Dear Batavia Families and Community,
First, a resounding and sincere thank you to our community for your strong support of the 2023-24 budget, with over 80% approval. Successful budget approvals is one of many signs of community support for our students and programs, so again–thank you. We welcome back dedicated Board of Education members Alice Ann Benedict and Barbara Bowman for three more years; thanks to your approval again, we will be continuing with a student ex-officio member on our Board (their report is always my favorite part of each meeting); and a new reserve will be established for future capital projects and improvements.
It has been a busy hiring season lately, with two significant appointments in the last month: we welcome current John Kennedy Principal Brian Sutton into the new role of Director of Educational Technology, and we welcome back to John Kennedy, current BHS Principal Paul Kesler—both of these appointments take effect on July 1. In the meantime, we have already begun the search process for the next BHS Principal. Stay tuned for more details.
Speaking of technology, I just learned that our friends at the Richmond Memorial Library offer wi-fi hot spots to their patrons. From time to time, we receive requests from our families for these hot spots, and while we no longer offer them, I was pleased to learn that Richmond does. Be sure to check them out if you’re interested.
And now, speaking of the Richmond Memorial Library, this fall, BHS will be participating in the annual Richmond Reads program—a fantastic community reading program that I have personally participated in for many years, and we are excited about bringing this opportunity to our students. The book and author reveal will be on Thursday, June 29, at 7 pm at Richmond if you are interested in joining us.
I would like to congratulate our cast and crew of Les Misérables for their enthusiastic participation in the Rochester Theatre League’s Stars of Tomorrow. As you may have seen on social media, our cast put on a wonderful production number as part of the event, and in the meantime, saw some amazing production numbers from other schools in the region. Special congratulations to Clara Wood, Melania deSa e Frias, and Saniiya Santiago for their Excellence in Performance awards. Bravo!
A few weeks ago, I was visiting Batavia Middle School as part of the Sources of Strength program at BHS, and was so pleased to see our BHS students “teaching” valuable life lessons to our middle school students—I even participated in identifying my sources of strength in one lesson (my wife, my colleagues, and a very good friend from high school—in case you are wondering 🙂).
Here is a description of Sources of Strength direct from their website:
A best practice youth mental health promotion and suicide prevention program designed to harness the power of peer social networks to create healthy norms and culture, ultimately preventing suicide, violence, bullying, and substance misuse. The mission of Sources of Strength is to prevent adverse outcomes by increasing well-being, help-seeking, resiliency, healthy coping, and belonging. Sources of Strength moves beyond a singular focus on risk factors by utilizing an upstream approach for youth suicide prevention. This upstream model strengthens multiple sources of support, or protective factors, for young people so that when times get hard, they have strengths to rely on.
It was great fun attending John Kennedy’s annual Mud Run Wednesday night, as well as our jamming Rock Band concert at BHS.
Have you checked out the newly revised and renamed Community Closet, now known as The Community Schools Heart of Kindness Center? As part of my bi-weekly leadership meetings, we visit our schools, and just this week, we visited Robert Morris and toured the newly named and redesigned center. Thank you to Julia Rogers for her committed leadership of this program that serves our local families.
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By the way, while I love visiting all our schools, when I need a quick pick me up, my first stop is to our UPK and Pre-School program at Robert Morris. There’s nothing like seeing the smiling face of a three or four-year-old just thrilled to be in school learning.
Finally, please join me and our fellow community members on this solemn weekend as we pause to reflect on the enormous sacrifices made by those who heroically and bravely served our country. There are a number of community events on Monday, including the Memorial Day Parade down Main Street, where our band will be proudly participating on this important day. As I recommended last year, a wonderful movie that will show you the true importance of Memorial Day is “Taking Chance,” the last I knew, available on HBO.
As a reminder, all BCSD schools will be closed on Friday, May 26, and Monday, May 29, in observance of the Memorial Day holiday.
Have a great weekend, and thanks again for your continued support of all that BCSD!
Jason A. Smith
Superintendent of Schools
585-343-2480, ext 1000
jasonsmith@bataviacsd.org
P.S. I would be remiss if I did not share this awesome duck picture I captured during my rounds at John Kennedy. Here is “Kennedy” protecting her eggs on a tree outside of the school—some of you may have already seen it on Facebook or on The Batavian.
