A Message from the Director

SWBOCES Forms First Special Education PTA

American Dreamer

See SEPTA on page 2

20102011 Spring

This publication is dedicated to those who achieve their dreams and those who help others achieve their dreams through programs at the Center for Special Services

Mary Ellen BetzlerDirector, Center for Special Services

The SEPTA Executive Board, l-r: Phyllis Rizzi, vice president; Marcela Stern, treasurer; Alvin Benson, vice president, New York State PTA; Erin Sullivan-Theison, president; Donna Flynn, secretary; and Carol Zalenski, correspondent.

I have some exciting news to share with you: Southern Westchester

BOCES has established its first Spe-cial Education PTA (SEPTA). As you will read in this issue of “Ameri-can Dreamer,” the SEPTA was born out of a strong need for an orga-nized structure in which parents of special needs students can network and share information.

With its Executive Board sworn in on April 8, the SEPTA will be working over the summer to set an agenda for the 2010-11 school year, and preparing membership materials for mailing in September. We want – and need – your participation. This is a grassroots effort. Please help make our SEPTA work for you.

The Center for Special Services staff continues with its com-mitment to students and school districts. Over the past few months, we have been working hard on literacy and secondary

content curriculum, data collection and analysis, and second-ary report cards. In April, 40 teachers and administrators were on site to score 800 New York State Alternate Assessments for special education students in grades three through high school. We also have a great program planned for students who will be with us for the extended school year.

Administrative duties aside, at the end of the day, it’s all about the students. In this issue, you’ll get to read about a few of the BOCES students who are shining brightly, like the Irvington middle schoolers whose projects solved some of science’s great kid-friendly mysteries; the mainstream students who ‘buddied up’ with students with disabilities at Isaac E. Young Middle School; and a student in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program who has something to teach us all about overcoming obstacles with acceptance and grace.

Enjoy the issue and have a relaxing summer!

It’s official: Southern Westchester BOCES has its own Special Education Parent Teacher Association.

With Alvin Benson, vice president of the New York State PTA presiding, members of the SEPTA’s first Executive Board were sworn in on April 8, capping an achievement nearly two years in the making.

Sitting on the Executive Board are Erin Sullivan-Theison, presi-dent; Phyllis Rizzi, vice president; Marcela Stern, treasurer; Carol Zalenski, correspondent, and Donna Flynn, secretary.

Ms. Sullivan-Theison, Ms. Flynn and Ms. Stern all are parents of special education students in Southern Westchester school dis-tricts. Ms. Rizzi is a Project AIIM Supervisor for the SWBOCES Center for Special Services, and Ms. Zalenski is a special educa-tion teacher aide at the SWBOCES Center for Career Services.

Crystallizing Parent NeedsMs. Sullivan-Theison said a BOCES SEPTA would “crystallize the

needs” of parents with similar circumstances who are in need of an organizational structure for networking and information sharing. “There was a vacuum in parent-to-parent communica-

SEPTA from page 1

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tion. There are parents out there who feel isolated, and our hope is to join everyone with the SEPTA.”

The Executive Board, she said, will work over the summer to create a meeting and events calendar, build a Web site and prepare membership drive materials that will be mailed to parents in September. Annual membership dues will be $10 for the first person in a family, $8 for the second. Three dollars and fifty cents of the dues are returned to the New York State PTA, which splits it with the National PTA. The balance goes to the SEPTA. Future fundraising efforts will supplement the SEPTA’s resources.

Topping the list of the Board’s initial goals is the publishing of a SEPTA parent directory that lists student names, class assignments, teachers, calendars and parent contact informa-tion. The directory should help to quell parents’ feelings of isolation, allowing them to network easily, exchange informa-tion and do something as simple as arrange play dates, Ms. Sullivan-Theison said.

SEPTA Secretary Donna Flynn, a Dutchess County resident whose daughter is in the Project AIIM program in Ardsley, praised the SEPTA formation. “My local SEPTA has been an invaluable support, providing workshops and informa-tion that have helped me make the right decisions for my daughter. But a BOCES SEPTA could offer more networking possibilities and be a link to other parents here.”

Laying the GroundworkMs. Sullivan-Theison, Ms. Rizzi and others have been discuss-ing the need for a BOCES SEPTA since the 2008-09 school year. Ms. Rizzi brought the idea of a SEPTA to the SWBOCES Communications Committee, in which she par-ticipates, and with the support of District Superintendent Dr. Robert Monson and Deputy Superintendent Sandra Simp-son, was able to set the wheels in motion.

The group made headway this January when Mr. Benson pre-sented to the SEPTA formation group, which included Mary Ellen Betzler, director of the Center for Special Services, Ms. Rizzi, and Special Services supervisors Michael Schulman and Neil Manis.

