The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
MIDDLE SCHOOL ACCOLADES
School to Watch: Students, faculty, staff honored for high performance
VERONA, N.Y. » Faculty and students of VernonVerona- Sherrill Middle School celebrated their school being selected as this year’s recipient of the Schools to Watch accolade on Wednesday.
Launched by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle- Grades Reform in 1999, Schools to Watch is an initiative that recognizes schools across the country that display high performance and are graded based on academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, and social equitability.
“This has been a very long, but ref lective and worthwhile process,” said VVS Middle School Principal Carrie Hodkinson.
VVS joins 32 schools in New York state and 394 schools across the country that have been selected for such prestigious recognition.
This summer, fromJune 27- 30, Hodkinson and other VVS middle school teachers will attend a conference in Washington D.C. to present the activities and programs they have available to students.
In attendance was Joel Weiss, one of three members of the State Schools to Watch Leadership Team. VVS was chosen because of “their focus on academics and how they treat each child as an individual; no one falls through the cracks,” Weiss said.
Weiss said the application for the Schools to Watch was “extremely rigorous,” with his team interviewing several teachers, faculty members, and students. Two of the students selected were seventh grader Elizabeth Schieferstine and eighth grader Caleb Decker, both part of the school’s Principal Student Leadership Team.
“It’s a pretty big honor to win it. It means that we are a well-run school and
“It’s a pretty big honor towin it. It means thatwe are a well-run school and thatwe care about our students. It shows that we really care about eachother andour community, and thatwe strive to do everything to the best of our abiltiy.”
— seventh grader Elizabeth Schieferstine
that we care about our students,” Schieferstine said. “It shows that we really care about each other and our community, and that we strive to do everything to the best of our abiltiy. We constantly try to have different and new opportunities available to students to make them feel welcome.”
“It really says that we are doing a nice job as a district and that we have been always been trying to improve. We have new tech- nology being added and classrooms being renovated. We’re also improving our sports facilities with a new turf field,” added Decker.
Following the speech was a slideshow depicting students and teachers at work as well as in extracurricular activities, such as FFA and sporting events.
Capping off the event, Weiss presented the students and Hodkinson with their plaque. The VVSMiddle School finished the remainder of the day celebrating by playing musical chairs and having a friendly relay race.