Bird's Eye View

I hope everyone had a great July 4th weekend, and found some renewed excitement in a much more normal weekend than last year.

To kick off the new school year, I would like to let everyone know that we have a new district webpage (bfcsd.org) and a new mobile App coming out. The App will be found for free in the App store under Brasher Falls Central School. This new BFCSD App will give you fingertip access to the latest school news, announcements, cafeteria menus, athletic events, concerts, and a whole lot more. We will have a “webmaster” that will be working with staff to ensure information is up-to-date on both the App and district webpage.

Even though graduation just occurred, we are already back at work and “rolling” with a variety of in-house opportunities for students to catch-up, make-up, get ahead, or just relax with summer camps.

• High School Summer School began on July 6th with students coming into school to do their online summer school classes. (An SLC staff member will be in the room with students to assist with technology needs and any other questions). Staff and students will be required to wear masks while on a bus or inside the building. Masks can be removed when eating, while outside, and/or on a 6 ft. socially distanced mask break while seated in a classroom.

• Middle and Elementary Summer School will begin July 12 for grades K-8. The response has been great and our numbers will be higher than ever. As of today, all students and staff will still be required to wear masks while inside the school building or on a bus. Students and staff can remove masks when outside, while eating, or when on a 6 ft. social distanced mask break when seated in a classroom. As always, students and staff may continue to wear masks at any time they wish.

• GREAT NEWS….our Extended Day grant was renewed for the next four years! Weekly summer day camps have been set up for 5th and 6th grader students for this summer. Due to Covid restrictions on bussing numbers, we had to cap all camps at 33 and we are currently at capacity (waiting lists have been created and will be used if original students drop out for any reason).

• Once again, Summer Recreation will be running for the month of July, starting Monday July 12th. This program will also be run out of the Elementary School with swimming lessons and activities available to children in grades 2-6 who are enrolled in the program.

As we continue to meet as a BOCES District, we have made the decision that only in-person learning will be offered at all 18 school districts (including SLC) this coming Fall. Remote learning will not be an option.

To close out the 2020-21 school year, we have to remember we have spent this last year listening to words like 6 feet, masks, sanitizing wipes, social distancing, Google Meet, Zoom, and much more. All are still things of the present, but will hopefully soon to be words of the past! Despite all the changes, I want to thank you all for meeting us at least halfway this year. If there was ever a year where positive relationships between school and home were a must, this was the year! This year parents, students, SLC staff, and our community really showed how meeting each other halfway, in any situation, can be a life lesson for the future.

As we reminded our Class of 2021 at graduation, most every successful relationship they will have once they leave us here at SLC, will involve them having to meet someone halfway. Our hope after this pandemic is over, is that we all continue on with this valuable lesson for years to come.

Thank you for your patience and understanding throughout the 2020-21 school year!

It is hard to believe that one of the most challenging school years is finally behind us! Our high school staff is proud of what our students, parents, and community were able to accomplish under such challenging circumstances. We know that this year certainly hasn’t been easy for anyone, and we appreciate how we have come together as a Larries community to make this year as good as it could be!

In June, we celebrated our Class of 2021 with our graduation ceremony that was held on Friday, June 25th. An extra “congratulations” to our graduates! Perhaps the most exciting aspect to this ceremony was the fact that we were able to open up the viewing of graduation in-person to many community members that were interested in attending. Additionally, we were able to celebrate again with a parade throughout the community. A special thanks to our local fire departments and emergency personnel who joined us leading our graduates throughout the community, so all could participate.

We are partnering once again with St. Lawrence-Lewis BOCES to provide Regional Summer School opportunities for our students. On Monday, July 6th the first three week session of Regional Summer School began. This year we have layered on additional in-person support with our fantastic teaching staff at SLC to help support our students with the online format of summer school. Special thanks to Mrs. Bissonette, Mrs. Tozier, and Ms. Huey for helping our students find success with their coursework this summer.

We will be spending lots of time this summer planning for the 2021-2022 school year! We are hopeful to see a more “return to normal” in the coming months and are eager to put the pandemic years of education behind us. To our students and parents- thank you for all you have done to step up and find success this year! As always, if you have anything that you need throughout the summer, please do not hesitate to reach out via email or telephone, so we can help support you.

See you in the Fall!

Mrs. Zender

Please click on the link to view the

St. Lawrence Central High School Graduation

Congratulations go out to LeahBeth Guerard and Alison Jarvis for being named students of the month for the character traits of Self-Worth (ok to be you) and Self Aware & Importance.

Six of our Liberty Partnership Program students attended a day trip at Ausable Chasm on June 30. The students enjoyed a hike, a float tour, lunch and ice cream together. Friendships were built and strengthened, and students got to know our new LPP Assistant, Michaela Bethel, as well. We are happy to welcome her to work alongside Mrs. Burnett with the LPP students this summer and next year.

