teams have received the NYSPHSAA Fall Scholar-Athlete Team Award!!! To receive Scholar-Athlete Team recognition, the team's average grade point average (GPA) for 75% of the team's roster must be 90% or higher. All of our varsity teams achieved this great honor, which include:

Football, Girls Volleyball, Boys Volleyball, Girls Tennis, Girls Soccer, Boys Soccer, Gymnastics, Boys Golf, Cheerleading, Boys Cross Country, Girls Cross Country (ALL 14 girls on the Girls Cross Country Team each achieved a GPA of 90% or higher). This is a huge accomplishment for all of our varsity athletes, and it is an amazing representation of our athletic program that promotes success in the athletic arena and in the classroom. 

RETURNED TO NORMAL

Our outstanding staff was extremely delighted to start the 2022-2023 school year with zero COVID-19 restrictions.  While, of course, we all respect a parent's wishes to have their own child wear a COVID mask, the overall sentiment across the District is one of satisfaction as it provides families with their right to choose.  Without the required social distancing rules of the past, students are once again connecting in classrooms, which is such an important part of daily student collaboration.  Our athletics, band/fine arts, and afterschool clubs and activities have been running very smoothly, and we are thrilled with the incredible student participation rates. Our message to all students is to be engaged in your school community in any of our various afterschool activities and the students have responded in tremendous numbers. 

COLLEGE AND CAREER PATHWAYS

With the Pandemic in the rear view mirror, we have returned our focus to continue to strengthen our career pathways at PVM High School.  Our Career Center, located in the high school, is the central location for our career exploration program.  We have outstanding presenters that come to our high school on a regular basis showcasing specific career pathways for our very interested students.  We have top notch internships and job shadowing opportunities for our students to gain first hand experience in a wide variety of careers, and field trips that expose our students to a great number of career sites. The following link will bring you to a presentation created by PVM High School Teacher, Nicole Heath, that was used at our Strategic Planning Committee meeting held on November 30, 2022 can be seen HERE. Our primary goal is to provide all students with numerous opportunities to gain exposure to a career field that students are most interested in exploring prior to graduating from high school. While some of our high school students have already identified their preferred career pathway after college or immediately following high school graduation, many others are not exactly sure which career pathway is for them.  The ASVAB definitely help students by illustrating their strengths. The ASVAB will be given at PVM High School on January 23, 2023, at 8 AM for any interested sophomore, junior, and senior. The ASVAB flier can be seen HERE

EARLY LITERACY FOCUS

All four of our elementary schools have a laser like focus on providing all students with a literacy program that will help students not only throughout their foundational elementary years, but throughout middle school, high school and beyond. Our teachers focus on all Five Pillars of  Early Literacy (Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension), which can be seen HERE

We have invested in the addition of several more reading teachers at the elementary level, but our literacy focus does not stop there.  We have hired additional reading teachers at the middle school as well as additional academic intervention specialists at the high school. All of the research on literacy and student success rates show that students that are not reading on or above grade level by the end of third grade are four times less likes to graduate with their grade level cohort.  This is a serious indicator that directly impacts our students' success, and we take it extremely seriously by frequently monitoring students' progress on common benchmark assessments, DIBELS and STAR data, and 3-8 NYS Assessments. There is not one single indicator that we use to monitor student progress, we use several so that we can make sure we are providing all of our students exactly what they need to be successful readers, which is a requirement for the majority of career pathways our students will ultimately select.  Assistant Superintendent, Erin Phillips has presented at Board of Education meetings on our literacy focus and student data several times, and the most recent presentations can be seen HERE from November 7, 2022. (No individual student data is shown for student privacy) and HERE from February of 2022. To view how we performed on the 3-8 NYS Assessments that were given in the Spring of 2022, click HERE. 

DISTRICT'S STRATEGIC PLAN

The District is very fortunate to have had such remarkable parents/guardians, students, and staff members on our Strategic Planning Committee over the years that all played a key role on our District's current Strategic Plan, seen HERE. We had a Strategic Planning Committee meeting on November 30, 2022, and we had a fantastic turnout with parents in attendance from each of our six schools, some middle and high school students, and numerous staff members. We were provided with valuable feedback at the meeting by committee members, and we have been receiving excellent feedback from committee members since the meeting, which is exactly what we were hoping for. It was discussed at that meeting that we would be reconvening previous District-wide committees such as the College and Career Committee, the District Comprehensive Improvement Plan (DCIP), the School Comprehensive Education Plan (SCEP) for Central Square Middle School, the District Technology Committee, the Consolidated Grant Application Committee (Title Funds), and the Culturally Responsive Sustaining Framework Committee.  If you are interested in joining any of these committees, look for emails immediately following our Holiday recess, as we are well aware of how busy parents/guardians are this time of year.