Happening This Saturday
For thirteen years, the enormously successful Hudson Children's Book Festival brought people to Hudson and positive recognition and accolades to the Hudson City School District. Last July, the HCSD Board of Education summoned the organizers of the festival to a board meeting and publicly interrogated them. Then BOE member Selha Graham demanded to know where the festival's headquarters were and what the business structure was. She objected to the appearance of 215 Harry Howard Avenue, the address of HCSD administrative offices, on the festival website, the use of school colors in festival graphics, and the implication the HCSD sponsored the festival. Gossips reported all this when it happened: "A Disturbing Development."
As a consequence of HCSD's demonstrated hostility toward the event, this year's Hudson Children's Book Festival is not being held in either of HCSD's buildings but rather at Columbia-Greene Community College, and it's happening tomorrow, Saturday, May 3, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. Everything you need to know about this year's festival can be found here. Free transportation to the festival site, which is not is Hudson but in Greenport, will be provided starting at 9:30 a.m. For the bus schedule and route, click here.
Of all the stupid acts taken by this BOE, this was the most demented. --peter meyer
ReplyDeleteImagine if instead of spending $8m on a back up power generator and acoustic panels in the school gym.... they funded this book fair and made it an even bigger national deal.
ReplyDeleteChild literacy is arguably the most aligned activity a school board can advance.
Can someone from the HCSD board please explain or comment here why the long-running book fair was jettisoned and our tax dollars are now going to other things?
Does anyone know these folks or have an email?
There must be a good reason.
- Willette Jones, President (Term: July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2025)
- Mark DePace, Vice President (Term: July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2025)
- Kjirsten Gustavson (Term ends June 30, 2026)
- Amanda Grubler (Term: July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2027)
- Calvin Lewis (Term ends June 30, 2026)
- Matthew Mackerer (Term: July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2027)
I don't think tax dollars ever went to funding the Hudson Children's Book Festival. I am quite sure the festival has always been funded by private donations and sponsorships. Observing that Board of Education meeting last July, I got the impression that the Board was mostly concerned about having the HCSD name associated with something they did not control and also about teachers involved in organizing and staging the festival using what they considered "school time" to work on the festival.
DeleteCarole is right, which is why driving the Book Festival out of HCSD was among the stupidest of this board's -- two of whose current members were NOT involved in this power tantrum -- many stupid moves. --peter meyer
DeleteGotcha. That almost makes it worse.
DeleteSo they scuttle any affiliation with a successful associated entity...
And it shows that where HCSD teachers are involved in a volunteer capacity but not the HCSD Board & Administrators (overpaid middle management) things flourish...
This is like an A/B experiment for how to fix the local school system:
Keep the passionate teachers who go above and beyond, terminate the deadwood "leadership" with high six figure salaries, and... how do the locals say... _center_ the children and learning.
🚌 the fact that the HUDSON Children's Book Festival is not held within the Hudson city limits says so much.
Kids, definitionally, can't drive... so instead of having the event within walking distance... I don't know.... in a building where local kids go every week ... like the school buildings... (total budget approaching ~$60m) or the City of Hudson Youth Center (total budget approaching ~$1m with Peter Frank's 501c3) right in the middle of town... there is now a massive bus logistics operation to shuttle families back and forth.
🤔 If only the city paid someone to solve these coordination problems... if only the the city then paid an "aide" to help this person... just imagine!
Meanwhile, even Europe has more ambition:
📚 The Bologna Children's Book Fair (BCBF) is massive, 100 countries, 1000 exhibitors, careers launched... massive economic injection.
America does not have an equivalent. It is the only publishing vertical that we don't really dominate (even the London and Frankfurt Book Fairs are basically American publisher dominated). Children's books = big business, lots of celebrities, and books in the home remains a key driver of higher literacy/numeracy.
Why can't Hudson's host the largest and most successful week-long Children's Book Festival in America and use it to generate local economic impact for the entire city during quiet months… all event proceeds go directly to local pre-K / youth education and merit scholarships (or just pay for the tests) for local high-schoolers to go to universities and college preparatory programs?
