Author: Saratoga TODAY

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Parents and guardians with children in the Saratoga Springs City School District are invited to participate in upcoming virtual training sessions on the Seesaw or Canvas Learning Systems. Seesaw is used in grades K-5 and Canvas is used in grades 6-12. 

The next Seesaw training will be on Tuesday, Oct. 5 from 6 to 7 p.m. The virtual 1-hour training will assist grade K-5 families with the Seesaw digital platform that is utilized in all the Elementary school buildings. The training will focus on downloading the Seesaw family app from a device at home to view your child’s posts, access teacher announcements, and send private messages to your child’s teachers. Additional time will be given to review how to assist your child with accessing their Seesaw classroom from their Clever page at home.

The next Canvas training will be on Monday, Oct. 4 from 6 to 7 p.m. The virtual 1-hour training will walk grade 6-12 parents and guardians through how Canvas is being used in classrooms to support instruction. Features of Canvas that will be reviewed are course navigation buttons, home pages, announcements, modules, assignments, and the Canvas calendar. The training will also walk through how guardians can become observers of their student’s Canvas course. 

Recordings will be made available after the events for those who cannot attend. For more information and to access the trainings through WebEx visit: www.saratogaschools.org/news.cfm?story=107613& 

SARATOGA COUNTY — Watermelon from the Pitney Meadows Community Farm was the featured Harvest of the Month at Dorothy Nolan Elementary in the Saratoga Springs City School District and Corinth Elementary School. One parent said, “the only reason my child bought lunch today was because watermelon was on the menu!” 

Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Saratoga County in partnership with Pitney Meadows Community Farm (PMCF) and four local school districts received a grant from the NY State Dept. of Agriculture and Markets to connect the school cafeteria and the students it serves with locally grown produce. The Farm to School Program began in 2019 with the Saratoga Springs City School District and has expanded to include three additional Saratoga County school districts, including Corinth, Galway, and Schuylerville. 

The goal of the Farm to School Program is to strengthen local agriculture, improve student health, and promote regional food awareness. In support of these goals, school lunch directors in each school and Aliza Pickering, the farmer at Pitney Meadows Community Farm, developed a growing plan for the 2021-2022 school year. The growing plan will increase the amount and variety of locally grown, nutritious foods found on the school lunch menus. Pitney Meadows Community Farm will provide schools with produce they’ve never bought locally before, including broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, beets, and parsnips. This represents a 50% increase in variety of locally produced foods for the Saratoga Springs City School District. 

Funding for this program has allowed for the purchase of equipment to process and store large quantities of locally grown fresh produce. This has been greatly utilized  by incorporating a “Harvest of the Month” project component, where a locally grown food item is promoted and provided monthly via samples and/or on the school lunch menu.

This was carried out at Corinth Elementary, which happily embraced the Harvest of the Month Project during September. Lisa Tevendale, the Food Service Director, provided watermelon to students who purchased lunch, while food service staff provided samples to all other students in the cafeteria. In addition, Mrs. Young, an elementary school teacher, visited each table to read the Watermelon Party book, as students enjoyed their local watermelon. 

In addition to providing local produce for the school lunch menu, CCE has been actively involved in facilitating Farm to School nutrition education to students and their parents, further promoting the locally grown foods found in the Farm to School Harvest of the Month Project. 

CCE has developed Harvest of the Month morning announcements for schools to introduce the upcoming locally grown item and the health benefits associated with each. Activity sheets focusing on the Harvest of the Month produce have been supplied to some elementary school grades. Newsletter articles provided by CCE have also kept parents informed. Additional efforts have included a presence within the cafeteria to survey the student population to assess if students are both accessing and enjoying more fresh produce found in their school lunch. 

If you have any questions or would like more information regarding this program, please visit the Cornell Cooperative Extension website at www.ccesaratoga.org/agriculture/farm-to-school-saratoga-county, or contact the program coordinator, Nicolina Foti at nvf5@cornell.edu or 518-885-8995. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — SUNY Empire State College has been awarded an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) grant through their “Transformative Research in the Education Sciences” program. SUNY Empire and selected partners will use the federal grant, totaling nearly $3 million over three years ($2,999,998.13), to develop a recognized incremental credentialing system for U.S. postsecondary education that will improve academic and labor-market outcomes for students. 

The initiative, “Credential as You Go: Transforming the Credentialing System of the U.S.,” will serve as a blueprint for colleges, universities, and higher-education systems to strategically develop and implement incremental credentials, such as short-term certificates, badges, and micro-credentials, for their students. This work builds upon a previous planning grant funded through the Lumina Foundation. 

