The district will move forward with $13.31 million in improvements to each of its school buildings, including a renovation of its high school gymnasium and grass field space, after voters overwhelmingly approved two of three propositions during a special vote Oct. 22.

“Our buildings can be made safer and more accessible to the entire population through the projects covered in Proposition 1,” said Dr. Janet Warden, superintendent of schools. “We thank voters for supporting those projects, as well as the plan to rejuvenate two of our grass fields.” Board of Education President Russ Crafton said, "The goal in this special proposition vote was to enhance our facilities for the enrichment and safety of our school community. The Board thanks residents for joining us in that effort with their above average turnout at the polls Tuesday and approval of two proposed projects. We look forward to continuing the work of growing our district through these upgrades and future projects." Dr. Warden said the district will take time to consult with its architects and other project partners before deciding how it can address the needs of the main field.

The district will begin the process of finalizing designs and details for the building repairs, and obtaining state Education Department plan approvals, with hopes for beginning construction in summer 2026. Proposition 1 includes:

• Replacement of the high school's gymnasium bleachers and wall padding, and renovation of its floor.

• New LED lighting for Red Hook High School and Mill Road Elementary School.

• Expanding and upgrading the air conditioning at Mill Road.

• Bolstering the boiler system at Linden Avenue Middle School.

• Expanding ease of access to the lockdown system in each school.

• Repairs to the four front columns of the Linden Avenue building.

  
  

The combined work is estimated to cost roughly $7.835 million, with all but $2.79 million covered by state aid. The high school’s gym floor and bleachers are original to the building’s 1963 opening and are out of Americans with Disabilities Act compliance. The floor has been repaired often over six decades. The renovations will not only provide a new floor and bleachers that would be safe for all fans but the stage area on the south end of the court would be removed and replaced with more seating. That should create a safer situation for the players on the court who previously may collide with the stage’s knee wall.

The lighting upgrades are projected to save $30,486 annually at the middle school and $22,349 at the high school, with the savings projected to pay for the cost of the upgrades in six and eight years, respectively. The expanded lockdown system will include push buttons in a handful of strategic locations around each building. The change from the existing system will increase the chances of a potentially dangerous situation being reported and decrease the time it takes to alert the rest of the school.

Proposition 3 encompasses the renovation of two other field spaces with natural grass and drainage strategies aimed at eliminating flooding issues. It was proposed to cost $5.475 million, with taxpayers responsible to $1.95 million.

A pair of experiments created at Red Hook High School will make their way to the International Space Station Monday, November 4th. When Mission 18 of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program launches Nov. 4, it will be carrying both “The Effect of Microgravity on the Hatching Rate of Rotifers,” an experiment designed by four seniors for the mission, and “Examining Artemia Salina Hatching in the Presence of Microgravity,” which was originally planned as part of Mission 17.

The unique opportunity to have student-designed work executed by astronauts orbiting the planet is the product of the Red Hook Central School District taking part in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program. The goal of the program, which the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education started in June 2010, is to give students the ability to design and propose real microgravity experiments to fly in low Earth orbit. “It’s the application of scientific skills in a real-world situation, which gets students excited,” said Deborah Beam, the recently retired Red Hook High School science teacher who led the local application of the project since it began in June 2022.

More than just the handful of students will see their work reach orbit. The program engaged hundreds of Red Hook students by inviting them to devise and submit possible experiments. “It’s pretty remarkable when you think about it,” said Giacomo Buitoni, who designed the Mission 18 experiment as juniors along with three other students. Ava Hubner, Emmy Nelson-Madore, and Lotta Pflaum made up the team with Giacomo Buitoni. Mr. Buitoni stated, “In school, you’re doing science from a young age. You’re always doing random experiments here and there, but you’re never doing real science. This is the kind of science that people actually listen to when you get the results back, and conclusions are made, and actions are taken around the world.”

To be included in a mission, school communities first submit an Implementation Plan detailing how taking part would address a strategic need for STEM education, how its educators would engage the student population, and how many students would participate. Once approved, the educators deliver a microgravity curriculum to the students, and groups work together to formulate specific experiments. The best of the experiments were submitted to a panel of teachers, who narrowed the list of candidates to three. After using teacher feedback to sharpen their experiments, students submitted their experiments to the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education’s National Step 2 Review Board, which selected the one from each school community that would take flight.

Each selected group is given a flight-certified microgravity research mini-laboratory to include its experiment. The astronauts then execute the experiment on the space station and, simultaneously, students execute the experiment on Earth.

