SusanCampriello: My Works

We built this city
Coxsackie-Athens Middle School students win award for future city
The Daily Mail
Jan. 31, 2009

COXSACKIE — Liberty City lies next to a coniferous forest at the base of tall, snow-covered mountains.

A water filtration plant sits in the center of town. A central command center controls the city’s defense system and monitors its water flow and money circulation. The roofs of the two-story townhouses of the city’s residential district are affixed with solar panels and catchalls for collecting rainwater.

A tall tower, or Hy-Ball, filters air by collecting carbon dioxide put out by automobiles and helps propel the award winning underground transportation system.

Liberty City has a total ground area of 1,250 square inches, its tallest structure rises to only 20 inches tall and tourists can visit it by stopping by math teacher April Bergman’s classroom in Coxsackie-Athens Middle School.

Liberty City was created as the school’s entry in the National Engineers Week Future City Competition. It won the award for best transportation system at the regional Capital District competition on Jan. 17, at Hudson Valley Community College. The winning team moves on to compete in February at the national competition in Washington, D.C., during National Engineers Week. Coxsackie-Athens Middle School was the only school to represent Greene County at the regional competition.

The national competition was developed as a way to introduce middle school students to mathematical, electrical and chemical engineering. Students must also write an abstract introducing their city and present their city at their regional competition.

“These competitions teach the future president and representatives,” Tim Williams, one of the nine 8th-graders on the team said. “We’re addressing the future right now.”

In September, the students built a model of their city using the computer simulation game SymCity. Once the computer model was completed, the team set to work turning dozens of recycled materials — including keyboard keys wrapped in aluminum foil, to stand in as solar panels on the roofs of the milk carton townhouses — into a their city.

Shawn Gianola, who said he joined the team after watching other members work while he was finishing a math test, said city construction appealed to him.

“It’s like playing a video game in real life,” he said.

April Bergman organized her first Future City team shortly after she began teaching at the school in the late 1990s. She said she likes to include younger students in the design and construction process so that they have the strong background in the science and planning concepts needed to design successful city once they are old enough to compete, Bergman said.

Teams have an overall budget of $100 and judges award bonus points if recycled materials are used in construction. The cities are scored on their creativity, as well.

The competition challenge focuses on a different aspect of city planning each year, Bergman said. This year, residential water systems were highlighted.

Robert Flores, a civil engineer who works on waste water systems, was the team’s engineering mentor. He said he discussed with the students how water desalinization and greywater systems, or ways to collect dish or bath water and reuse it for activities like watering lawns, work.

The group also took a trip to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to learn about water filtration.

Bergman said that the competition forces students to think of connections between science, mathematics and technology, which is the best way to understand any concept or equation.

“It has got to go together,” she said.

Team member Jacob Petersen said that learning different applications of science was important and in that respect students around the world seemed ahead of students in America.

“We’re starting to lag behind in the sciences,” Petersen said.

Brianna Stokes said she liked how the competition allowed students to preview different career options.

“They can make up ideas they can test in a career,” she said.

She said competing can help students believe in their own minds and abilities.

“Being on the stage and hearing people clap for them helps their self-esteem,” she said.

Williams, Petersen and Cole Hilscher presented their city at the regional competition where, they said, they enjoyed seeing some of ways other teams designed their entries.

“There are a lot of different ways to do some things,” Hilscher said.

Team members agreed that they had some trouble choosing proposed designs and ideas that would work best in their city, but they managed to work through their disagreements.

“All the ideas came together,” Hilscher said.

Bergman said she hopes that next year’s team will win a higher award and compete at the national competition.

Her students offered varied advice for next year’s team.

“Don’t fight,” Stokes suggested.

“Start early,” Williams added.

Gianola and some of his teammates, who will all graduate in June, said that they want to return to mentor next year’s team. The have also begun talking about splitting up into smaller teams competing against each other, just to keep the project going.

“It’s really fun and you learn a lot from it,” he said.

Athens Village elections set
The Daily Mail
Jan. 30, 2009
Green, Halsted, June and Sopris vying for 2 trustee seats; Smallwood unopposed; Pfister bows out

ATHENS — Democratic and Republican party members have spoken.

