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Today was Pink Day at Webster Thomas High School.  The event was part of a coordinated effort in all the district’s secondary schools, where students and staff rally against bullying by wearing pink. (To read more about the Pink initiative, scroll down to the previous blog I wrote.)

When students came through the front doors this morning, they were greeted with pink streamers lining the hallway, pink ribbons hanging from the ceiling, and a long pink chain snaking along the cafeteria corridor.

And lots and lots of people wearing pink.  It was a beautiful sight to see.

Cadets (in red) present the Cadet Award to Webster Marching Band members Tess Storace, Emily Dorsey, Jake Cobb, Katie Hackett and Samantha Toms.

Congratulations go out to the Webster Marching Band on several accounts this morning. The kids just returned from a the US Bands National Open Class 3 Championship competition at Met Life Stadium in New Jersey, where they placed 7^th out of 24 bands. That alone was a great accomplishment. But on top of that, the band also won the Cadet Award for Achievement in Effect, Creativity and Excellence.

And not only THAT.  Since they were heading down to the New York area, the band families decided to take the opportunity to do something great for the folks down there who are still suffering from the effects of Hurricane Sandy. They got together and filled a van with donations, which they handed over to the Salvation Army collection point at the stadium.

What is particularly neat about this effort is how quickly the word spread and how quickly the band family came together to help out.  Band mom Janet Sander sent out the original message last Sunday morning, and by practice Monday evening, donations were already beginning to pile up. Band families passed the word on their Facebook pages and told their extended families, friends and co-workers. Offers to stuff their own personal vehicles started coming in from parents who were planning to drive down on their own.  The result was a van — and more — filled to capacity with food, coats, batteries, diapers, toiletries and cleaning supplies.

Yet another reason this band makes Webster proud.

The Sander van stuffed full, ready to head to New Jersey.

Senior band members present a $500 check to the Salvation Army.

The halls of Webster Thomas High School will be flowing with pink tomorrow as every Thomas staff member — and hopefully every student — will be wearing pink.

It’s all part of the international “Stand Up to Bullying Day” initiative. It began last week when students were all shown a video about two high school students in Nova Scotia who stood up for a younger student who was being harassed by classmates because he wore a pink shirt.  The students decided to make a statement by wearing pink shirts themselves.  Before long, other students joined them, and the “Pink Day” cause spread around the world.  (You can see the video here).

Thomas seniors pledge to be “upstanders” by signing staff shirts in the Thomas library: (L-R) Emily Simons, Caitlin Francz, Ally Lovgren, Amanda Vallone, Molly DeBacco, Lexi Sciarrone, Josh Caccamise, Joe Mikiciuk

The basic idea behind “Pink Day” is that all students have the power to make school a safer place through their actions and by becoming “upstanders,” someone who acts or says something when they see someone being mistreated.

Thomas’ Pink Day effort began last week, when students could pledge to not harass others by signing their names to staff members’ pink shirts. Tomorrow, staff members will wear those shirts to school, filled with student signatures. Students have also been asked to wear pink, and show their support as upstanders, dedicated to keeping the schools safe for everyone.

The Pink Activity is happening in all four secondary buildings in early November in collaboration with the PTSA.

I truly hope this becomes an annual event. Bullying in our schools has gotten out of hand. Like a virus, it has been very difficult to eradicate.  Trying to deal with it from the top down has clearly not worked.  I commend the school district for jumping on the “Pink” bandwagon and getting the students themselves more involved.  Bullies don’t care what the administrators will do. They will care about what their peers say.

Maybe by the time my grandchildren attend school, we’ll have seen the end to bullying once and for all.

You know it’s a pretty cool high school when the staff members there are encouraged to dress up for Halloween.

Webster Thomas principal Glenn Widor not only encouraged staff participation, he suggested a theme — zombies — which is why the Thomas hallways were filled with the walking dead today.  The administrators in particular really got into it, so much so it was disturbing having to talk with them face-to-face.

Believe it or not, these zombies are Assistant Principal Mike Smith, AP Mary Kidd, Principal Glenn Widor, AP Sue Clark and AP Brian Weller.

But Thomas was certainly not the only school where the staff got into the act. My friend Sarah King at Plank North sent me these photos of some of the teachers over there:

Mr. Heveron is a tall penguin.

Mrs. Weinmann the pirate.

Principal Dave Peter was the game “Operation,” complete with a pair of tongs.

Mr. Schoff is … one scary dude.

Mrs. Fuss is “Smarty Pants.” Clever.

Mrs. Pawluk as candy corn.

Ms. King the witch.

“But now,” says the Once-ler, “now that you’re here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear. UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

In honor of USA Weekend‘s annual Make a Difference Day coming up this Saturday, I bring you a nice story about some Webster Thomas High School kids who are, indeed, making a difference.

For example, there’s Avery Maltman, Cara Macaig and Miranda Cain, who teamed up to clean up Kent Park.  And Scott Skarzynski, who’s collecting used toner cartridges and electronic gadgets for recycling. And Julian Zehr, who’s organized a shoe drive for the needy in Africa. And Mia Klasner, Emma Schaefer, Sarah Ball, Sarah Hurlburt, Ellie Songer and Danny Gresens, whose bottle and can drive is raising money for postage to send those shoes to Africa.