The experiment picked for Mission 18, “The Effect of Microgravity on the Hatching Rate of Rotifers,” will compare how the zooplankton grow in microgravity versus the Earth’s gravity. The four students hypothesized that “Rotifers will reproduce and develop more rapidly under microgravity than they will on Earth.” A fifth student, Rosa Hagan, is also helping with the packaging and execution of the experiments, and science teacher Larra Agate has taken over for Mrs. Beam as lead faculty advisor.

Equal samples of freeze-dried Rotifer eggs will be rehydrated in freshwater on both the ISS and on Earth, and a fixative will be combined with the eggs after a few days. The hatching rates of both groups will then be compared. In their proposal, the students noted that the results could have applications in waste management of freshwater, “as these organisms can be used to prevent clouds of waste in water.”

The five current students prepared and packaged both experiments. Buitoni said his group had varied ideas for their experiment – making kombucha in space or letting milk sour among them – before being inspired by pond water on Emmy Nelson-Madore’s property to incorporate zooplankton. “We did some research on what organisms may thrive in that environment and we had some guidance from Ms. Beam,” Emmy Nelson-Madore said.

Despite their similarities, the two Red Hook experiments were developed separately. Mr. Buitoni attributed it to “the osmosis of ideas.” Ms. Nelson-Madore said running both the sea monkey and zooplankton experiments at the same time will add to the value of the results. “We’ll see if there’s any difference between the two typed of organisms under relatively similar conditions.”

In addition, school communities are invited to design mission patches for each mission. At Red Hook, more than 200 students took part in a design contest for each missions 17 and 18. Taia Mokii, then a ninth-grade student, created the winning design for Mission 17, and November Koga, then a 10th-grade student, had the favored patch for Mission 18. In all, between 35 and 40 possible projects were created in Red Hook for each of the two missions.

The process of teaching the curriculum, creating project groups, and finally submitting experiment ideas to the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education spans around three months.

“It takes a long time,” Mrs. Beam said, “but the process of the science, the writing of the science, those are all immense skills that, at the end of this, you can’t ask for anything better.”

The other experiment, “Examining Artemia Salina Hatching in the Presence of Microgravity,” was created by 2023 Red Hook graduates Jessica Amato, Zola Campisi, Avis Roszko, Raphael Senterfit-Sanjuan and Tucker Sheahan and was included when Mission 17 launched on Nov. 9, 2023. However, the experiment, which measures the hatching of brine shrimp – sea monkeys – in a similar fashion as the zooplankton, was scrapped after the test subjects were tainted in space. Subsequently, a reflight experiment was included on the list of experiments traveling in the Nov. 4 launch, which is scheduled for 9:29 p.m. EST.

About SSEP

The Student Space Flight Experiments Program [or just “SSEP”] is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in the U.S. and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education Internationally. It is enabled through a strategic partnership with Nanoracks, LLC, which is working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory."

The Halloween Spirit came alive throughout Red Hook school buildings Thursday, as students and staff dressed up and engaged in costumed activities to celebrate the holiday. At Mill Road, children hopped off buses wearing costumes that ranged from witches and princesses; to Ninja Turtles, Jedi and Pokemon; to woodland creatures and gymnasts. As they made their way into the school they were greeted by an equally eclectic bunch of school leaders and teachers: Principal Dr. Brian Boyd and Assistant Principal Kristen Strothmann were both sharks, multiple staff members wore Minions costumes, and others were skeletons, witches and pirates.

As students on the grades 3-5 side walked into the cafeteria for lunch, they were greeted by a chef dressed as the Muppets' Swedish Chef. All around Mill Road, doors and bulletin boards were decorated for the days leading up to Halloween. An enormous pumpkin display takes up much of a first-floor hallway nearby a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater. The school capped the holiday with a parade in the afternoon, in which the youngest students walked down the newly opened Paul Menz pathway, as the rest of the school lined the path and cheered them on.

At Linden Avenue Middle School gave the students a chance to show off their costumes, some more elaborate than others. While some opted to simply wear a sports jersey, others wore full animal onesies and some dressed as children’s book characters, such as Max from “Where the Wild Things Are.” The LAMS staff likewise got into the spirit; Principal Stacie Smith, Assistant Principal Paul Brown and others from the main office coordinated on “Spongebob Squarepants” costumes.