Nan Travers, Ph.D., Director of SUNY Empire’s Center for Leadership in Credentialing Learning, will lead the effort. She will be joined by a collaborative management team, including Larry Good of the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce and Holly Zanville of the George Washington University Program on Skills, Credentials & Workforce Policy, as well as representatives from the State University of New York, the University of North Carolina System, and the Colorado Department of Higher Education. 

The project team will implement 90 incremental credentials at the undergraduate, graduate, and continuing-education levels at institutions within the State University of New York, University of North Carolina system, North Carolina Community College system, Colorado Community College system, and Colorado Department of Higher Education. 

The team will then collect data on student access to, persistence in, and completion of postsecondary credentials, as well as produce framework for institutions interested in implementing incremental credentials, policy change recommendations to facilitate incremental credentialing systems at postsecondary institutions, and a national marketing campaign to share strategies for postsecondary credentialing. 

The federal IES grant will fund 100% of the project. The grant period runs from Sept. 1, 2021, to Aug. 31, 2024. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, beginning with a fall festival in October. 

As you venture down Broadway in Saratoga Springs this week, you might notice the flags popping up to announce the celebration of the Waldorf School’s 40th anniversary. They will kick off their year-long celebration by partnering with Pitney Meadows to put on a fall festival open to the public. The Waldorf School is an alternative to conventional public school, where you will find students not only learning their multiplication tables and reading the classics, but also knitting, gardening, moving, playing instruments, and more.

Save the date! Saturday, October 16 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. is the first celebratory event – Jump Into Fall: Fall Festival with Pitney Meadows and The Waldorf School of Saratoga. Join the Waldorf School for their anniversary as Pitney Meadows Community Farm also celebrates their 5th anniversary. The festival, held at Pitney Meadows Community Farm (223 West Ave, Saratoga Springs) will be reflective of the fall season with interactive activities such as sheep shearing, basket weaving, a hay jump, and more. Admission is free, just pay-to-park; $12 pre-pay or $15 the day of the event. To learn more about the festival, pre-pay for parking, or sponsor the event visit: jumpintofallsaratoga.com.

 Established in 1981, with its first graduating senior class in 2001, the Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs began teaching pre-school and then primary students. They purchased the old public high school on York Avenue in 1987. They now have three campuses across the city with the High School on Regent Street (an old Skidmore College building), the Lower School at the York Avenue location, and Forest Kindergarten on Spa State Park land near Kaydeross Creek. Class sizes range from 8 to 15 students who learn in blocks, focusing on one subject during 3 to 4 week periods. 

Here are some things you will find Waldorf School students learning about: 

At the Forest Kindergarten, youngsters learn how to garden, cook, and more in a playful setting focused around the seasons, helping them to develop their motor skills. 

In the Lower School, field trips are introduced. The students are taught the French language and get to take a hallmark trip to Quebec to practice it in real-life scenarios in the French culture. Although with COVID, they creatively improvised to set up a French village of their own with French speakers who graciously traveled to the area to participate. 

At the high school, there is continued focus on academics, but also community service. The Waldorf School has a unique  Junior Internship Program, where high schoolers spend a week working with a community member. Students have shadowed police officers, filmmakers, attorneys, contractors, financial advisors, and many other professions. In their senior year, students delve into a chosen passion and show how they have grown into young adults throughout their time at the school in a year-long individual project. 

“We are proud of our graduates. They learn many diverse skills at our school and become creative thinkers and excellent problem solvers. They do remarkable things with their lives,” said Abigail Reid, Administrator of the Waldorf School. 

Through all grade levels there is a progression in academic and practical skills, a hands-on education, and connection to the arts. 

“There is beauty and truth in education. You can see that idea everywhere you look in the school,” said Evelyn Barber, retired Waldorf School teacher and 40th anniversary committee member. 

“Our school has grown incredibly during these 40 years. This school originally was supported by the parents who wanted this education for their children. And to this day we are here for the same reason. Now we are even stronger,” added Reid. “We love our school, and we are looking forward to celebrating these 40 years with the greater Saratoga community.” 

For more information on the Waldorf School visit their website at www.waldorfsaratoga.org. For additional information regarding tuition, contact Elisabeth Garofalo, Admissions Coordinator, at 518-587-2224 or admissions@waldorfsaratoga.org. For additional information on how you can support the Waldorf School, contact Carla Metz, Development Director, at 518-581-1466 or highschool@waldorfsaratoga.org. 

