Bird's Eye View

Hello Larrie Community:

Thank you for checking out our March issue of Bird’s Eye View. It was great to see our first “mask optional” event this past weekend, when our drama club presented The Man Who Came to Dinner. It is amazing to see what a talented group of students can do in just seven weeks, with great advisors. Each month's edition of Bird’s Eye View will continue to give you small snapshots of the great things that are happening here at SLC, along with things we may need to ask for a little help with. Our hope is you will continue to follow us every month, so we can continue to connect our great community with the people and programs that are here to help maximize our students’ futures.

Budget creation season is here. We have spent the past few months collecting data on both projected expenses and revenues for next year. As a staff, we continue to look at community survey suggestions for programs that will occur both during and after school as well as during the summer months. Structural additions will also continue to be calculated for the entire district (more specific updates to come on the budget).

• Congratulations to all those that have been recognized, in this March issue, for the outstanding work you are doing.

• Congratulations to all our students, staff, and parents that participated in any way during the play this past weekend. A job well done!

• Athletics: Congratulations to all our winter sports teams as they made SLC very proud during their playoff and sectional runs!

Thanks for following and have a great March!

It is hard to believe that we are almost 25 weeks into the school year! With our realization of where we are at in the school calendar comes many questions about the New York State Regents Exams. As of the writing of this update, NYS has released the below testing calendar for June of 2022, and we are anticipating that the state will require these exams. We will update you if any changes occur.

http://www.nysed.gov/state-assessment/june-2022-regents-examination-schedule

If you find that your child is struggling academically, please remember to reach out to each teacher for directions on how you can help. Teachers are available most days after school now through the end of the school year and can work to support your student’s success.

As always, if you have questions about how to best help your child succeed in school, please do not hesitate to reach out to us and we are happy to help!

Mr. Matthew Snyder was the "Golden Apple" Award Winner for the Month of February.

Mr. Snyder was nominated by a parent in the community.

"I just wanted to give you a big THANK YOU for all the help you gave Alexis this past week for her college auditions. This definitely would not have been possible without YOU! There are no words to express my gratitude and appreciation to you. You could have easily said sorry kid you’re on your own, but you most certainly stepped up and went above and beyond the call of duty in your teacher role. You literally moved things around to make sure that she was able to get this done whether it was space, technology, advice, role modeling, time, etc. You got it done! You even sacrificed birthday time to ensure she had completed what she needed to. I don’t know if parents get to nominate anyone for the Golden Apple Award but this is a shout out to you to acknowledge all that you did for her and to throw my nomination out there! Thank you again so much!!! The world needs more passionate and committed teachers like you."

Congratulations to Mr. Snyder!

Would you like to recognize a staff member? Stop in and see Mrs. Zender or email at kzender@bfcsd.org

National Honor Society will host our 2nd annual blood drive on Thursday, March 10th from 9-2 in the Middle School gym. You can sign up through the Red Cross website, the App, or you can email Ron Jeror at rjeror@bfcsd.org for an appointment.

For the last several years, Mr. Brown’s art students have been painting the ceiling tiles in his room. Some are completely original, some are interpretations of other artists' works, but all of them are great to look at when you walk in the room.

Students actually leave their artworks even though Mr. Brown tells them that they can have them after they graduate. A few of students have taken them, but many really like future students to see their work. If you get a chance stop in and look at them, you may recognize some of the names of the artists.

A few examples are below.

Students are working individually on their personal fitness goals in Miss Chamberlain's Fitness class. This group has done an excellent job helping and challenging each other to meet their personal goals. The pictures below show Cheyanne Sova and Mariah Crump who are working on ab sets together, Charlie Dow who is spotting Michael Martinez while bench pressing and Alison Jarvis who is performing a push press set using dumbbells while Jayden Ashley is doing preacher curls.

Winter sports have come to an end with all of our teams having fine seasons. Hockey made it to the D2 semi-finals before losing. Cheer placed 3rd overall in the Co-Ed Division at Sectionals and both Girls and Boys Basketball teams made it to the Class C Championship game.

Congratulations to Cheer Coach, Emme Brault, for being named Section X Coach of the Year!

Congratulations to Cheer and both Girls and Boys Basketball teams for being named New York State Scholar Athlete Teams!

Spring sports will start on Monday, March 14th for both JV and Varsity, and on Monday, March 21st for Modified.