Pictured:

Tyler Donalis, Atreau Rawson, Cheyanne Giles, Lily Stevens, Dylan Bodway, Noah Bunnell

Instead of a Final Exam this year, Mr. Thompson had his Algebra 2 students complete a project using Desmos based on what they learned over the course of the year about various types of graphs.

Click on the links below to view some of the great pieces of artwork that were created.

Michael Newtown

Kayle McCarthy

Danaye Ramsdell

Merlyn Bordeleau

Several music students were able to perform at our impromptu Virtual Coffeehouse on June 10. The students prepared their own performances, attended additional rehearsals, and attended an evening live stream.

Great work everyone, and congratulations on your well prepared performances!

Pictured:

Cole Zenger, Andrew LaMora, Alannah Baker, Jonathan Fraser, Alexis Tobin, Chantel McCarthy and MaCaleb Earle.

Dear SLC Community,

Although this was a challenging year, I have been extremely impressed with the resilience that our staff and students have shown. Rain or shine, the middle school teachers were creating relationship building and problem solving opportunities for students right up until the last day of school.

We do have multiple programs going on this summer including: Summer Rec, Summer Camps, and Summer School. We will have our administrative intern Mrs. Maria Braun also working with our summer school program this summer, and are excited to have her on board. Summer school begins on July 12th at 8:30 am. Eighth grade students participating in the high school class will begin on July 6th at 12:00 pm.

Over the summer we hope that our families are able to get outside, travel, and spend quality time together. We look forward to seeing all of our students refreshed and ready for a return to school in September.

As always, if you have any concerns or questions, please reach out to the middle school office.

Have a wonderful summer!

Mrs. LaBarge

Fifth grade joined in the Spirit Week fun! Chase Sirles and Thomas Liberty were the best dressed tourists, Adrianne Murray-Crump and Chloe Crump brought us back to the 80s, and Lily Labier represented the 50s housewives. We all had so much fun together. These last two weeks were spent not only finishing up units in classes, but spending time with each other. Games were played (dominoes came out and teamwork was needed to create a successful domino track), fun was had, which was very well needed after a difficult year.

Congrats to our fifth graders for showing us their perseverance through it all!

With only 12 pencils and a handful of rubber bands to work with, students in Ms. Peck’s 7th grade math class had to create a working pencil catapult. Working within a group, this STEM Project tested their critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration skills, and creative thinking. Math 7 is all about solving problems and applying learned skills. This project allowed students to combine geometry, probability, rates, and percentages to complete a task.

Great job, students!

SLC is such a special place, and the biggest reason why is our people.

SLC Staff: THANK YOU for handling what I hope is the most difficult year of your career, with such grace and flexibility. On top of all the changes dictated by state guidelines, you also adapted to new leadership, both at the building and district level. You were the greatest example of perseverance for our students and the community.

Families: THANK YOU for trusting in our staff. We appreciate your flexibility and patience every year, but this year even more so. Though it was not an easy year, I certainly consider it a successful one, and it wouldn't have been possible without your cooperation.

I will forever be grateful for everyone's support as I navigated new waters, as SLC Elementary principal. I was thrilled to return to my roots as a Larrie and work alongside some of the best in the field.

I sincerely wish you the most enjoyable summer; it is well deserved by all!

See you in September!

Gratefully,

Mrs. Colterman

The SLC Elementary was honored to celebrate 4th grade students during this year's virtual Moving Up Ceremony on Friday, 6/18. The recorded ceremony can be viewed here.

Congratulations!

Though we were not able to bring in our family volunteers for this year's Larries Day, we still had a lot of fun!

At the end of May, the entire elementary school collaborated to create a cube mural. The mural was created by our SLC Larries based on the street artist named Thank You X. This artist uses color, shape, and pattern to make building murals in Los Angeles, California. He uses the repetition of cubes to make his art.

Each of our students have designed their own cube and have collaborated together to create this school-wide mural in art class. The mural hung in the hallway for the month of June.

Mrs. LaFave’s class got to tour a NYS Police Car, thanks to Trooper Roman. The students put Mrs. Colterman and Mrs. LaFave in the back seat.

If you have been following the news recently, you have observed that the rate of cyber crime against not only companies, but individuals is growing by the day. One way you can help protect your personal information is through the use of Two-Factor Authentication on your computer and phone.

You may be asking what two-factor authentication is and how it works to help protect your personal information. When investigating cyber crimes, experts say that most of these attacks occur through a password security breach. To keep others from getting your information the two-factor authentication requires two steps in the verification process when you, or some pretending to be you, attempts to sign onto a new device.

In most cases, when setting up your two-factor authentication, individuals have a text sent to their phone sending a random code to be entered into the device they are logging into. If you receive one of these texts, and you know it is not you signing on, it alerts you to a possible breach and allows you to change your password before the attacker can gain access.

Please take the time to protect you and your family and make it harder for identity thieves to gain access to your information. Require these hackers to gain more information than just your username and password to steal your personal data. Your privacy along with everyone else's is becoming more of an issue as cyber criminals continue to attack. Taking the steps to protect your personal data can save you from losing everything.

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