SARATOGA COUNTY — As we roll out of summer into September, it’s back-to-school time for children and students. It’s a time of year that is equally exciting and stressful for students, parents, teachers, administrators and support staff, particularly with COVID-19 still on the rise around the country.

Over the past several months, the Saratoga County Alliance to End Homelessness has been highlighting different aspects and forms of homelessness that affect our community – but one of the rarely told stories of homelessness is that of homeless students. Back-to-school time is different for everyone, but it is particularly challenging for students who are experiencing homelessness. Most often, discussions around homelessness focus on adults, but what is often overlooked is discussing how homelessness of a family unit impacts children, their education, and social development.

According to the NYS Department of Education, Saratoga County school districts reported 474 registered K-12 students experiencing homelessness in the 2019-2020 school year. Across New York State (excluding NYC) that number swelled to 31,611. In 2019, CAPTAIN Community Human Services housed 92 youth in their shelter alone. The Saratoga-North Country Continuum of Care reported 21 unaccompanied youth in staying in an emergency shelter on a single night in January 2021. It is a significant issue and highlights the often forgotten and untold story of childhood homelessness. 

The contributing factors leading to family/youth homelessness vary widely, and the resulting predicament can significantly impact a student’s education trajectory and social network. For example:

• A mother of three flees a domestic violence situation and is fearful for her children to continue to attend school in their home district as their abuser will know where to find them.
• A family of four, with two young elementary school-aged children, are evicted from their home and placed in a motel outside of their home district by the Department of Social Services. The supportive educational environment at school, where the teachers know them and their friends, is now gone. 
• A high school senior is kicked out of their home and finds themselves at a runaway and homeless youth emergency shelter and struggles without the emotional support they need to graduate successfully. 

National studies confirm that if a student remains connected, active, engaged, and present in their home school district, the rate of reaching graduation successfully is significantly increased. When there are disruptions to school attendance, periods of non-enrollment, multiple moves from one school district to another, and/or falling behind grade level academically, students are negatively impacted and the chances of graduating successfully – and on time – is severely reduced. According to the National Center for Homeless Education, when students were administered a survey measuring the stress of life events, researchers found that students reported changing schools being as stressful as the hospitalization or incarceration of a parent. Coupled with worries about where they will be sleeping at night or if they will have food to eat, this kind of dramatic transition is especially stressful for children experiencing homelessness. Nationally, 75% of homeless children perform below grade level in reading, 72% perform below grade level in spelling, and 54% perform below grade level in math.

Thankfully, in Saratoga County there are committed resources, programs, and dedicated school employees who are focused on the needs of homeless students to ensure they are successfully connected to the school system and have the resources they need to continue their education with their cohort. Federal legislation called the McKinney-Vento Act provides rights and services to children and youth experiencing homelessness. 

Melanie Faby, the State McKinney-Vento Coordinator – who happens to reside in Saratoga County – explains the importance of this legislation, as it protects “the students’ rights to receive a ‘free, appropriate public education,’ by mandating that elementary and secondary school students without a ‘fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence’ are provided educational services comparable to those provided to their permanently housed peers. This provides stability that may be missed when a student is temporarily housed.”

Although the McKinney-Vento Act is a federal law, New York State laws further clarify some of the federal protections and add more. Some important, additional protections for New Yorkers are: 

• Continued enrollment and transportation for students in their final year in a school building (such as their senior year in high school), even if they have found permanent housing in a different school district.
• Transportation responsibility is assigned to the designated district of attendance (or to the Local Department of Social Services (LDSS) under certain conditions) regardless of the student’s present location.

Ultimately, the goal of the legislation is to ensure that homeless youth are identified, enrolled in school, and have a full and equal opportunity to succeed academically. This can include academic support, transportation to and from their home district for the entirety of their homelessness episode or the end of the school year, access to school breakfast and lunch programs, after-school programming, and many other support services. The McKinney-Vento Act also requires all school districts around the country to have a Homeless Student Liaison to work with children, and their families, when they enroll in school as a homeless student or become homeless at any point during the school year.

In the big picture of addressing homelessness and creating successful outcomes, the community of service providers working together to serve the whole family is critical. Although the primary focus is helping families find, secure, and maintain permanent housing, careful attention must also be paid to the particular needs of children – ensuring that students maintain the vital link to school to help them successfully complete their education. The housing providers and services agencies which comprise the Saratoga County Alliance to End Homelessness, and several school district Homeless Student Liaisons contribute to this collaborative work. 

For more information on resources for students experiencing homelessness or contact information for local Homeless Student Liaisons please visit www.nysteachs.org