Dear Larries,

March is not looking very spring-like yet, but hopefully soon it will look and feel that way. We are nearing the end of the school year, and have a lot of end of the year things that will start coming quickly.

Upcoming State Tests for Middle School:

March 29-30 ELA NYS Test

April 28-29 Math NYS Test

May 24 Science 8 NYS Test (Performance)

June 1 Science 8 NYS Test (Written)

In our Healthy Relationship assembly on March 4th, the Renewal House educator also discussed some online safety tips with students. There is often not a day that goes by that there is not something that comes up related to online safety with students. This includes their interactions on social media, online gaming, and even just typical searches, email, etc. Teaching Kids to Be Smart on Social Media is a helpful article.

As we get closer to the end of the year, please continue to monitor SchoolTool grades for your child and contact any teachers if you have concerns or questions about how your child is doing in school. We want to see all of our students have a successful year.

Best Regards,

Mrs. LaBarge

Mr. Niles A-K

Mrs. LaVoie L-Z

Coping Skills

We are always talking to the kids about using their “coping skills”. It is also very important for adults to use coping skills. The world being what it is, they are more important now than EVER! But what ARE coping skills?

Coping skills are those skills or strategies that we use to help manage our emotions and basically help us to feel better. Any healthy habit that helps reduce our stress or anxiety is a coping skill.

According to the CHILD COUNSELING IN DAVIDSON website: “Coping skills are things that we can do in-the-moment, when we are feeling lousy, to help us turn down the volume of our emotions and avoid getting overwhelmed. They help us to get through stressful situations with a little more ease, and without doing something we’d regret later on.”

Some examples of healthy coping skills:

Relaxation:

• Soothing activities, like a warm bath or a cup of herbal tea

• Deep breathing exercises

• Progressive muscle relaxation

• Guided visualization

Mindfulness:

• Meditation

• Observing and describing your surroundings

• Panic attack coping skills like the 5-4-3-2-1 technique

• Sensory play, for younger children

Safe Ways to Express Feelings:

• Journaling

• Non-aggressive physical activity

• Creating art

• Assertive communication skills

Positive, Rewarding Activities:

• Sports and recreational activities

• Hobbies that encourage a sense of accomplishment

• Spending time with supportive friends

• Volunteering

So, do something that you enjoy and that speaks to your soul! Read, cook, clean or rearrange a room in your home, draw, listen to music, make some popcorn and watch a movie, make or buy a fresh flower arrangement for your house, go for a walk or run in the forest with your dog, go snowshoeing, go fishing, go camping, play a sport, dance, sing, create something beautiful, sit under a tree and look and listen to the beauty of nature, do yoga. There are SO many possibilities.

To better help our students to learn some new coping skills, we will be offering “COPING SKILLS WEDNESDAY”. Every Wednesday, we will offer a new coping skill activity from 2:30 to 3:30. This is being sponsored by the Extended Day program so we want to thank Mrs. Nezezon in her support of this new endeavor! Students will need to sign-up each week. More information will be shared soon.

The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem.

-Captain Jack Sparrow

Hello Fellow Larries!

Read Across America Week kicked off here at SLC, with many students dressing for success last Monday! I'd like to acknowledge Mrs. Brouillette for her efforts in organizing the events for the week. She assured me that there were many other teachers who were involved in this planning as well, so a huge thank you goes out to all of our wonderful teachers for their support of these fun reading activities! We do have a fun and friendly reading competition going on with Parishville-Hopkinton CSD. We will see which school collectively reads more books during the school day, and the losing school's superintendent will buy coffee and doughnuts for the winning school's superintendent. Let's continue reading Little Larries!

I am very excited to share with you that some of our third grade students (along with Ms. VanBrocklin) have been working on a project which will benefit all students. I spent some time during February break bringing their final product to life! We now have a sensory hallway.

Pre-K information night will be held on Wednesday, March 9, at 6:00 p.m. in the elementary cafeteria. If you have a child turning 4 by (or on) December 1, 2022, they are eligible to register for UPK for the 2022-2023 school year. Registration can be completed at the information night, or at any time after the information night. Please do not wait to register your child, as spots are limited.

Kindergarten registration has opened. Please do not wait to register your child, as much of our planning for kindergarten hinges on numbers. In order to best prepare for your child's kindergarten experience, we request that you register them sooner than later. Any child turning 5 by (or on) December 1, 2022 is eligible to register for kindergarten for the 2022-2023 school year. Please call the district office at 315-389-5131 ext. 29108 for more information.