Woodstock has their film festival, Rhinebeck has arguably one of the biggest agriculture festival in the north east, Punxsutawney has Groundhog Day, Roswell, has the UFO Festival, Aspen has IDEAS, the Telluride Indie Film Festival, Edinburgh has Fringe, Austin has SXSW, Camden has PopTech, Park City has Sundance etc.
We have the Basilica SoundScape… which is awesome. But intimate, experimental, and selective by design… and as far as I can tell, without the assistance of the City of Hudson.
Hudson's proximity to NYC and Boston, but the fact that it is a short journey that removes you from the the city bubbles... remains underutilized. Except by Hudson's wedding venues...
I’ve attended 2 BoE meetings. Both were shit shows of angry incompetence. For the most part, members weren’t clear on what metrics they should be paying attention to leading to their asking few salient and many either moot or irrelevant questions. This intense inability and inexperience is what leads to interminable meetings where abjectly stupid, indeed fucking stupid, decisions are made that undermine both the district’s lawful mission (providing a basic education) and its pedagogical outcomes.
DeleteI am here to report that this year's Hudson Children's Book Festival defeated the forces of ignorance! The hugely successful book event for the last 12 years, survived an attempt by HCSD and it's mostly-black BOE membership, to kill it. (Why, I don't know). This festival of hope and intelligence for the last 12 years moved, rather remarkably, to the Columbia Greene Community College (CGCC), five miles to the south and I saw hundreds of authors, parents, and children enjoying the fruits of books! My sincere congratulations to you local supporters, dozens of HCSD volunteers, and leaders of the festival for pulling it off.... I was very worried at first, determined to ride the shuttle "School Bus" from 3rd and Warren to CGCC, which made stops on Front Street, the high school, the high rise, to collect, in theory, parents and children with no cars, and being the only rider for the entire circuit. (Editorial aside: Despite the ample bus run, the folks who most needed and benefited from the festival were excluded thanks to HCSD.)
ReplyDeleteStill, the CGCC site was packed -- with authors, kids, parents, and other vendors.
My favorites include:
Nina Crews – and her Dad Don…. And her moving, “Seeing Into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright.”
Mark David Pullen, local boy, and his “The Oasis King: The Oasis Chronicles.”
Rick Bobrick, another local boy, and his latest, “The Scavenger Hunt: Davy Crockett and the Grizzly Bear on a Scientific Search.” Says the former science teacher at HCSD, “The scavenger Hunt find Davy Crockett helping his former nemesis, the grizzly bear, solve a series of six different scientific challenges,” introducing kids to “biological classification, floating and sinking, metamorphosis, and the apparent motion of the sun.”
Then there is Janelle Harper, accompanied by her wonderful lawyer husband, and her book, “My Block Looks like….” Illustrated by two-time Coretta Scott King Award Winner Frank Morrison, who “started his journey as a graffiti artis in New Jersey, tagging walls with spray paint.” “My Block” is, definitely, as the back jacket says, “a love letter to the hustle, the bustle, the joy, and the grit of those who sparkle under streetlamps.”
Here's to the lovely sparkle of those who pulled this off. --peter meyer
One of my favorite annual Leisler Institute activities is participating in the Hudson Children’s Book Festival. The festival, one of the largest in the nation, attracts authors, publishers, and excited children with their parents from all over. The diversity of children’s books and activities and of the attendees themselves generate a positive energy that is unmatched. Here, in the world of children’s books, there are no boundaries, each is accepted as a unique creation coexisting in one buzzing harmony. Co-founded by Lisa Dolan and Maria Suttmeier in 2009, the Hudson Children’s Book Festival is traditionally hosted by the Hudson School District, but this year took place at Columbia-Greene Community College. While this year's festival was packed with families from all over the region, there seemed to be noticeably less from downtown Hudson. I always enjoyed our community's thirst for knowledge, something which the current Hudson school administration appears not to have the least interest in. Kudos to the festival’s organizers for persevering in maintaining Dolan’s dream that “books matter” for everyone.
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