Time to search for a solution to teen drinking and drug use at unsupervised parties
By Jane Holmes
Thank you Bruce. You’re a real mensch.
By Richard Laster
Proposed Greeley schedule change
By Norm Nickerson
Former Greeley assistant principal recommends asking: what will be lost and what will be gained as a result of these changes?
Reader’s Digest proposed development
By Steven Swirsky
Lobbyists should be required to identify themselves as such
______________________________________________________________
Letter to the Editor: Time to search for a solution to teen drinking and drug use at unsupervised parties
Dear Editor,
This letter is a comment on the problem of teen drinking and drug use at unsupervised parties. Parents, you cannot leave your child home alone. High school students cannot control their environment or their impulses. You do not want to let them make an irreversible mistake.
The party on the steep hill in Chappaqua was not such an unusual event. What was unusual was one student’s good sense to ignore peer pressure and parental disapproval to call for help. You had the courage to do the right thing. Is it not time for this community to grasp the frequency that drug and alcohol abuses occur locally? How often are our police and ambulance crews called to such scenes? Perhaps that statistic could begin an examination of why our youth find good times in an illegal and dangerous activity.
How often do these dangerous behaviors occur on school campuses? As a graduate of Horace Greeley, a parent of a Greeley grad and the grandparent of Greeley students, I hope that this letter will open up a study of the extent of drug and alcohol abuse and engage the community in a search for solutions.
Sincerely,
Jane T. Holmes.
______________________________________________________________
Letter to the Editor: Thank you Bruce . . . you are a real mensch
It is Saturday evening and a group of 70 or more New Castle residents and former residents gathered to say “thank you” to Bruce Gilchrist, one of the outstanding leaders of our community.
As I looked around the room I could spot the superintendent of our schools from the early 70’s, at least five school board members of the same “vintage,” five former town supervisors, numerous former town board members (one from as far as Pennsylvania), former leaders of the planning board, the Democratic Party, the co-presidents of the League of Women Voters, several elected officials at the county and state level, former teachers, and most importantly, many volunteers who in various capacities helped make the town what it is today.
So who is this Bruce Gilchrist who drew such a large audience on a cold Saturday evening in January, and what has he done to deserve such an outpouring of feeling?
Is it his charm, his English accent, his “straight talk,” his ability to reach out, his ability to listen, his eagerness to learn, his loyalty to friends and community, his ability to be decisive when needed, to get the job done? Well, it is “all of the above.”
Remarkable achievements leave a legacy of good works
As president of the school board, board member of BOCES, Supervisor of the town of New Castle, President of the League of Women Voters and many more positions of leadership, his accomplishments are remarkable and truly leave a legacy to his life in our town.
Just to give you an idea . . . the clean water you taste, not from a bottle but right out of your faucet; Horace Greely High School with a curriculum that is rated one of the best in the country; and not to forget the smooth handling of our garbage, which was a big issue in its days, but of even greater import nowadays. These all carry Bruce’s fingerprints.
There is one more message that keeps resounding from his parting words on Saturday evening, and that is his strong belief in voluntarism. It has been instrumental in making our town what it is, and clearly needs to be part our portfolio as we move on into the 21st century
Thank you Bruce….you are a real mensch.
Dick Laster
______________________________________________________________
Letter to the Editor: Proposed Greeley schedule change
Former Greeley assistant principal recommends asking: What will be lost and what will be gained as a result of these changes?
Dear Editor,
My son, a Greeley ‘77 grad, brought your website to my attention, especially the current discussion on mod-scheduling. I found this particularly interesting because one of my primary responsibilities as assistant principal was to build the schedule, along with Ed Hart, the chairpersons (in those days I would have said chairmen—some changes are very much called for) and Ernie Anderson (our guru from the University of Massachusetts). Those were days of change. These changes included modular scheduling, field-house scheduling and the “new school.” All that remains, I guess, is modular scheduling.
Change to mod scheduling made to address well articulated problem area
All of these changes were carefully considered and were put in place to address well-articulated “problem areas.” In considering those programs replaced and the contemplated change of schedule, it is fair to ask what has been lost and has or will be gained as a result of these changes. These three changes together gave much more control of their school day to the students and their parents than did the old system. In the first two changes it is fair to ask whether the change (field house and new school) significantly improved the quality of education. If the answer is yes, then the change from those programs must certainly have resulted in marked improvements and more gained than lost.
The principal of opportunity cost applies here
This is certainly the most important question to ask regarding modular scheduling. What will be lost and what will be gained? What’s the balance sheet? The principle of opportunity cost applies here. Let’s not delude ourselves. Every decision to do something is also a decision not to do something. Every decision bears a cost. We need to be very sure that the gain from any decision more than outweighs what we will lose. The strength of Greeley from the days of Don Miles to Ed Hart and hopefully to the present day has been that we always took advantage of our most obvious asset, the student body, and tried to create an atmosphere where those students had the optimum setting in which to avail themselves of the best that Greeley had to offer.
Questions: Will the new system increase availability of the whole curriculum to students in a way the old system did not? Will it make time serve the teaching objectives of the staff better than the present system? Will time serve instruction in a way that creates more flexibility? Has the “balance sheet” of lost options versus enhanced options been objectively and broadly considered?
Things can always be better, depending on what “things” and how you define “better”
Recently a national publication once again cited Greeley among the elite schools in the country. We must have done and are doing something right. Things can always be better. If after careful consideration it serves the needs of all the students better, then go for it. It comes down to what “things” and how you define “better”. If it serves staff, administration, financial or political goals, then it would be well to tread carefully, because, by the law of opportunity cost it will serve student needs less well.
Modular scheduling is not perfect. What system is? Building to improve student achievement is the goal. If the new system truly does that, then great. If after soul-searching consideration you cannot, with conviction, state a resounding “yes,” then you need to ask will we lose more than we gain. Whenever I would ask Ernie Anderson can we do such and such, he would always say “your school” by which he meant “What is good for some schools is not necessarily good for your school, so you need to answer only if it furthers your goals in achieving a better environment in which your kids will learn. That after all is why we do what we do, isn’t it?
A quick p.s.—Patti Reuter was one of my students when she was at Greeley. I always knew she would do well, though I hardly thought she would pick up where I left off. This is where teachers really get their reward.
Norm Nickerson, Assistant Principal, Horace Greeley High School, 1971-1987.
_____________________________________________________________
Letter to the Editor: Reader’s Digest proposed development
Lobbyists should be required to identify themselves as such
Dear Editor:
In your January 11th article regarding the first scoping session on January 9 in connection with the town board’s consideration of Summit Greenfield’s latest proposal for the “over-development” of the Reader’s Digest property, you reported that the “last speaker was a representative of the Building and Realty Institute of Westchester and the Mid-Hudson Region, an industry association based in Armonk,” and that this speaker “had come to recommend Summit’s proposed development to the town board.”
However, you may not have been aware of what I believe is a very important fact, and one that the town board and the citizens of our community should know. According to the Building and Realty Institute’s website, one of that organization’s activities is “lobbying” on behalf of its members. While I cannot say for certain whether Summit Development, Greenfield Partners or anyone associated with either of these participants in the proposal to turn the Reader’s Digest property into a mixed use development is a member of the institute, a quick look at the institute’s website and page three of the July/August issue of its aptly titled publication “Impact Building & Realty News” (Vol. 6, No. 6) posted on the site, you will discover an almost full page—and totally one sided—article, full of quotations from the developer, touting Summit Greenfield’s latest plan for hundreds of condos and unlimited commercial tenants as the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Are lobbyists allowed to appear at these scoping sessions?
I don’t know whether our town’s laws allow Summit Greenfield the right to have lobbyists appear and speak on behalf of this project, holding themselves out as “experts” in the field of real estate development and opining as to what the founders of Reader’s Digest would think about this proposal as if they could read their minds from beyond their graves. I believe that if their lobbyists are going to appear at our town’s forum and offer their views, they should be required to identify themselves as such to both the town board and the community before they do so.
While I know that federal and state governments require lobbyists to register and identify themselves, I do not know whether local governments such as the town board have similar protections in place. Fortunately, our community probably has not needed this until now. It looks like the time may have come.
By the way, while the speaker from the Building and Realty Institute claims that the Wallaces, the founder of Reader’s Digest, would applaud Summit Greenfield’s plans and their vision for our town, somehow I have a hard time accepting the idea that the Wallaces would really appreciate the value of Summit Greenfield’s plan, including its goal of tearing down the Wallace Auditorium that has been such a part of Chappaqua life for so many years and replacing it with an apartment house.
Yours truly,
Steven Swirsky
Steven Swirsky has been a resident of Chappaqua since 1989. He lives in Lawrence Farms East.
Copyright 2008 NewCastleNOW.org