You can download a registration packet from the links below:

• Pre-K Registration Forms

• Kindergarten Registration Forms

I encourage you to take a moment and check out the St. Lawrence-Lewis BOCES Parent Newsletter for the month of March. We will share these each month, as they are made available to us. They have some great information in them.

NYS Assessments will begin at the end of the month. The schedule for NYS Assessments is as follows:

ELA

• Grade 4 - March 29 & 30
• Grade 3 - March 31 & April 1

Math

• Grade 3 - April 28 & 29
• Grade 4 - May 3 & 4

Dates to Know:

• Progress reports will be sent home on Friday, March 11.
• SLC Elementary will have a "Fun Friday" on Friday, March 11. Students and staff are encouraged to wear their Zoom or Google Meet attire (professional shirt, comfy sweats/pajama pants).
• SLC Elementary will have a "Fun Thursday" on Thursday, March 17. Students and staff are encouraged to wear St. Patrick's Day colors.
• There will be no school for students on Friday, March 18 (regional staff development day).
• Wednesday, March 23 will be Spring Picture Day. The Lifetouch online code for ordering is EVT79V3R4.
• Grade 1 Concert will be held on Thursday, March 24.
• Grade 2 Concert will be held on Thursday, March 31.

Mrs. Colterman

SLC fourth graders wanted to give a "BIG THANK YOU" to Mr. Dow for organizing the fourth grade skate time in February at the Tri-Town Arena.

Some 4th Grade Quotes:

• "The best part was skating with friends, playing games, and having fun!"
• "I have not been on the ice in 2 years, and everyone was there to help me if I fell."
• "Skating was awesome...it was the second time I have ever skated!"
• "Thanks to Mr. Dow: I am not afraid to skate."
• "If I did not go skating with my class, I probably would never go!"

St. Lawrence Central and Parishville elementary schools battled in a friendly reading competition during Read Across America week last week.

Read more in this article published on NNY360 written by Bob Beckstead. https://tinyurl.com/msp5ytte

To celebrate Read Across America week, Miss Miner's class transformed their classroom into a campground where every student got their own "tent" made from their desk. This gave them a comfy place to celebrate our love for reading!

As the director of Technology at St. Lawrence Central, one of my responsibilities is to help support students and staff in the area of digital citizenship when navigating a continuously changing world of technology use. By definition, a digital citizen is a person who has the knowledge and skills to effectively use digital technologies to communicate with others, participate in society, and create and consume digital content.

As adults, we can easily recognize that our children and students often have a much broader understanding of the digital world through the use of technology. However, this same population often uses these technologies in inappropriate ways to consume digital content and communicate with others. This trend has never been more evident than during the past couple of years where the use of technology was our only way of communicating when we could not interact in person.

As many of you may be aware, the number of cases of cyberbullying more than doubled in the years between 2007-2019 growing from 17% to 37% of all reported bullying cases. Research based raw data indicates this percentage has grown even more over the past two years as we have dealt with the pandemic health crisis.

As outlined in the definition of a digital citizen, dealing with these negative lines of communication are not the only skills that we must teach our children to help protect them. We must also teach them how to conduct safe searches on the internet, and to use social media in ways that will not leave a negative digital footprint, which could affect them when they are older. Many students think that by deleting searches or digital content that this material goes away; this is simply not true. As adults, we need to show them how this thinking is incorrect. Many companies use resources such as Magic Sauce, Mylife, Spokeo, Google, and Link Humans to scan your social media posts and online searches during the hiring process.

While St. Lawrence Central is in the process of realigning it’s digital citizenship curriculum to meet the New York State Computer Science and Digital Fluency Standards, we recognize we can not support our students alone. We as a community need to support our children. I am including a link to “Digital Resources for Family Engagement” which includes age tiered conversation starters, family tips, family activities and additional family resources, so that we can all become better digital citizens. This information can be found at https://www.commonsense.org/education/family-resources .

Catch up with the latest student stories, events, and news updates. It’s everything Brasher Falls Central School District, in your pocket. Download the app on Android or iPhone it is the best way to get notifications of school closings, delays, and cancellations.

Email: crose@bfcsd.org
Website: www.bfcsd.org
Location: 1039 State Highway 11C, Brasher Falls, NY 13613
Phone: 315-389-5131
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrasherFallsCSD