Message from Brewster Superintendent: Construction, Restructuring and More

Patch thanks the for providing the following note:

Before The Fall

“Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
Henry James

Late August weather has been close to perfect and this makes it all the more difficult to get back to gearing up for a new school year. The evening air is cooler and we notice the morning light somewhat softer. I have many more birds devouring all the seeds in my feeders; a sure sign that migration season is here or that it will be a very cold winter. Or both.

Our Brewster school campus has seen one of its busiest summers in recent history. Perhaps you have noticed the solar panels on the roof of or the new playground behind . We started Fall sports practices this week and the teams are out in full force. Our bus fleet does practice runs before school starts, and the administrative team met to review the curriculum work and training that went on throughout the summer.

We have some new faces in town: our new Director of Special Education, Selena Fischer and our new Interim Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Harvey Schnall. We have restructured and consolidated responsibilities in our district office and as a result Steve Moskowitz is newly titled as Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources and Technology. Additionally, Mary Smith has been promoted to Assistant Supervisor for Transportation.

We are excited to have all of our students on campus as we move forward with as a K — 2 school and grades 3 — 5 in CV Starr. All of the buildings are ready for new and returning students and staff. The campus looks fabulous and we cannot thank our talented and hardworking custodial staff enough for their efforts. Watch for the official inauguration of the new Wells addition and renovation in October. We open our middle school doors on September 5th with this incredible project completed.

There is the new unfunded mandate that perhaps you have read about: APPR or Annual Professional Performance Review. This is a New York State requirement for all schools to evaluate teachers and principals based on a formula where observation and student test results are calculated to ascertain student growth and achievement and their connection to teacher effectiveness. We will keep you posted as this new system is implemented across the state. You will probably notice more standardized testing, especially in the fall as we pre-test students at every grade level. Think: the old fashioned Monday morning spelling pre-test and Friday spelling retest on steroids.

We are working with in terms of the future of as they begin to study best options for future use of this building. Stay tuned.

Now that the tax cap is here, construction and consolidation completed, we want to step back in order to move forward. We will again invite you to dialogue with us concerning what your priorities are for the benefit of our students in the coming years. We start anew not only another school year, but adjust to the rapid changes and challenges of these times.

Enjoy these last days of August and get those pencils sharpened or more to the point, your mobile devices charged.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jane Sandbank 
Superintendent of Schools