A number of parents whose children are in SWBOCES Spe-

cial Services programs also attended, as well as SWBOCES teacher Fran Turro and teacher aide Carol Zalenski. Jina Accardo, regional director of Westchester East

Putnam Region PTA, also was on hand.

The group met for more than two hours, beginning with an hour-long presentation by Mr. Benson, during which he explained the purpose and benefits of a PTA and fielded ques-tions in a Q & A session.

At least 12 parents attended the meeting, and all were optimistic about the possibility that a BOCES SEPTA could be formed.

Votes CastThe next step was to bring supporters together to vote (25 signatures were needed) on the creation of a SEPTA. At a meeting on March 22, an official vote was taken by signature and the bylaws reviewed by the parents and SWBOCES teachers and administrators in attendance.

Debbie Marshke, who works as an aide in the TSP-Fragile program at Irvington Middle School and whose daughter is in the SWBOCES Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program in Rye Brook, said the BOCES SEPTA will “centralize all of the districts and allow parents to come together and share.”

The special education process “is long, and parents have ques-tions,” added parent Yvonne Cote, who wanted to be able to meet the parents of other students in her daughter’s class at Rye Lake Campus. “I think it helps to talk about things and get questions answered.”

SWBOCES special education teacher Christine Milano echoed Ms. Cote’s sentiments. Her two children, now over 18, made it through the special education process, she said, “but it’s a long haul. Through SEPTA, information and con-tacts can be shared. I hear the frustrations of parents. They are asking for help.”

Parent Chris Castaldo, whose son is in the Project AIIM program, said that he simply wanted “to make sure my child has a voice.”

Get InvolvedFor more information, or to get involved, contact Phyllis Rizzi, 914-948-7271, ext. 224.

Related Links

New York State PTA:http://www.nyspta.org

Westchester East Putnam Region PTA:http://www.wepr-pta.org

National PTA:http://www.pta.org

Regional Student Assessments Scored3

In September, more than 200 special education teachers and administrators were trained by Southern Westchester

BOCES specialists in using the New York State Alternate Assessment (NYSAA), a state assessment used to evaluate students with severe disabilities on the New York State core curriculum.

The training paid off in April, as 40 teachers and administra-tors from Southern Westchester’s 33 school districts and vari-ous private agencies worked side-by-side scoring 800 assess-ments for students in grades three through high school.

Five-member teams, each led by an experienced assessment scorer, worked in the gym at the SWBOCES Center for Spe-cial Services at Rye Lake Campus.

Student assessment files, which include work samples, photos of students performing a specific curriculum-based task, and other types of documentation provided by teachers, are meticulously reviewed to ensure that they demonstrate that students with disabilities are participating in an adapted academic-based curriculum.

Team leader Cathy Sales, a chairperson on Rye City’s Com-mittee on Special Education, said that “all students have a right to be assessed. The assessments provide a way for districts to demonstrate to the State that students [with disabilities] are learning and acquiring academic-based skills” in the four ma-jor content areas: English, social studies, math and science.

The scores “affect the school districts’ report card like any other assessment result,” said Jeanne Graham, Rye Lake Cam-pus supervisor and the Regional Score Site Coordinator and Trainer for the Southern Westchester Region.

Students in the SWBOCES Pro-

gram for Students with Multiple Disabilities at Isaac E. Young Middle School in New Ro-chelle are making new friendships and getting the chance to socialize with the mainstream student population through a Best Buddies group that emerged at the school last year.

The nationally-recognized program,

founded in 1989 by Anthony Kennedy-Shriver, was created to enhance the lives of people with intellectual disabilities. The group has more than 1,400 chapters in schools all across the country, and is also active worldwide.

Twelve sixth-grade students, under the direction of IEY social studies teacher Martin White and BOCES adaptive physical education teacher Lois Dym-Schwedelson, have been helping

BOCES Students Buddy Up with New Rochelle Kidsthe disabled youngsters with various activities and partici-pating with them in the school gym during their Adapted Physical Education class. BOCES instructors Errol Rivera and Sara Salvatore are also involved in the initiative and help coordinate the various volunteer activities that take place several times a week.

IEY is one of several public schools throughout Westchester providing space for the BOCES program, which addresses the communication, sensory-motor and social skills of children with multiple disabilities.

During a recent mid-year celebratory event, New Rochelle mainstream students had the opportunity to play musical squares with the children. Later, Ms. Dym-Schwedelson handed out special thank you notes to them, which were made by the BOCES students, their teachers and aides, in addition to “Awesome Volunteer” certificates in recognition of their volunteerism.

Eleven-year-old Nolan Palmer Quinn, who joined the group last September, was delighted to be involved. “It makes me feel good to be able to help, plus I like meeting new people and getting the chance to work with the other kids in my grade who also volunteered to help out,” he said.

Students play a game of musical squares during a Best Buddies session at Isaac E. Young Middle School in New Rochelle.

Scorers confer with each other over student assessments.

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BOCES Students with Disabilities Thriving in Workplace Internships

Beth Heyd, coordinator of the Assistive Technology Pro-gram at the Westchester Institute for Human Develop-

ment, is in charge of a department that loans more than 1,200 pieces of assistive technology equipment — seating and mobil-ity units, adaptive toys and bicycles, strollers and other items — to therapists working with disabled children.

The loans typically last eight weeks, giving therapists time to try out equipment with a child before going through the lengthy process of ordering a permanent device, which can cost thou-sands of dollars. “And when the device does come in, you hope it’s the right piece,” said Ms. Heyd. “What we’re trying to do is bridge a gap.”

Before returned equipment can be loaned out again, it has to be inspected and sanitized, a big job Ms. Heyd needed help with.

Enter Diane Greble, a transition specialist with the Southern Westchester BOCES Office of Transition, which provides support services for students with disabilities. One of those services is securing internships for SWBOCES students at local businesses. The partnership payoff is worth its weight in gold: students gain valuable work experience and businesses benefit from the help of a proven, reliable, yet under-utilized segment of the population — individuals with disabilities.

Michael Portnoy: Technical AssistantIn the fall, Ms. Greble introduced Ms. Heyd to Mi-chael Portnoy, an Office Skills student at the SWBOCES Center for

Career Services in Valhalla, whose interest in technology made him a good fit for Ms. Heyd’s department.

Michael works with Ms. Heyd on Mondays from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. inspecting, repairing and sanitizing the returned equip-ment. “His work,” she said, “has to be meticulous.”

Michael estimates that he works on five to eight pieces of equip-ment, sometimes more, during the hours he works and before he catches a bus back to the Career Services campus for his afternoon Office Skills classes. The work, he said, is gratifying

because “at the end of the day, when I leave, I know that the equipment is helping kids to learn at a faster pace.”

Ms. Heyd has trained Michael and coached him on commu-nicating and interacting with others, time management, and taking responsibility on the job. Michael’s job does not involve typical office work, but Ms. Heyd said that these other, more subtle job-related skills are all important to his success. “This is a growing, learning experience for him.”

Organization with a Mission Ms. Greble recently arranged internships for two other SWBOCES students with disabilities at WIHD, an organiza-tion whose core mission is focused on supporting people with disabilities.

Located in Cedarwood Hall on the Westchester Medical Center Campus, WIHD is one of 63 University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities in the United States that were established under the Kennedy Administration to promote best practices in training professionals who work with individuals with disabilities.

“Everything we do is seen through that lens,” said John Maltby, director of WIHD’s LINKS Network, which provides re-sources, training and information to support individuals with disabilities and their families.

Many staff members across the organization have either a child or a relative with a disability, making everyone particularly sensitive to those with special health needs and keenly aware of the positive effect even small successes can have.

Mr. Maltby said his organization views the transition period from school to working life “as being absolutely critical in estab-lishing independence and self-determination. If we don’t make effective transition, we’re committing them [disabled students] to failure.”

Providing students with real-life work experience, he said, “fits with our understanding of best practices in transition. Hope-fully, we’ll give these students some valuable tools and experi-ence in the workplace.”

Wendy Arzuega: Web AssistantSenior Wendy Arzuega’s first love is horses. She has taken riding lessons and spent time on ranches in the Adirondacks riding and working with them. “I like to sneak into the pasture and be with the horses by myself,” she said.

SWBOCES student Michael Portnoy inspects a piece of assistive technology equipment.

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Teacher Suzanne Mulvaney’s Experiential Learning class helps Agique Anderson with his mailing projects.

Her second love is art, which she studies at the SWBOCES Center for Career Services. She has been able to use many of the skills she has learned in her Integrated Art class every Wednesday and Friday between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m., when she’s busy working on the WIHD Web site, assisting designer and webmaster Andrew Ferreira.

Wendy’s job is to scan the site for non-working links, search online for appropriate images, and build an image library on a shared drive.

The Web site was recently moved onto a new server system, and “there have been a few issues,” Mr. Ferreira said. “Wendy’s been helping to catch everything. She has definitely helped us out since she started working with us in November.”

Agique Anderson: Office AssistantAgique Anderson, an Office Skills student at the Center for Career Services, has two internships arranged by Ms. Greble. On Thursday afternoons, he works at the SWBOCES Center for Instructional Services in Elmsford as an office assistant for

the BOCES Home-less Student Program. On Mondays from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., he’s assistant to office manager Debra Sullivan in WIHD’s Family Con-nections department.

Family Connections specializes in early child-hood intervention for children from birth to

age 3 who are suspected of having developmental delays. The program provides various services, including speech, occupa-tional and physical therapy.

With nearly 200 referrals a month, the department is continual-ly in need of a supply of informational welcome packets to mail to parents. Agique’s job is to maintain an English and Spanish language version of the packet, which involves photocopying and collating the packet contents.

Agique gets help with this large task from another source — the SWBOCES students in teacher Suzanne Mulvaney’s Expe-riential Learning (EXL) class, held in St. Matthew’s Church in White Plains. Ms. Mulvaney’s students have mild to moderate disabilities and are learning basic life and job skills in the class-room in addition to functional academics.

Coming Full CircleOn Monday after-noons, Ms. Greble drives over to Ms. Mulvaney’s classroom with a box filled with the packet contents Agigue has prepared for her students to stuff into folders. Ms. Mulvaney breaks the job down into separate tasks and, sitting around a big table, the students work together on the project for 45 minutes to an hour each day, which teaches them about time management. Some of the more able students act as peer job coaches, helping students who are a little slower.

“This is the kind of thing my students will work on when they leave school — assembling and sorting,” Ms. Mulvaney said. “This type of mailing project simulates what they would be do-ing in an adult program.”

Despite the tough economy, some of Ms. Mulvaney’s stu-dents have secured paying jobs at local businesses, including Westchester Community College, Loehmann’s department store and Target, doing such tasks as stocking, cleaning, remov-ing plastic from new shipments of clothing and sorting the items by size.

The Family Connections mailing project is finished on Friday, when Ms. Greble’s colleague, transition specialist Raymond Diaz, picks up the folders and returns them to Ms. Sullivan, completing an important cycle of success for Agique and the other students involved.

“You want them to believe they can do it, that they can achieve,” said Ms. Sullivan, “and here they are doing it, and they feel so good about themselves.”

Student Wendy Arzuega, right, assists webmaster Andrew Ferreira with the WIHD site.

Agique Anderson has two internships through the SWBOCES Office of Transition.

6

Undefeated by Health Challenges, BOCES Deaf Student is Just Your Average Teenage Girl

Esther Choi

It is 10:02 a.m. and junior Esther Choi is seated at her desk in her pre-calculus class at Rye Brook’s Blind Brook High

School.

She’s wearing jeans, a gray and red plaid hooded pullover, and white and pink Reeboks. A pair of black framed glasses rests on the bridge of her petite nose. Her dark hair is held back in a loose ponytail by a jeweled, heart-shaped clip. Homework folders decorated with neon pink and yellow hearts poke out of the top of the backpack slumped at her feet.

Out of sight beneath the desk, Esther sneaks a last peek at the page where she has left off reading Mark Twain’s “The Adven-tures of Huckleberry Finn,” then hastily stashes the paperback in her bag when teacher Elise Ryan asks the class for the solution to a problem from the previous night’s homework assignment.

To the casual observer, Esther looks like any other teenager at the start of class. But she comes with a few differences.

Esther is deaf. She also has cerebral palsy and scoliosis. And from July 2009 to February 2010, she was in a wheelchair following two major surgeries to remove an infection from her right leg and to correct a walking imbalance problem. She is also Korean and English is her second language. American Sign Language, for all intents and purposes, is her first.

“In Korea, I lived in a hearing world. I had no interpreters, nothing,” says the teen, who immi-grated to New York at age 11 with her parents, both of whom are doctors, and older brother in search of better medical care and education opportunities for the deaf. Although Esther had attended a

pre-school for the deaf, education for the deaf in Korea was extremely limited. When she arrived in the United States, she couldn’t sign and knew little English.

Born Shin Hae Choi, she chose Esther for her American name a year after arriving in New York because she liked the story of Esther in the Bible, and because her mother, Hyonsook, had already taken the name Hannah, another of Esther’s favorites. “We wanted to make our names simple for our American friends,” Esther explains.

After two years’ living in a Korean community in Queens, the family moved to Scarsdale so Esther could attend the Southern Westchester BOCES Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program at Ridge Street Elementary School in Rye Brook, where she was surrounded by support — and other deaf and hard of hearing students — for the first time.

An Answered PrayerFor Esther’s parents, being directed to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program by a special education teacher in the Ed-gemont school district, where Esther first attended school in Westchester, was the answer to a prayer. “America, Edgemont and BOCES gave Esther an equal chance—the same chance as other students without limitations,” Esther’s father, Nam-jong, says in an interview at the family’s residence.

The Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program, which currently has 25 enrolled students (eight of whom are from other coun-tries) in Ridge Street Elementary and Blind Brook Middle and High School, provides the services of skilled teachers of the deaf, sign language interpreters, teaching assistants, class note-takers, audiologists, social workers and a psychologist. Equally important for the students is the comradeship, sense of belonging and confidence gained by having classmates who also are deaf.

“Coming to America certainly changed my life,” Esther, now 18, says. “My education, social life, ability to communicate and general knowledge of the world have improved.”

School LifeBack in math class, Esther glances down at her homework

On being deaf:“In my opinion, being deaf is fun. When hearing people are bothered by noise, I’m not. I can sign to a person through a glass window if I want to and have a conversation.”

Esther Choi

Undefeated by Health Challenges, BOCES Deaf Student is Just Your Average Teenage Girl7

handout, raises a hand, then signs her answer to her interpret-er, Nancy Kaplan, who is sitting in a nearby desk facing Esther. Ms. Kaplan responds out loud to Ms. Ryan, who makes a minor correction to Esther’s solution. Esther signs an apology, takes another look at the problem, and signs back the right answer to Ms. Kaplan, who again voices Esther’s response. “Good job,” Ms. Ryan tells Esther.

All of Esther’s mainstream classes at Blind Brook High, tough enough for a healthy student, are signed for her by three tireless South-ern Westchester

BOCES sign language interpreters. They switch off with each other throughout Esther’s long day, which begins at 7:50 a.m. and ends at 2:40 p.m. Esther also has a physical educa-tion class, where exercises are adapted for her. During weekly Learning Center periods, Esther and her interpreters spend time alone reviewing class material and often just talking about life.

“I’ve been with Esther since the sixth grade and have watched her grow,” interpreter Debbie Dvorak, who signs Esther’s physics class, says fondly. “She’s definitely determined and wants so desperately to be accepted and to excel, and she’s doing that. It’s exciting as a human being and as an educator to watch her changing. It’s a combination of priceless and precious.”

Courage and StrengthOne of Esther’s great strengths, her parents and teachers com-ment, is her determination to persevere through both physi-cal and academic challenges with a positive attitude. “She has an awareness that the additional struggles she has had to endure have made her a stronger person and better able to approach future challenges,” says teacher Melinda Pittis. “She is a diligent worker who knows our program has a lot to offer, and takes advantage of the specialized staff and supports avail-able to her.”

Esther’s struggles, however much she has cheerfully handled them, have been a true test of her personal mettle and strength of spirit. When times have been especially tough,

says her mother, “Esther prays, writes in her journal and talks with me. We believe God has a plan for her.”

During her time in the wheelchair, Esther says she felt isolat-ed, especially from her peers in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program, some of whom have been her friends since elemen-

tary school. She needed an assistant to get her on and off her school bus and to push her to classes. The pain was unbearable at times. She endured two cast changes and wearing a metal halo (similar to a brace) on the affected leg over the eight months in the wheelchair.

Through it all, she made it to school every day. “What I appreciate about Esther is that even though she still has her hard days, you can always find her looking for ways to enjoy life and people,” Ms. Pittis says.

Although her gait is not perfect, Esther walks better now than ever and moves with assurance down school hallways with her friends, head held high, happy to be free of the wheelchair and proud to walk on her own.

The post-surgery experience in the wheelchair, she says, matured her. “At first I was angry. I felt stressed about my limi-tations. I learned a lot about myself and have come to accept myself. But the wheelchair was like the electric chair for me. I felt trapped in it. I missed so much socialization time. Now I’m catching up!” she beams.

A Social ButterflySocializing is a central part of teen life. And Esther, says in-terpreter Sharon Chasan, is a “social butterfly. She thrives on social interaction with people. She’s a real people person.”

A lifetime of difficult experiences has deepened Esther’s con-nection with others and taught her “that people are the same no matter what they’ve been through. We really have so many similarities,” she says.

Life has certainly changed in many positive ways for Esther, and she’s determined to have as much fun as possible. In

Esther’s FavoritesTV Show: “Lost,” “The Secret Life of the American Teenager”Actor: Robert Pattinson, Will SmithBook: “Harry Potter” series, “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy Movie: “Twilight,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Up”Food: Ice cream, spaghettiSubject: MathHobby/Pastime: Reading, shopping, traveling, socializingPersonal Hero: God

See Esther on page 9

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BOCES Students Experiment with ScienceSome of science’s greatest kid-oriented mysteries—like

how yogurt is made and what happens when you com-press sand in a box—were solved by SWBOCES students at Irvington Middle School, who teamed up on projects for their Science Enrichment Fair.

This was the second in a series of enrichment fairs the youngsters—all students in the SWBOCES Gifted Special Education and Therapeutic Support-Fragile programs—have hosted for parents, teachers and administrators. The first, held in December, focused on literacy.

The students chose, or were assigned by teachers Maura Cor-nish and Nancy Fraher, a project from the life, earth and phys-ical sciences. “Enrichment projects are an expansion of what they’re doing in the curriculum,” said Ms. Fraher. “They’re able to delve deeper into an area of interest.”

Miraculous PlantsFrom the back of Ms. Fraher’s classroom, the sound of happy piano music filled the air. It was seventh-grader Jeremy Eichler, who was taking a break from his science project to entertain his classmates and visitors with some well-played, familiar songs.

Jeremy had partnered with sixth-grader Kirby Bosch and eighth-grader Jordan Rivers on a project to prove whether Miracle-Gro, a soluble plant food, has any effect on plant growth, in this case the flowering cyclamen.

Jordan and Kirby tended four different cyclamen plants over a period of several weeks, watering two with plain water and two with Miracle-Gro added to the water. Both sets of plants

flourished, but the proof was in the pudding, and that’s where Jeremy came in.

Jeremy took leaf samples from each of the plants and exam-ined their cells under a microscope. The cells from the plants that received the plain water appeared green and healthy, but the cells of the plants watered with Miracle-Gro were far more vibrant.

“I wanted to see more of the things on the inside that you don’t see on the outside,” Jeremy explained of his role in the project. “The cells of the plants that got the plain water are less enriched. Miracle-Gro kind of has the same effect on plants that vitamins have on people.”

How to Make Yummy YogurtSeventh-graders Matthew Busel and Mike Marsh teamed up to discover how yogurt is made. The boys boiled milk, allowed it to cool, added some yogurt culture and then set the mixture on a heat pad for seven hours, after which they refrigerated the “yogurt” in glass jars.

The jury was still out on the results, but Matthew and Mike were not worried in the least about the reviews — the boys have no plans to compete with Dannon and Yo-Plait. “We just wanted to see what would happen,” Mike said. “I think I learned something — that anything is possible.”

The Effects of Force Seventh-graders Kelly Mellon and Sean Murphy set out to see what happens to the Earth’s crust when tectonic plates collide in a project on lateral compression. They used a specially-made box filled with layered tan and blue sand, and then com-pressed the sand by forcing it back bit by bit with a piece of wood over a couple of weeks.

Seventh-grader Jeremy Eichler studied the effects of plant food on the flowering cyclamen.

Partners Mike Marsh and Matthew Busel learned how to make yogurt from scratch.

Esther from page 7

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March, she was a member on the team participating in the Academic Bowl, a popular out-of-town weekend quiz tournament held exclusively for deaf and hard of hearing high school students across the country. She will travel with the junior class to Niagara Falls and Toronto in May, and she plans to dance at the senior prom next year—wearing a gown, of course—and in the company of all of her class-mates, including best friend and fellow deaf student Ray-mond Ramirez, whom she has known since the fifth grade.

“We’re like husband and wife,” Ray jokes about their friend-ship in the hallway at the end of one school day.

Esther breaks into giggles. “We can read each other’s mind,” she says. “We often have a moment of ESP with each other. And we always get the same grades on tests,” she adds, teasing that she scored higher than he did on their last physics quiz.

Like other teenage girls around the world, Esther has crush-es on young celebrities and was eagerly looking forward to seeing the movie “Remember Me” starring “Twilight” hunk Robert Pattinson (“I love him,” she gushed endearingly) when the captioned version of the movie is released.

In the meantime, Esther is busy with after-school SAT prep courses several times a week (she hopes to attend Roch-ester Institute of Technology’s National Institute for the Deaf, a college exclusively for the deaf and hard of hearing),

physical therapy sessions, and two hours of homework each night. Her parents push her to stretch, and when it gets too tough, Esther tells them “enough. I need to rest,” she says. That’s when she watches TV or jumps on the computer to e-mail friends.

“I realize that they are just trying to help me and that they love me a lot,” she says of her parents. “I do like to work hard. I want to become a professional. I never let my dis-abilities stop me because I have goals for my life and I want to have a good time. There are a lot of possibilities for me.”

Likewise for others with similar circumstances, Esther says encouragingly. “Don’t ever give up on yourself.”

At home, Esther, center, with her parents Hyonsook (Hannah) and Namjong Choi.

As the sand compressed, it folded, depicting how the earth’s crust folds when a tremendous force is applied. Kelly and Sean noticed that the blue sand formed patterns in the folds and learned that the Earth is driven by forces deep in its core.

In other experiments, eighth-graders Brian Levy and Abby Kessin learned to measure humidity in the air with a psy-chometer, while classmates Tyler Brown and Steven Ramos performed iodine stain tests to determine the starch levels in various fruits in their project aptly titled “One Bad Apple Spoils the Whole Bunch.”

Jordan Rivers, left, and Kirby Bosch, right, teamed up with Jeremy Eichler in a study on plant growth.

Tyler Brown and Steve Ramos (not pictured) measured the starch levels in fruit.

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When Crystyn

Wright asked Southern Westchester BOCES high school students attending her African-Amer-ican history month presenta-tion at Rye Lake Campus to name some important African-Amer-icans, she got the answers she expected: Mar-tin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson.

Yes, Ms. Wright agreed, these people were indeed significant in the journey of African-Americans throughout history. She herself had repeated those same names as a school age child.

“And then,” she said, “there are those who are making history right now. So what are we going to do? We’re the ones who are supposed to be making history right now.”

Ms. Wright is trying to make history herself as a journalist and the publisher of her own online film magazine, “NeoBlack Cinema,” which recently went live. The site highlights films and the people, production and politics involved in the film-making process through an African-American perspective.

A Bronx native, Ms. Wright attended Florida A&M Univer-sity, where she earned a degree in journalism, and is now an MBA student in Media Management at Metropolitan College of New York.

She currently works in the editorial department of Mt. Vernon, N.Y.-based “American Legacy” magazine, an African-American history and culture magazine where, she said, her eyes were opened to “so many different concepts of what black history means.”

Have a Goal, Make HistoryShe asked the students how they envisioned their lives

African-American History Month: How Will You Make History?10 years from now, what they wanted to be, and how they planned to get there. Someone said a novelist, another student wanted to be a veterinarian. There were a couple of technology workers and a future lawyer in the group.

“That looks very promising,” she said, “because the fact that you have a goal is your first step in making history.”

Ms. Wright told the students about her career in journalism and her experience as a New York City teacher, about her pas-sion for dance and theater, and how she took her first fledg-ling steps into the world of entrepreneurship with “NeoBlack Cinema.”

African-Americans, she said, struggle with how they are por-trayed in the media, especially in film, and Ms. Wright wanted her magazine to “show people like myself in positive, diverse images” and to “give filmmakers of color a platform.”

How to Start a BusinessMs. Wright’s first step in starting her business was to go to a Barnes & Noble bookstore to study the available film maga-zines. She saw that there were many focused on filmmaking technology, equipment and celebrities. But there were none exclusively for and about African-American filmmakers and industry workers.

Because “NeoBlack Cinema” is an online publication, she is able to include video clips of her interviews with filmmakers and short films of three to five minutes that visitors can watch. There is also an Edutainment section for young people, where they can read about young stars of color, and a classified sec-tion where Ms. Wright can sell T-shirts and caps for a profit.

She pointed out the benefits of her online business: the abil-ity to update text and videos and add merchandise in real time, set fees for promoting artists, and conduct transactions for customer purchases.

Then she gave the students a chance to come up with their own business, including a name, the type of products they would sell and a marketing plan. “Think about your custom-ers,” she coached.

The students went to work. There were hypothetical restau-rants, an independent bookstore focused on sales of inter-national books, a 24-hour auto body shop, and Dr. Green Thumb, a store selling exotic plants and gardening equipment.

Presenter Crystyn Wright asked BOCES stu-dents what they're doing to make history.

See History on page 12

11

Campus Notes

From left: Michael Orth, Judith Sage and Terry Richardson.

Blind Brook Students Participate in 2010 National MegaDEAF ConferenceBlind Brook Middle and High School students in theBOCES Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program participated in the national MegaDEAF Conference with more than 50 schools for the deaf in February. The students shared infor-mation on different programs and demonstrated distance learning, which already is in place in some schools. Morning presentations featured elementary schools from Oregon, Kentucky and Florida, while the afternoon was devoted to high school students from other states. Video feeds between

The Academic Bowl team, back row, l-r: Victor Luis and Raymond Ramirez. Front row, from left: Coach Lynne Martirano, Shin Hae (Es-ther) Choi, Amanda Lease, Ashley Terwilleger and coach Melinda Pittis.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students Compete in Regional Academic BowlFor the second year in a row, students in the SWBOCES Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program at Blind Brook Middle/High School went toe-to-toe with competing teams in Gallaudet University’s Northeast Regional Academic Bowl the weekend of March 26.