They gathered in caucuses to nominate candidates for Athens Village Board of Trustees and mayor’s office.

Republican nominees Richard Green and Arlene Halsted and will face Democrats Bob June and incumbent Trustee Tom Sopris in an at-large election for the two board positions. The top two vote-getters win the seats.

Trustee Chris Pfister announced that he is not seeking re-election.

Incumbent Mayor Andrea Smallwood has no challenger in her re-election bid.

Trustees Herman Reinhold and Tim O’Leary do not face re-election until 2010.

Several candidates said they expected to take part in a civil race this spring.

Green, who ran unsuccessfully for trustee last year, was selected again for the Republican ticket.

Green says his loss has only made him a more viable candidate this year because he has some name recognition.

He said he is worried about the toll the economy will take on the community.

“We have got to be fiscally responsible in the village,” he said.

Green said he also wants to make sure that the new zoning rules are implemented in an open manner.

He said that he expects this spring’s election to be a clean one, without any mudslinging

Halsted said Thursday that she is running because she is concerned about the future of the village.

“Athens is starting to look like a ghost town,” she said.

She said that she wants to make sure that in the future the community can offer activities and opportunities that her grandchildren will be able to enjoy.

Sopris said he wants to continue working with the board on a number of issues facing the community, including solving the drainage problem. He said that the board has worked well together for the last year.

“I think the board has done a good job on holding the line on taxes,” he said.

Sopris was first elected in 2007.

June narrowly defeated Phyllis Dinkelacker at the caucus for the seat being vacated by Pfister.

Pfister said he decided that it was time to step back from the board and he is not sure of his next direction.

“I haven’t given up the idea of serving in another capacity,” he said.

He said that he was glad that a new firehouse was constructed and a new truck was financed during his tenure.

Smallwood said Pfister had done a lot for the community but that her running mates will make great trustees.

She said she will still campaign, even though she has no challenger.

“You can’t sit back and say I don’t have to answer to the Village,” she said.

She said meeting constituents during a campaign is important.

“You get to hear about what everyone is concerned about,” she said.

Acting FAST, Cairo discusses rescue team
The Daily Mail
Jan. 28, 2009

The Cairo Fire Department Board of Commissioners discussed creating a Firefighter Assist and Search Team at their first meeting of the year Tuesday night.

The team would go to fires outside of the Cairo district to be on call in case a responding firefighter became injured or trapped while on duty.

A minimum of four firefighters would respond to a team call. Eight firefighters in the district have been certified as team responders.

Commissioner Bill Smith said he hoped that a team could be operational by early spring.

“Training-wise, we are good to go. Equipment-wise, we are 90 percent there,” he said.

The board questioned how creation of the team would affect the district’s insurance policy.

They discussed with Fire District Chief Gerry Buckley what gear could be set aside for the team and what would be available for general calls.

The team would not need its own truck, but a truck and radios would have to be ready when needed, Buckley said.

Buckley said he could speak to members of the team in New Baltimore about how they divide and manage gear.

He said that company members have discussed starting a team in the past, but had to hold off on doing so until they could receive the necessary training.

Buckley said that in the future, all districts will need to have a team.

“It’s coming down the line and we want to get a jump on it,” he said.

Mentoring helps students succeed
The Daily Mail and The Chatham Courier
Jan. 27, 2009

GREENE/COLUMBIA — When Jackie Hoffman started working as a guidance counselor at Chatham Middle School in 1992, she said, she met a lot of students she wished she could bring home.

There were 500 students in the school and only one of her, and she could not provide all the attention those students needed.

Hoffman started a mentoring program at the school the next year that matched about 10 students with 10 adults. This year, participation is at 37 — and counting. Hoffman said she had a student ask to join the program as recently as mid-January.

Many of the students also continue with the program throughout middle school.

“Mentors are just a great asset to this school,” Hoffman said, “and an integral part of the guidance program.”

Adult mentors in Chatham generally hear of the program through other mentors and through the program’s own outreach to adult groups. Interested adults have to apply for the program through the school’s guidance department in order to be cleared to come into the building and meet with students.

