Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Rising Above It All...

Good Morning-

Yesterday began with an investigation into a fight that erupted at WGMS during a high school level Camillus Youth Basketball Association (CYBA) game. I was disgusted and disappointed to learn that many people were fighting at one time (coaches, players, and parents) and several law enforcement officials had to be used to get the regain order. We had to provide counseling to a few youngsters who sat helpless in the stands and who were afraid to come to school the next day. Again, a complete disappointment.

While not a school function or activity, CYBA involves people from our community, and I am sickened by the behavior that occurred. The Camillus Police are working hard to determine how many people will be arrested and the types of charges that will be filed. Because I am not convinced that this was an isolated incident I have asked the Town of Camillus to suspend all CYBA activity at all levels immediately until I am confident that the season can be completed safely. I intend to meet with representatives from CYBA over break to try and determine if this season can be completed safely and what mandatory changes will need to be made for next year if the program is to continue in our facilities.

On another more positive note it has been nice to get into classrooms, and I want to publicly thank maintenance for completing all of the Promethean Board installs. They can now go to their "punch list" and repair damaged units and fix some of the odd problems that we are having with a few of the boards. We are fortunate to have them on our side!

The rest of the week will be budget building, negotiations, building visits, and hopefully final layoff notifications (instructional staff, non-instructional layoff notifications have been completed). I hope to end the week with hair left to recede.

Finally and so I don't accidentally miss a good news event (when I mentioned swimming and hockey having success in a previous post I was informed that our cheerleaders won Sectionals...my apologies) I am going to create a new e-mail address where people can e-mail their good news, and I can then collect it and get it out to you without omissions. We never want to miss good news!

See you soon and thanks for rising above it all..

Chris