You Can Compete in Other Things Besides Sports and Marching Band

Academic Competitions: We always talk about a great sport competition that we saw or how well Marching Band did in a competition. There are, however, certain times during the year when there are some academic competitions that are just as inspirational and competitive.

Mr. Duda took the Academic Decathlon team to Westhill High School this past weekend so that they could compete against other top teams in the county. If you have never attended an "Aca-Deca" competition, there are many teams. Each team receives a question and has a period of time to answer it. Points are awarded...you get the picture. These are not easy questions, and Google is not an option. At the end of the competition, the team with the highest number of points advances.

West Genesee placed second to a very worthy opponent, Cazenovia. I am very proud of them. Our team will now be headed to the state competition on March 15-16 at Onondaga Community College. We are  hopeful they will advance from there to the national competition on April 25-27 in Minneapolis, MN. Congratulations!

On January 19, some of our best spellers took the written test to advance to the next level of the Spelling Bee. The oral bee will be held on February 2 at 2:00 p.m. and will be televised live on WCNY. Best of luck to the following students from our District who will be representing us:

• Russell Graziano, West Genesee Middle School, 8th Grade
• Hannah Kessel, Camillus Middle School, 7th Grade
• Nicholas Cantello, West Genesee Middle School, 8th Grade
• Jill Ward, Camillus Middle School, 8th Grade
• Brennan Costello, West Genesee Middle School, 8th Grade

Music is in the Air: We are closing in on our high school musical, Jekyll and Hyde. This is a contemporary production that the students are really excited about. The stage design is unbelievable. It includes tall English style wooden towers that feel like they reach right out into the audience.

The performances are February 7-9, and I am looking forward to watching it from my balcony seat on that Friday night. If you have some time and want to see a quality, contemporary production, you will not be disappointed.

Seats for all three shows are reserved and are $10 each. You can purchase presale tickets online by going to www.westgenesee.org then go to the Fine Arts section for the link or to our ticketing site at www.etix.com. You can also call the Ticket Call Center at 1-800-514-3849, extension 4. Tickets can be purchased at the door.

Sports Sectionals: It is about another ten days before sports teams head into sectional competition, and I feel that some of our teams have deceptively low records. I am looking forward to them surprising some people later next month.  I have included a picture of our girls hockey team (we are a part of the Skaneateles hockey team along with Auburn and Baldwinsville). They begin their sectional competition this Wednesday in Skaneateles. Good luck girls!

Developing Staff is Important: Today, Monday, is a staff development day. What are we developing? We are picking apart the common core standards, fine tuning our performance review system and goals, conducting a table top exercise related to school safety, updating our building and District level safety plans to reflect recent developments, and flipping the switch to make all of the features in Schooltool available to others. A pretty packed day!

Have a wonderful week basking in the "warmth" that is temporarily coming our way.

Chris