The program is open to any student who wishes to have a mentor, and the department tries to match students with mentors who have similar interests, Hoffman said.

Most students and their mentors meet at school, taking over an empty classroom once a week for about an hour. Hoffman said that some mentors and students do meet up off school grounds with parental permission.

Typically all of the students and their mentors get together bi-monthly. In the fall, they organize a Halloween event for younger students, and there is also a winter holiday party. In the spring they go to a show at Proctors’ Theater in Schenectady, and make rockets with the school science teacher.

Last year, students and their mentors visited an area nursing home. “I’m a real believer in intergenerational linking,” Hoffman said.

Cynthia Richardson has been a mentor with the school’s program since 1996.

Richardson, who like many mentors with the school program is a retired teacher, said the activities she does with her students vary with each participant.

Some students want to play games or go for walks and others just want to talk, she said.

Richardson said she hopes she helps her students maintain balance in their lives. “I do it on faith that any contact with a child will make a difference,” she said.

Hoffman and other local counselors, teachers and administrators have found that mentoring programs in their schools have helped students excel academically and socially.

Teachers and parents have reported back to the department that after joining the program, students with mentors have better attendance records, higher grades and seem generally happier in school than they were before joining, Hoffman said.

Corbette Russell, who co-coordinates the mentor program at Cairo-Durham Middle School, said she hopes students in her school also benefit from the program.

Mentors at her school include teachers, school aids and district bus drivers, who, like in Chatham, are screened for approval.

Russell said that 30 students participate every year on average, and roughly 85 percent of them stay involved with the program for multiple years.

She said that a few students who are now in high school volunteer with classes at the elementary school.

Russell explained that the hour-long weekly meetings between mentors and students give students something to look forward to if they are struggling in school. “Kids just want to be a part of something,” she said.

In January 2002, the Harvard Mentoring Project of the Harvard School of Mental Health and MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership launched the first annual National Mentoring Month.

Directors of the first campaign hoped their efforts would encourage adults and organizations to get involved with helping children and teenagers excel academically or lay the groundwork for a healthy lifestyle.

Susan Moses, co-director of the project, said the campaign was started as a public health initiative to combat academic and non-academic issues, including teenage pregnancy.

She said that choosing the first month of the year had many advantages. Television advertising costs are lowest after Christmas, she said, and a January campaign can tie becoming a mentor to making a New Year’s resolution.

In a departure from their past campaign featuring celebrities, the project recently launched the Reel People campaign, in which mentor-mentee pairs were asked to send in tapes of how mentioning has changed their lives. The winning pair is featured in a public service announcement on the project’s Web site.

The New York State Education Department has adapted mentor programs designed for students to help newly certified teachers pick up additional teaching or class management skills from seasoned veterans and to ease the transition into a new work environment.

Since 2004, newly certified teachers have had to be paired with a mentor during their first year of teaching or participate in a school building leadership service.

At Chatham Middle School, Hoffman said she once read that adults rarely let children talk for more than three or four minutes before interrupting them. She said that many children just want someone to listen to them.

“Kids need to be heard,” she said.

Greene County Bancorp, Inc. celebrates 120 years with student art show
The Daily Mail
Jan. 24, 2009

CAIRO — Dozens of students from Cairo Elementary School and their families were guests of honor at an artists reception at the Bank of Greene County branch in Cairo Friday evening.

More than 80 students at the school have pieces on display at the bank on Route 23, art teacher Claire Camingo said.

She said that four pieces were selected to be shown from each class at the school.

Artists at the reception posed proudly for photographs by their paintings of lizards and self-portraits in between snacking on pastries and greeting their friends and teachers.

Camingo escorted fifth grade artists Sophie Estep and Kyle Scully to the Legislative Office Building in Albany on Wednesday for the New York State Teachers Association 19th Annual Legislative Student Art Exhibition. Estep, Scully and their families met with State Sen. James L. Seward (R-Oneonta) and Assemblyman Peter D. Lopez (R, C, I-Schoharie).

“We have so many talented students and dedicated teachers throughout the district, and it is important we make sure programs like this continue,” Seward said in a press release regarding the event.

In Cairo, bank patrons can enjoy the artwork for a couple more weeks, said branch manager Kathleen Proper.