The middle school also got into the Halloween spirit with a pair of games. For several weeks staff has been taking photos of themselves as ghosts covered in white sheets in various school settings, which were collected into a bulletin board outside the cafeteria for students to guess whom each ghost was. Smith noted once staff members saw the standard set by the first few photos submitted, it became a challenge for some to escalate the creativity. Four office staff members, for example, ended up posing in a police car – which proved to be one of the tougher photos for the students to identify who was under the sheets. There were also signs posted around the school asking students to find “Waldo,” the red-and-white-stripped-sweater-wearing literary character. Six staff members – and one student – came to school wearing the costume.

While fewer students and staff came to the high school clad in costumes, several memorable looks drew attention. Mary Shannon was a “Thesaurus” – a tyrannosaurus rex with words and synonyms pinned around its body – “English teacher humor!” she laughed. Student costumes included Walter White, of “Breaking Bad” fame, Forrest Gump and even a Shrek.

The high school got into the spirit in different ways, too. Earlier this month in Cori Witkiewicz’s applied math class, students learned about parabolas by building mini pumpkin launchers and hurling candy pumpkins.
The school on Friday also had a Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, celebration during lunch periods. Mill Road likewise had educational displays for Day of the Dead in both its lobbies. The two-day Mexican holiday, which this year was Nov. 1-2, is commonly thought of as a day when the living and the dead are reunited, giving family members and friends a chance to honor those who have departed.

Linden Avenue Middle School (LAMS) was abuzz this month over Martha Strever and the media outlets that will put her in the spotlight. The district is celebrating Martha’s 64th year of service as a teacher this fall, and LAMS is awaiting word on applications to Guinness World Records regarding three records that the math teacher may soon own. Applications have been submitted for Ms. Strever, including the longest teaching career in one school, the longest career for a female math teacher, and the longest-serving department head. In the meantime, reporters on the local and national levels are telling her story.

On Oct. 22, an associate producer from “CBS Mornings,” the network’s national morning show, visited LAMS to speak with Martha, as well as several current students and former students who now teach alongside her. The segment is scheduled to appear on the show Monday, Nov. 25. “CBS Mornings” airs weekdays from 7-9 a.m.

Martha is the longest-serving active teacher in New York, according to records submitted by school districts annually to the New York State Education Department, and is the longest active member of New York State United Teachers. Her time at LAMS officially began in 1961, before Red Hook High School or Mill Road Elementary were built, though she also was a student-teacher at the school the previous year. In 1971, she became Red Hook’s math department chair – the district’s first female department head – a position she held for 49 years.

Martha’s landmark career was first highlighted in Education Week last month. This month, she has been the focus of articles in NYSUT United, the publication put out by New York State United Teachers, and in The Daily Catch. She will also soon be the subject of a piece in the Poughkeepsie Journal, following a visit from a reporter and photographer Oct. 29.

A cherry tree stood outside Kristine Byrne’s window at the primary school office at Mill Road Elementary. “Kris would admire it from her window. It would bloom in the spring,” Dr. Erin Hayes, Assistant Superintendent for Personnel and Operations, recalled. Kris, her friends and coworkers will be quick to say, loved trees, plants and flowers. Several years ago, the tree died and had to be taken down. However, a young tree will now grow in its place, with a plaque positioned at its base honoring Kris’ memory. Kris Byrne, a beloved secretary for Mill Road Primary School for 36 years, died of cancer on Oct. 5.

The new tree was planted and dedicated Oct. 24 during a remembrance ceremony held outside the school. Family, friends and coworkers attended. Dr. Hayes, longtime Principal of Mill Road Primary School and a close friend, led the memorial in which Kris was remembered for her empathy and heart. She was keenly observant. She loved Kindergarten graduations. “Kris loved the simple things in life,” Dr. Hayes shared. “They made her the happiest. She loved to tell stories and would eagerly listen whenever someone had one to tell. She never turned down a sweet of any kind, especially chocolate-covered cherries from Krause’s. Kris loved to celebrate birthdays and holidays, particularly Christmas. She was always generous and thoughtful in giving gifts, and found enormous joy in watching people open them.”

“She loved her work and the kids she had the pleasure of interacting with on a daily basis. She was instrumental in sharing her love of monarch butterflies – and would foster their hatching and shared that experience with the students, as well as her grandchildren.” Kris’ husband of 49 years, James, attended, as did their daughter, Jennifer, son-in-law Ben, and grandchildren Griffin and Madyn. Hayes addressed each of them individually, sharing personal reflections. “Know that her life was well-spent,” Dr. Hayes said. “It was well-served and she will always be remembered with a great deal of fondness and affection by her family at Mill Road.”