Educational opportunities extend beyond the classroom to enrich learning, develop student awareness of the global community and promote intellectual and civic engagement.
Goal: Participate in Tri-State Consortium professional development and member study groups and plan for a district visit/consultancy.
- The district completed its fourth year of membership in The Tri-State Consortium, whose members include high-performing school districts from Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. Eight F-M staff members traveled to five school districts to participate in consultancies in order to provide feedback in the following areas: writing, Warwick Valley Central School District; social studies, Herricks Union Free School District; diversity, equity and inclusion, Dobbs Ferry Union Free School District; mathematics, Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools and STEAM (science, technology, engineering and math), Pawling Central School District. An additional benefit of participating in these types of site visits is that F-M staff members observe instructional models and practices that could be customized to enhance F-M students’ educational experiences.
Goal: Establish student service learning opportunities that are aligned with the curriculum and enhance classroom learning.
- Teachers worked with a variety of organizations and businesses in the community to extend and enrich classroom learning. Some examples include the Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center, Stickley, the Manlius and Fayetteville libraries, Gabrielle Chocolates and Ice Cream and the Redhouse Arts Center.
Goal: Create community service partnerships to support personal and social growth and development.
- Fayetteville Elementary School’s BEE Council put together and donated 40 bags to Noah’s Care Bags, which serves parents/guardians of children who are admitted into a children’s hospital by providing necessary personal care items as well as support through the use of motivational quotes, a personal story and candy.
- At each of the district’s three elementary schools, InterFaith Works representatives trained school staff who then established Kindness Clubs for fourth-grade students. The club’s facilitated sessions offered an opportunity for the students to engage in diversity, equity and inclusion discussions and activities that focused on creating a more welcoming and affirming environment for students within each of the buildings. Sessions topics included Fostering Belonging, Talking About Race and Exploring Stereotypes.
- The high school and middle schools engaged in the School Exchange Dialogue Program with InterFaith Works. The program brings together diverse students and creates safe spaces for discussions about structural racism, learning conflict resolution skills, building alliances and breaking down stereotypes.
- The Wellwood Middle School community held a toiletry drive that collected 2,247 items for Rise Above Poverty, a nonprofit organization focused on community awareness and engagement to end homelessness and poverty in the Syracuse City School District. Wellwood students decorated the bags containing the items with positive and uplifting quotes. The school community also held a snack drive for the Rise Above Poverty Afterschool Reading Clinic.
- For the first time since March 2019, F-M High School was able to host an in-person Dance Marathon to benefit Camp Good Days and Special Times, a not-for-profit organization that offers weeklong summer camping sessions, weekend adult retreats and year-round programs for families who have been touched by cancer and other life challenges. All programs are provided free of charge. More than 500 F-M students participated in the fundraiser and raised over $116,000.
- Mary Foran, F-M High School’s career center coordinator, collaborated with her
counterparts from other local high schools to provide a series of virtual career speakers that included representatives from such fields as nursing, computer programming, various military branches and Job Corps, which is the largest nationwide residential career training program in the country that helps people ages 16 through 24 complete their high school education, trains them for meaningful careers and assists them with obtaining employment.