Proper said the reception was timed to coincide with the bank’s 120th anniversary.

On Thursday, the actual anniversary, Donald Gibson, president and chief executive officer of Greene County Bancorp Inc., J. Bruce Whittaker, director and former Bancorp president and Martin Smith, president of the bank’s board of directors opened trading on Wall Street by ringing the NASDAQ bell.

Proper said that the bank likes to celebrate different a community business or establishment every month and the school art show was a nice fit.

“We thought it would be a good opportunity for the students to show their work in the community,” Proper said.

Principal to resign, leaves strong legacy
The Daily Mail

Members of the Coxsackie-Athens school board have accepted the resignation of longtime Edward J. Arthur Elementary School principal Paul Snyder.

Snyder, who has served as the school’s principal for 10 years will retire at the end of July.

He called his resignation bittersweet.

“I’ve enjoyed it here. It’s a great school district,” Snyder told the board.

Snyder said that one of the goals of his administration was to improve the school’s academics. Last year, he said, the school received its best English Language Arts scores in history, and the students had done excellently on science exams as well.

One academic program he instituted at the school moved teachers with their students from first grade to second grade, and from third grade to fourth grade.

He started looping classes in this manner at his previous school, in Livingston Manor, in Columbia County.

Snyder said that although the program was not without its problems he thought it benefited the students and the teachers.

“What I’ve always looked to do was what was best for the kids,” he said.

Fourth grade teacher Darren Dusharm agreed that looping had its up and downs but said that staying with his students for two years rather than just one was helpful.

Snyder said that the majority of parents gave him positive feedback about the program and that he hoped he gave the staff and school a direction in which to go.

However, Snyder said, he also trusted his teachers to provide for their students.

“I try to let the staff do their job,” he said.

Dusharm said he appreciated that Snyder had continued the school’s tradition of holding an assembly every Monday morning and allowed teachers to ease into curriculum changes.

Snyder, who drove to Athens from his home in Mayfield, in Fulton County, every day to work, said that he would miss his students and working with their parents and the school’s Parent Teacher Organization.

Snyder said he would like to see the next principal work towards making renovations on the school building and fixing its boilers, which have failed a few times already this winter.

Snyder plans on spending time this summer with his wife and friends in Maine. He said that as an administrator, he has had to work over the summer, while his wife, a teacher, had a vacation. Next school year, he will have vacation while his wife works, he said.

Debbie Legas, Snyder’s secretary, said that she would miss her boss, who will be remembered by board members as the principal who brought food spreads to meetings held at the school.
She lauded how accessible Snyder has been during his years as principal.

“Any time a parent had a problem or good news, his door was open,” Lagas said.

She said Snyder tried to make his students enjoy school and even dressed up on Halloween. In recent years, Snyder took on the aliases of Winnie the Pooh, Shrek and the Gingerbread Man, and tried to encourage other administrators to celebrate the holiday in similar style.

“Whatever it took to get the kids through the day, Mr. Snyder made sure it happened,” she said.

“The moment you will remember”
The Daily Mail
Jan. 21, 2009

Students at Cairo-Durham Middle School were treated to a lesson of history-in-the-making Tuesday, when their regular class schedule turned to watching and discussing the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States.

Art teacher Justine Criswell asked her class to sit at their desks and watch a television in the room, rather than work on an art assignment.

“The moment that you watch is the moment you will remember,” she told her students.

She told them that as adults they will remember where they were and what they were doing on this day.

Students in the class said that they were excited to have a chance to watch the inauguration, for many of them the first they have seen.

Sixth-grader Kera Hunt said that she was glad Obama was the new president because he was the first black American to hold the office.

Her classmate Nina Sommer said she liked President Obama.

“He seems really nice,” she said.

The students sat silently as Vice President Joseph Biden took his oath of office.

Down the hall, the school’s cafeteria was filled with students eating and talking. A television in the corner of the room showed the crowds assembled in Washington, D.C.

Lunch monitors encouraged students to wrap up their conversations and focus on the television.

Seventh-grader Ian Metzger already sat quietly, focusing his attention on the screen.

