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BUCHANAN, N.Y. – An excited crowd of students gathered in Buchanan-Verplanck Elementary School. The students stood near 55 projects, submitted to the school's third annual science fair.
Co-teacher pair Sarakay Eyring and Catherine Holzman organized the fair and its 83 student participants. Participation is voluntary and represents more than a quarter of the students in the elementary school.
"It's the investigative, the wondering, the thinking like scientists they really do," said Holzman.
Eyring said, "We really lack that in school right now," saying she would accomplish her goal for the science fair, "If we can share that kind of enthusiasm for wondering and being a learner."
Students from kindergarten to fifth grade presented projects ranging from inhabitants of the ocean, to scales, to anemometers that measure wind speeds. Kindergartener Emily Stout, 6, said she learned from her project entitled, "Sea Creatures," that, "Even if they look the same, they don't have to live in the same place."
Monica Balcuilim, 11, said she learned through the anemometer project that, "Wind can go different speeds in different places."
The first year of science testing begins in fourth grade and according to data collected by New York Times, Buchanan-Verplanck Elementary is under the median of 100 for New York State, at 97.
Testing scores for the 2011-2012 school year are expected to come back in July and first-year principal Joshua Cohen said he is awaiting their arrival optimistically. "Since September, people have worked on not only test prep, but what you need to succeed," he said.
Last year Buchanan-Verplanck Elementary was "identified for improvement," by the state education department, because special needs and economically disadvantaged populations in the school missed marks for reading and math two years in a row.
District officials said that since special needs students from across the district are transported to Buchanan-Verplanck, it could skew the score, and added that students missed the benchmark by two points.
Comments (2)
Could you please correct the paragraph that starts Students from kindergarten to eighth grade...As with all elementary schools in HenHud district, B-V Elementary has K-5th. Blue Mountain Middle School has 6th-8th and they were not involved in this science fair at B-V. I also believe that the two other elementary schools in the district, Frank G. Lindsey and Furnace Woods, have also hosted school science fairs.
And as for the comment above from Pointermama, in the summer of 2011 when B-V was labeled as an underperforming school, all parents had the option of sending their child to another elementary school within the district if they did not feel comfortable with the integrated co-teaching that would happen at B-V. Letters were sent to each home by the district. You had your chance so don't complain now.
Congrats to all the students that participated in the B-V Science Fair!! It was great fun!!
Could the district possibly take a few dozen of the special ed kids that they dumped at B-V for the past few years and send them to the other two elementary schools? It's funny, B-V was originally built for the children or Buchanan and Verplanck not Peekskill, Cortlandt Manor and Montrose. Maybe the district lines should be changed up so that we don't have so many of the special ed and economically disadvantaged illegal aliens put at B-V and maybe people would see what the real problem is. My kid's class has so many special ed and problem kids in it they need two teachers, an aide, special ed teachers for reading, math etc. etc. etc. That's why the schools budget is top heavy with teachers salaries (70% of the budget) and not enough for extra-curricular activities for the children. Sick of this crap. For Christ sake my kid has not been on a class trip since Kindergarten but you can't expect little kids to try hard in school if they don't at least have something to look forward to. Sucks