Guilderland Music Staff Recognized

The outstanding conducting abilities of several faculty members of the Guilderland Music Department have been recognized by their peers. High School Choral Director, Rae Jean Teeter, conducted the Women’s Choir at the Zone 8 Area-All State Festival this fall. High School Band Director, Kathleen Ehlinger and Middle School Band Director, Jenn Austin will be conducting at the Saratoga-Warren All County Festival in February. Kerry Dineen from Pine Bush Elementary will be directing the Junior High Choir at the Greene County Festival in March. Congratulations to these talented staff members.

 FMS Wellness Day

On Thursday, March 27th, Farnsworth Middle School will once again hold a Wellness Day for students. Workshops for students cover many subjects from I-M Safe on cybersafety to scuba diving to leadership training. A list of workshops is attached. For a schedule contact Farnsworth Middle School.

Future City Competition

Farnsworth Middle School won first place in the Future City program at the January 19th regional competition at Hudson Valley Community College and earned a trip to the National finals in Washington, D.C. February 16th to 20th. The city of “Mohala” project, with students Kathryn Liotta, Hannah Liu, Brien Miceli, Anya Joynt, and Adison Vanina, won first place for their Future City, along with Best Computer City Design, Best Essay on the Use of Nanotechnology, Best Presentation, and the award for Most Creative Use of Construction Materials in the Transportation Infrastructure. Engineer mentors were Jim Liotta and Christopher Miceli.

Farnsworth had two teams at the regional contest. The city of “New Delpur,” created by students Mary Powathil, Haweon Hwang, Laura Tang, Chris Raber, Michael Tolfa, Adam Janover, and Austin Alban also did extremely well. They scored highly enough to have been ranked in the top five, but contest rules do not allow one school to have two teams in the final top-five round. “New Delpur” won special awards for Best Public Transportation System and Best Green Architecture. Engineer mentors were Kuruvilla Zacharias and Tom Raber.

Deb Escobar, enrichment teacher writes, “The amount of learning and growth from all of the students was tremendous. Estimated hours of student work for one project? Well over 100, beginning last June! An impressive list of academic standards in science, math, technology, language arts, and art were covered by their research and work on the five components of this project – and even a couple of social studies standards on populations and culture!” FMS can be very proud of all these students, as well as the students who participated in the December runoff to choose our two teams for the regional. Students who finished a city and competed in the school runoff this year also included: Michael Higgins, Michael Dvorscak, Amanda Gnirrep, Dejana Harris, Xing-yu Wei and Rantej Singh.”

Deb Escobar and Tom McGreevy, FMS technology teacher, assisted students. Congratulations to all!

WES Collaborates on Original Rap

An interesting, unique, exciting collaboration between two elementary schools has begun. On January 17th at 9:30 a.m. at Giffen Memorial Elementary School, fifth grade students from Guilderland’s Westmere Elementary School and Albany’s Giffen Memorial Elementary School worked together to write an original rap song in celebration of Black History Month.

Led by motivated fifth grade teachers Jeremy Dudley of Giffen (also a local hip-hop artist and rapper known as “Origin”), and Todd Giagni of Westmere, the students are researching a theme, exploring beat and rhythm, and producing an original version of the spoken musical wordplay known as rap. Students are traveling to both schools as part of the project to experience their different cultures while coming together as a group through music.

The finished project will be performed at both schools during February as part of Black History Month. Congratulations to Todd Giagni and his students.

Annual 3D Student Exhibit

On January 15th Capital Area Arts Supervisors group held the adjudication for works into the annual 3D student exhibit. The show titled “Art in Three Dimensions” features three dimensional works from 12 participating districts. There were over 325 works submitted and 145 pieces accepted.

Five pieces from the Guilderland High School sculpture class were accepted. Congratulations to:

• Alexia Haluska, grade 11 – 2 pieces
• Jarret Trudeau, grade 12
• Jennifer Ostroski, grade 11
• Jessica Urban, grade 11

The exhibit will run from January 30th through February 13th at both galleries located within Niskayuna High School and the Schenectady School of Fine Arts. A reception to recognize students will be held on February 12th at both galleries. Congratulations to theses talented artists.

Guilderland Student Work Featured in The Martin Luther King, Jr. & Coretta Scott King 2008 Student Art and Essay Celebration

Seventy-five students from Guilderland schools participated in the 2008 Student Art and Essay Celebration at Siena College on January 14th as part of the Martin Luther king, Jr. and Coretta Scott King Series on Race and Nonviolent Social Change. We are proud of the messages from our student artists and writers.