The popular quiz tournament, held exclusively for deaf and hard of hearing students each spring, pits up to 16 teams from across the Northeast who answer questions drawn from the categories of History and Government, Language and Lit-erature, Science and Technology, Geography, Mathematics, the Arts, Deaf Studies, Current Events and Popular Culture, Leisure and Sports.

The competition was hosted by the READS Collaborative Pro-gram for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children and took place in Old Rochester Regional High School in Mattapoisett, Mass. First-, second-, and third-place teams in regional contests go on to compete at the national level against winners from the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Southeast and Western regions at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., in late April.

The team from Blind Brook included juniors Shin Hae (Es-ther) Choi, Raymond Ramirez and Ashley Terwilleger; and Amanda Lease and Victor Luis, both seniors.

Blind Brook finished in a similar position to last year, with an overall record of three wins and four losses, putting the team in the middle of the scoring. And in a vote by students and coaches, Raymond Ramirez was chosen as one of two stu-dents to receive the outstanding player award, said teacher and

coach Melinda Pittis, who worked several times a week over five months with SWBOCES sign language interpreter Lynne Martirano preparing the students for the competition.

“We were happy with the whole experience,” Ms. Pittis said. “This competition allows them to be around other deaf and hard of hearing students just like them, as well as adult deaf role models. Participating in this event motivates our students to work harder in school, improve test-taking strategies, and to see themselves in a new, positive social way that can be life-changing. They compete against the best and the brightest deaf and hard of hearing kids from the area and expectations are high.”

Social Workers’ Forum Focuses on Role of Education in Care SystemSocial workers from SWBOCES and Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES presented a professional development workshop on March 18, “How Can Education Support and Be-come a Part of the System of Care?” Keynote speaker Michael Orth, assistant deputy commissioner for Westchester Depart-ment of Community Mental Health, opened the program, which included a panel discussion with Judith Sage, supervisor, Westchester Department of Probation, and Terry Richardson, manager, Westchester Office of Child Protective Services.

See Campus Notes on page 12

Robert Monson, Ph.D., District Superintendent

Sandra A. Simpson., Deputy District Superintendent

G. Raymond Healey, Ph.D., Assistant Superintendent for Special Education

Nancy A. Jorgensen, Ed.D., Assistant Superintendent, Human Resources

Stephen J. Tibbetts, Assistant Superinten-dent, Business & Administrative Services

Mary Ellen Betzler, Director, Center for Special Services

Board of Education Georgia Riedel, President Joseph Wooley, Vice President John DeSantis Nancy Fisher Richard Glickstein Beverly A. Levine James Miller

Newsletter Editor: Suzanne Davis

The Southern Westchester Board of Coop-erative Educational Services, its officers and employees, shall not discriminate against any student, employee or applicant on the basis of race, color, national origin, creed, religion, marital status, gender, age, handi-capping condition or sexual orientation. This policy of nondiscrimination includes access by students to educational programs, counseling services for students, course of-ferings and student activities, recruitment, appointment and promotion of employees, and employment pay and benefits, and it is required by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended and then promulgated thereunder, not to discriminate in such a manner.

SWBOCES IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

17 Berkley Drive, Rye Brook, NY 10573, 914-937-3820

Title IX Coordinator, Michael R. Gargiulo, Director of Human Resources

Section 504 Coordinator, Thomas DiBuono, Director Of Facilities And Operations

12

History from page 10

“I hope you continue your efforts to be entrepreneurs, business people and tech-nology experts, because chances are, I’ll need you at some point,” Ms. Wright said at the end of the exercise.

Let’s Celebrate EveryoneThe event wrapped up with the students playing a black history game, where students guess the name of famous African-Americans based on information about their background and accomplishments.

Ms. Wright left the students with an important message: “The same way we celebrate black people in America,” she said, “we should also celebrate Hispanics, Asians and other cultures. Race doesn’t have to be erased.”

Visit Us on the Web!

The Southern Westchester BOCESWeb site is:

www.swboces.orgVisit for important updates, links to other education sites, and workshop and

training information.

The mission of Southern Westchester BOCES is to collab-

orate with school districts and communities to meet their edu-

cational challenges by providing regional leadership and cost-

effective, high-quality services.

New equipment connected BOCES deaf students with their peers in schools across the country during the MegaDEAF Conference in February.

Campus Notes from page 11schools made it possible to communi-cate informally.

The videoconference was organized by the Kentucky School for the Deaf, with equipment services provided by Sarah Martabano, distance education and regional coordinator, from the SWBOCES Lower Hudson Regional Information Center, and assistance from Colin Byrne, director of technol-ogy for the Blind Brook school dis-trict. The videoconference equipment is now permanent at Blind Brook, allowing for future conferences with 55 other U.S. schools with similar equipment.