All of these kids are students in Cathy Anne’s Enriched Earth Science Class at Webster Thomas, and while they’re helping our world, they’re also doing their homework.

It’s all part of Anne’s “Pop the ‘Me’ Bubble and Make a Difference” project, a three-month long assignment where students have to come up with some sort of project to help the environment. It could be anything from planting trees to writing letters to Congress.

Anne began the unit with a movie: Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, which chronicles the plight of the environment and how one grumpy little creature fights for it.

After watching the movie, Anne explained,

we talked about how the Lorax represents the conscience of a person and that we need to listen to our conscience and put aside our greed for the greater good.  We need to think past ourselves; pop our “me” bubbles. If we don’t start making a difference now, it will be too late.

The students were given a short list of possible ideas, and they ran with it.  The variety of projects the student devised and their depth of commitment is impressive, as illustrated in this email I received from Nathaniel Tsai:

Our assignment … was to help clean the world and make a difference. If one person wants to clean the world just that much, then in future, it could make a greater impact…Our class was given the choice to pick one activity out of a small list to do each month. The activities consist of planting trees, collect bottles/cans, start a recycling project, research alternative energy, and write letters to congress possibly about Hydrofracking, waste in the Pacific Ocean, etc.

We were also given the choice to do any other idea that we could think of. This is what I jumped on. For my “Make A Difference” project, I am doing all of those activities. But not only am I just doing them, I am recording my actions as well. This way, I can make a small video at the end of the project that I hope will influence others. My video will have some slight humor in it, but it will also be very impacting on others to help save the world. Even if it just is little by little.

This is the first year Anne has assigned a long-term project like this to her Earth Science students. But judging from their response, it will certainly not be the last.

“I was very impressed with how my students took to this project,” she wrote. “They came up with ideas and plans that are much more involved than I imagined. It shows you that these kids do care, about many things, and when they were given the opportunity to make a difference they embraced it and ran with it. It also shows that they are mature, responsible young adults who are more than just data — a test grade — and success can be measured in several different ways.”

Photos below are from the Kent Park clean-up effort by Avery Maltman, Cara Macaig and Miranda Cain

Once again a Webster resident has been recognized as being a stand-out in her field. In this case, a playing field.

Photo courtesy Democrat and Chronicle

In yesterday’s Democrat and Chronicle, the lead local story featured Webster Schroeder High School senior Hannah Harrison, who was recently named to the All-American Marching Band.  Hannah plays clarinet for the Webster High School Marching Band, and is one of only 130 musicians selected for the national honor.  She’ll travel with the All-American Band to San Antonio Texas in January, where they’ll play at halftime at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, a national high school football all-star game.

Read more by clicking here for the on-line story.

You can watch Hannah perform for yourself this weekend when the Webster High School Marching Band hosts OPERATION BLUE, a day-long open house culminating with the annual Autumn Fanfare field band competition at 5:30 pm. Students interested in joining the band are encouraged to bring their instruments and participate in the day’s events. Parents will have plenty of opportunities to ask questions as well. Click here for more information.

According to Webster Thomas social studies teacher Greg Ahlquist, students are like a tube of toothpaste.

I’ll explain shortly what Ahlquist meant by that.  But suffice it to say, that kind of thinking is just one of many reasons Greg Ahlquist was named by the Board of Regents this week as the 2013 New York State Teacher of the Year.

Some of the hundreds of Thomas students and staff members who attended yesterday’s assembly.

Ahlquist made that analogy yesterday as he stood at a podium on the Webster Thomas stage, toothpaste tube in hand, and addressed an auditorium filled to capacity with Thomas students and staff members, administrators, Board of Education members, and local media representatives.  Ahlquist had officially received the award in a ceremony held Wednesday in Albany.  Yesterday’s assembly was a chance for the Webster Thomas family to congratulate him on his achievement.

Ahlquist is a Webster native and 1991 Webster Thomas High School graduate. He has been teaching social studies in the Webster School District since 2000, including AP World History, AP European History and a Holocaust elective. He currently serves as Lead Teacher for the entire Advanced Placement (AP) Program at Webster Thomas.

As New York’s Teacher of the Year, Ahlquist will represent the state’s more than 200,000 teachers, and speak at events around the state.  He is also in the running for the national award.

In 2007 Ahlquist was one of the five finalists for Teacher of the Year. He didn’t know he had won this year’s award until it was announced at the ceremony in Albany on Wednesday.

Ahlquist, center, with Webster Thomas principal Glenn Widor, Superintendent Adele Bovard, and students Douglas Pagani and Brenna Mason.

Now back to the toothpaste.  As Ahlquist displayed a thoroughly flattened toothpaste tube to the Webster Thomas audience, he described how he’d had to rescue it from his wife, who wanted to throw it away, assuming that no more toothpaste could be gotten from it. But he knew better. With some gentle coaxing and judiciously applied pressure, he could get another week’s worth of toothpaste out of that tube.

And so it is with students, he explained. “A great teacher sees potential (in a student) where others see very little.”

Congratulations, Greg.  You make the Town of Webster, the Webster School District, and Webster Thomas very proud.  I am honored to be a colleague.

(Photos courtesy Jen Calus, Webster Central School District)