Metzger said that he voted in the school’s mock presidential election held in the school in November. He said that he and his family talk about politics at home and he remembers watching part of the inauguration of former President George W. Bush.

At noon, Metzger, and two dozen other students, filed into room 106B for Kerry Quinn’s seventh grade social studies class.

Quinn’s curriculum, which focuses on the American Revolution, was broadened to tie in what was happening in the nation’s capital.

“That is the head judge of the United States of America,” Quinn narrated to his class as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stepped forward to the podium.

“He swears in the President. Notice how he takes out a Bible,” Quinn added.
“Try to listen to the words,” he told the students.

One student silently applauded at the close of the oath. Many other students were excited by the cannon that was fired during the ceremony.

One student in the class said that although she did not give the new president her undivided attention during his speech, the section about how race does not matter particularly stuck in her mind.

Quinn explained that for the next four years, the song “Hail to the Chief,” which was being played by the U.S. Marine Corps Band at the ceremony, would announce Obama’s arrival at all events.

He explained that the new president would spend the rest of the day at a parade in the nation’s capital as well as a lot of parties, including the Presidential Youth Inaugural Conference ball, which will also be attended by two students from Cairo-Durham High School.

Quinn used the inauguration to contrast Tuesday’s peaceful transfer of power from one leader to another with the violent conflict that gave birth to the nation.

He read to the class an advertisement from a Colonial Boston newspaper that told readers to tar, feather and try to light tax collectors on fire when they came around, to illustrate his point.

He then described to his students the segregated America in which he grew up, but they have not known.

He told them a story of going swimming with a cousin in St. Petersburg, Fla. in the early 1960s. The swimming complex had two entrances, one marked “White” and the other “Colored.”

Quinn said that after he had swam in the white-only pool, which had a slide, he recalled, he entered the other swimming area, which just opened onto a rocky strip of beach and Tampa Bay.

“Is that right? Is that fair,” Quinn asked his students, rhetorically.

Several answered with a resounding, “No.”

Quinn asked his students to look at the pictures of the 44 presidents hanging in the back of the room. Forty-three of them are white, one is black, but they all are men, he said, adding that he hoped that in his lifetime, and when his students are adults, women will be elected to serve in the White House.

But like the new president, who began his job at the close of his oath, the students in Quinn’s class soon re-focused on their job as students, and they resumed preparing for the English Language Arts exam, which they will take later this week.

New members named to committees
The Daily Mail
Jan. 20, 2009

Three community members were appointed by the Athens Village Board at its meeting Wednesday to hear about waterfront projects and zoning appeals.

Two open positions on the Waterfront Advisory Committee, which looks at applications for projects in the waterfront district, were filled by Paul Petramale and Claire Parde.

Mayor Andrea Smallwood said Monday evening that Petramale and Parde would be on the board for the regular, five-year terms on the committee, even though those seats were vacated before the previous terms had lapsed.

The committee reviews plans that fall under the local waterfront revitalization plan as well as the coastal zone management guidelines as set forth by the Department of State. Although the committee is advisory and has no governing power, it does warn trustees when a project or plan is in violation of those rules, Smallwood said.

“When it comes to mega type-one actions, it does protect the village,” Smallwood said.

Michael Siciliano was appointed to the Zoning Board of Appeals at the meeting last week.

Siciliano, who is a loan officer with First Niagara Mortgage, said Monday that he is “seasoned” in zoning rules and issues in Athens. He said he is ready to listen to all sides of an argument and hopes to make good decisions for the village.

Village trustees have also begun to discuss changing the law regarding the ZBA to allow for the appointment of alternates.

Smallwood said at last week’s meeting that the ZBA has recently had trouble reaching a quorum at meetings. An alternate may step in if a board member is unavailable at a site visit or meeting.

She also said that should other ZBA members not want to continue sitting, other positions may open soon.

A number of community members expressed interest in serving on either board.

If the ZBA alternate positions are created or more seats become vacant, more of the willing, experienced and fair-minded volunteers will get a chance to serve, Smallwood said.

Cuomo, E.P.A. reach accord
The Daily Mail
Jan. 17, 2009

New York, N.Y. — The Office of the Attorney General and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have reached a settlement requiring new limits on the amount of mercury and other toxic pollutants that cement plants can discharge, according to a press released by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo Friday.

