Didi Barrett announced it yesterday on Facebook:
The proposal divides the entire area into four parts: a covered space with a chalkboard, tables and chairs that will serve as an outdoor classroom; a garden area; an amphitheater-type presentation space for science and agricultural classes; and a storage area that will also serve as an additional workspace for students. . . . The area will be surrounded by plants native to the area.
The outdoor classroom will be situated along Paddock Place, on the lawn beside the historic 1937 school building.
The purpose of the project is to give students more time outside connecting with nature and learning how to grow food. Hannah Black, who with Christy Asbee spearheaded the project, cited a possible additional benefit. The following is quoted from the article:
Creating a classroom in full view of whoever might be driving by could also serve as an advertisement for wealthier newcomers to the area to consider sending their children to Hudson public schools, Black said.
Black is also quoted in the article as saying:
"I think that's, optically, why we want it outside, because there's people with money that are moving here buying expensive homes, and for whatever reason, through the rumor mill, they feel like the school isn't right for their kids without even trying it. I feel like we've been working really hard to kind of combat that rumor and that feeling, because once you're in here, the kids are amazing."
Incredible win for the community 🔥
ReplyDeleteBlack is right that an outside classroom advertises the school. The catch is what it advertises. And why it is so expensive to sit under a tree.
ReplyDeleteHudson spends $42,000 a pupil and ranks near the bottom of New York on literacy and numeracy to grade level.
Now we mount that on a $1m + chalkboard by the road for the newcomers to admire, checks notes, when for 50-75% of the school term it is too cold to sit outside.
And isn't "time outside" and "grow food" the pitch for the Youth Department's Oakdale grab, and for Kite's Nest's $7 million in public money toward a $14 million riverfront "regenaritive" campus?
More duplication, via coercive taxes, for a dwindling youth population...
Imagine what HFD could have done with that money? Or they could have helped 10 local families whose kids attend HCSD with a downpayment or low interest loan for a house.
A broken record needs to be repaired, not listened to.
DeleteGreat news for the school and community! Thank you Amb Barrett and Speaker Heastie.
ReplyDeleteRe: other, “better” uses for this money - that’s not how grants work. The CREST program, like just about every pot of public funds, isn’t a big pile of non-discretionary money; it is earmarked for certain uses.
If anyone wants to know what those uses are and the guidelines that govern them, that’s freely available and easily located information.
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Community+Resiliency%2C+Economic+Sustainability+and+Technology+Program