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Yesterday, when the final bell rang at Webster Schroeder High School, it marked the last time a Rosenberry would walk the halls as a Webster school student.  It’s a history that has spanned three children and 14 years.

I’ve actually been looking forward to this day. There are a lot of things I’m not going to miss about being a parent of a high school student. I won’t feel the need to check the Parent Portal every day to see if my daughter is keeping up with her homework. I won’t have to navigate the convoluted student drop-off arrangement every morning at Schroeder. I won’t have to keep ponying up fund-raising money for trips we’re going to be paying for anyway.

But the great things about my kids’ Webster educational careers FAR outweigh the aggravations.  At the very top of the list are all the teachers who have taught, prodded, consoled, cajoled, and guided my children for more than a decade. A quick calculation tells me that perhaps 120 teachers have had the dubious honor of teaching a Rosenberry sometime in the last 14 years.  All of them have been good. Many of them have been great. But some of them have been downright inspiring.  Today, I’d like to give those inspirational teachers a shout-out.

I asked my kids to tell me who they considered their best teachers were, and why they thought so. Here’s what they said:

My daughter Sara (Schroeder ’04) didn’t have to think very much when I asked her the question. “The Hench,” she answered. “His class was super hard in the best way.”  Kevin Henchen taught AP Spanish at Thomas High School, for both Thomas and Schroeder students. He is now an assistant principal in the Fairport school district.

My son Sean (Schroeder ’08) chose Mary-Ellen Petz, one of his sixth grade teachers at Spry Middle School, because “She just friggin’ rocked.” (I tried to get more detail about what that meant, but he couldn’t explain how she “friggin’ rocked,” just that she did.) He also added Schroeder High School music teacher Laura D’Angelo, because “She got me passionate about music.”

Erin (Schroeder ’12) chose Marcia Napolitano, her fourth grade teacher at Plank North Elementary, because “She brought me out of my shell.”  (Napolitano, coincidentally, is one of this year’s Oak Tree Award winners, recognizing exceptional teachers.) Erin also added Schroeder English teacher Susan Woodward, saying “She was one of the toughest teachers I had my freshman year, but also one of the best,” and Schroeder Chemistry teacher Siobhan Julian. “She made chemistry one of my favorite subjects.”

And remember how I used the word “inspirational”? I didn’t use the word lightly. These teachers did more than just teach; they changed my children’s lives.  Case in point: Sara, who just received her Master’s degree, is planning to be a Spanish teacher; Sean just received his degree from Nazareth College to be a music teacher; and in September Erin will begin her studies at St. John Fisher College to become — you guessed it — a Chemistry teacher.

This is cool.

I received word from the Webster school district a few days ago about a neat project which students at Klem Road South Elementary School have undertaken.  As part of a lesson about local water resources, the kids are making rain barrels.

Here’s the letter that the project organizers sent out explaining more about it:

Students show off two of the completed rain barrels

The fourth grade science classes of Mrs. Wendy Smith, Mrs. Eva Burns and Mrs. Elizabeth Coene at Klem South Elementary will soon be making 20 rain barrels! Paul Sawyko from the Storm Water Coalition of Monroe County will be helping students with the creation of the rain barrels.

A rain barrel is something that you put beneath the gutter and the clean rainwater is held in the barrel. Rainwater is a source of unchlorinated water for your plants. Rain barrels conserve water and can provide approximately 1,300 gallons of water during the summer months.

This project is part of an educational grant from Target to enrich our study of water and the environment. We have been working with water in science since the beginning of the year. The fourth graders also have been to the Waste Water Treatment Plant and the Monroe County Water Authority to learn about our local water resources.

Once the students are done with the barrels, they’re all going to need good homes.  So if you would like a rain barrel of your own, free of charge, email Wendy Smith at wendy_smith@ websterschools.org.  She’ll contact you to make arrangements for the pick up of your rain barrel before June 15.

But you better do it soon, because I’ll bet they go pretty fast.

It’s the last full week of school for the high schools, and at Thomas that means big blue trash bins are popping up in the hallways, awaiting the tons of detritus have students have collected in their lockers throughout the year. But this year I’ve made it my goal to make sure there’s a cardboard box next to each bin, with a huge recycle symbol taped to each side.

Hopefully students will use the box and not the trash bin for good supplies when they clean their lockers.

Anyone who’s been a regular reader of my blog for the last few years knows what that’s all about.  For the last four years Webster Thomas (and Spry and Willink middle schools) have participated in a school supply recycling effort in conjunction with a terrific organization called Greenseed Educational Supplies.  For the past seven years, the volunteers at Greenseed, led by Eastridge High School science teacher Mitch Nellis, have worked with schools all over the county to collect thousands of dollars of  perfectly good school supplies at the end of every school year, saving them from the trash bins, and re-distributing them to city schools, community organizations, and even schools in Africa.

I won’t get into too many details about this amazing effort and the huge undertaking it is for Mitch every year.  You can log onto Greenseed’s website if you’d like more information about how to participate, and check out some photos I have at the end of this blog.

Some of last year’s haul, most of which was plucked from the garbage cans.

But I DID want to let you know that thanks to the strong show of support from the Spry, Willink and Thomas school communities, Webster is one of the top contributors to the recycling drive every year.  But this year we’re going to do even better. This year, the PTSAs at Plank Road North and Klem South elementary schools have decided to join the effort as well. The PTSA leaders at both these schools responded enthusiastically to my email requesting elementary school participation.

And their help couldn’t have come at a better time.   I got an email from Mitch a few days ago in which he said requests for school supplies are at an all-time high due to budget cutbacks, and at the same time some of the donating schools have dropped out this year.  He specifically asked if we knew of any elementary schools who wanted to get involved. He was thrilled to hear that Plank North and Klem South are now on board.

So if you have a student at one of these schools, watch for a flyer to come home requesting any donations you might have lying around the house.  Even partly-used spiral binders or scribbled-on binders will be appreciated come September by students who might not otherwise get any school supplies.

If your school or business would like to get involved, please email me at missyblog@gmail.com.

City school teachers are invited to select the supplies they need.

Some of the supplies go to Africa. These kids are students at the Tumaini English Language Primary School in Karatu, Tanzania.

The school is in a small mountain community called Ocotal. There are about 25 students in a one room open air classroom.