The new rules will require EPA to propose new standards for mercury and other hazardous pollutant emissions from Portland cement plants across the counrty, including three in this area, by March 31, 2009, and will be subject to public comment. Final standards will be adopted by March 31, 2010, according to the release.

The St. Lawrence plant, in Catskill, the Lafarge plant, in Ravena and Glens Falls plant, in Glens Falls, all produce portland cement, which is used in concrete, mortar and grout.

The St. Lawrence plant has been cited for exceeding EPA emission standards in the past. Last week, Lafarge announced the dissolution of 37 positions in various areas of the company.

“The EPA has made the right choice by going back to the drawing board and committing to adopt new hazardous air pollutant standards for cement plants that comply with the Clean Air Act,” Cuomo said in the release.

In 2007, Cuomo and a coalition of eight other states including Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania sued the EPA for adopting emissions rules that did not adequately control the pollutants. Arguments in the suit said that the EPA violated the act by not baseing emission standards on state-of-the-art pollution control technology.

“We are please that our work with Attorney General Cuomo and the other states has resulted in this important environmental victory,” Jim Pew, an attorney with Earthjustice, one of several environmental groups that joined the coalition said in the release.

Portland Cement Association, an industry group, also signed the settlement.

Firefighters, village discuss $600,000 truck
The Daily Mail
Jan. 19, 2009

Members of the Athens Volunteer Fire Department discussed with the Athens Village Board the options for purchasing a $600,000 truck at their meeting Wednesday.

The new “quint” the department is hoping to buy, with its pumps, water tank, hose, ladder, and 77-foot aerial arm could cost as much as $600,000, Peter Alberti, who chairs the department’s truck committee, told the board. Other models, which lack some features the department desires, could cost less.

The new truck is needed to replace a truck purchased new in 1983, said department chief John Greco. At the time of purchase, the truck was slated for replacement in 1998, according to the department fire truck replacement plan. The old truck has had problems with its breaks, pump, radiator carburetor and requiring $26,000 in repairs between 2001 and 2006, Greco said.

Greco said that the truck is started and checked every week and that it did pass safety inspections last year, but that this year the “old girl” might not be so lucky.

Greco and Alberti said at the meeting that they worry about the safety of their crews who ride the truck.

So far, the truck has only malfunctioned during training drills and minor fires and the department tries not to use it when possible, Greco said. The 25-year-old truck did respond to the recent call to Stewart House in Athens’ historical waterfront district, but was not engaged during the call, he said.

“Anything over 21 should be taken out of service,” Alberti said.

Department members think that the new truck may help them attain a more favorable score when the insurance services office inspects the department.

They suggested that a public hearing could be called to address Athens citizens on the need and that a referendum on the issue might be appropriate.

The board struggled at their meeting with how best to address replacing the truck. They voiced reservations over presenting the truck, and its multithousand dollar price-tag, as a referendum item this spring.

Mayor Andrea Smallwood said she feared that burdening taxpayers with the expense might not be wise in the present economic situation.

She questioned whether a referendum item could be on the ballot in March, due to procedural time constraints on such measures.

Trustee Chris Pfister said that the board would need to agree on a bond issue before a referendum could be called.

Trustee Tom Sopris said it was obvious to him that the old truck needed to be replaced, but worried that should voters reject a referendum item, the village might be left without another option.

The board discussed other avenues from which funding might come but acknowledged that the problem was difficult. Already, the Village has been notified that State funds will not be made available to various projects and programs. The Village is also looking to update its water meter reading system and construct a new Department of Public Works building, both of which which will cost money.

The issue was left unresolved, but the board and Village Attorney Brent Stack will revisit the issue at the next meeting.

Greco advised the board that after the National Fire Protection Association updates their standards in 2010, the price of the truck could rise another $200,000, as safety features such as a data recorder, become standard features.

If the cost of the truck is prohibitive, the department may be in a position to buy a used truck from another department.

Greco warned the board purchasing a used vehicle would come with a certain amount of risk.

“We’re not too keen on purchasing used fire apparatus,” he said.