The holiday spirit was in the air at Scarsdale High School last Friday as SHS Habitat 4 Humanity hosted its fourth annual Gingerbread House event. Over 500 people, kids and parents included, came out to the cafeteria to construct and decorate their elaborate houses out of a large assortment of candy, frosting and any other decorative goodies.

Club members prepared for weeks planning, publicizing and executing their big event and the result was fantastic. The club raised over $3,000 and created a fun afternoon for parents and kids alike. "It is rewarding to know that you are helping a great cause and raising the spirits of the community at the same time," said club officer Troy Kirwin. Just as the event has improved the last four years, Habitat looks to the future to include even more of the community in such a fun and festive day.

More sad news for the Scarsdale community was announced via email when district parents learned that Elisa Draper, a fifth grade teacher at the Quaker Ridge Elementary School, died suddenly on Friday night November 19. Mrs. Draper’s husband Robert Draper, is a well known Physics teacher at Scarsdale High School and therefore, many in the community know the couple. At a School Board meeting on Monday night November 22nd, Superintendent Michael McGill expressed his sorrow and board member Suzanne Seiden said that Mrs. Draper had "touched hundreds in our community and that she was loved by her students and her colleagues." Seiden recognized Mrs. Draper's work on sustainability projects and the school garden, her class Mother's Day celebrations and Greek mythology presentations and said that Draper will "always be treasured and remembered." Our heart goes out to Mr. Draper and their children.

In order to help the Quaker Ridge students and parents deal with the loss, the school took several steps, including assembling their crisis team, having district psychologists on hand and offering parents an opportunity to come to the school to gather and explore how to discuss the loss with their children.

At the high school, youth outreach workers and psychologists were available and the principal encouraged parents to share the news with their own children. At Scarsdale Middle School similar measures were taken and children who had Mrs. Draper as a teacher were identified to be treated with extra care. The news came just weeks after the death of Corie Vidal, another school staff member who worked in the SHS Math department.

Rabbis at Westchester Reform Temple lead a discussion for WRT Parents on “Helping Children through Tragic Loss” on 
Tuesday November 23, 4:45 to 5:45PM.

The Quaker Ridge School was closed on Wednesday November 24 for Mrs. Draper's funeral which was held at Resurrection Church in Rye.

Last week, Scarsdale10583 also learned that Allyne Brumbaugh, a retired second grade teacher at Greenacres Elementary school, passed away after a long illness. Before coming to Greenacres in 1986, Ms. Brumbaugh taught the gifted and talented class in a school in Brooklyn. She taught second grade at Greenacres for 18 years before retiring in 2004.

Ms. Brumbaugh was an insightful educator who brought out the best in all of her students. She was a leader in teaching mathematical concepts to children and authored a book called “Big Magic Number Puzzles” which was published by Scholastic and used in her classes. Her students remember her calm, warm and supportive style. According to colleague Joan Farella at Greenacres, “She was a very good friend. She was a wonderful teacher and touched so many young lives.”

Ms. Brumbaugh lived in Pound Ridge and is survived by her husband James Brumbaugh.

We offer our condolences to both families and ask you to share your memories of the teachers below:

It’s never too early to start innovating. Garrett Tanzer, an eighth grade student in Butler House at Scarsdale Middle School has created an app for the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad called "Space Laser Race." The game went on sale worldwide in the Apple Store on November 10.

Space Laser Race™, the first-ever space simulator game developed by a 13-year-old is available for $.99 on the App Store. The young developer is dedicating a portion of his proceeds from the sales of his game to food allergy research.

In this virtual game, you can spacewalk like an astronaut with only a jet pack to propel you in zero gravity. This unique and challenging game let’s you race through space while racing against time to align your laser onto a target. Dual sliders simulate double joysticks astronauts use to maneuver through space. A radar at the top of the screen provides directional point of reference.

We asked Garrett a few questions about how he came to design an app, and here is what he told us:

Ever since I started playing video games, I wanted to be able to create one myself. Once the App Store was launched, it made it possible for me to develop a game. All I had to do was learn programming and come up with an idea. I took an online programming course to learn some basics.

Is there are course at Scarsdale Middle School or a teacher that guided him?

Scarsdale currently doesn't offer a programming course at the middle school level. However, my mom helped me figure out how to learn to program. Whenever I got stuck, she helped me to find resources and kept me going when I encountered obstacles.

How long did it take you to develop Space Laser Race?

Six or seven weeks

Where did the idea for the game come from and who designed the graphics?

I came up with the idea from watching space movies, and designed all the graphics myself. I figured out how to use photo shop and designed all the graphics with it.

How did you bring it to market and have it sold as an app?

I had to submit Space Laser Race to the App Review Process at Apple. It took about ten days for approval.

How many apps are now available for the iPhone and iPad and iTouch?

As of now there are 297,000 apps and about half are games. About three quarters of the games are free and most are not good.

Are you the youngest person ever to develop an app?

No, but I am perhaps the youngest to develop a universal game, which means that it is optimized for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

How will you channel the profits towards food allergies?

Once I have enough sales, I plan on sending a portion of the proceeds to an organization that supports food allergy awareness and research.

Do your friends at SMS have iPhones and are they playing the game?

Yes, you would be surprised how many kids have an iPhone

Do you know how many have sold to date?

That’s confidential!

To learn more about the game and download it, go to Garrett's Website, http://www.tanzerine.com.

In August, New York State learned that they won a federal Race to the Top grant for $700 million dollars for education. And while this may be a victory for some districts in the state, for others, like Scarsdale, the grant will mean more requirements and little additional funding. Though the Scarsdale School Board supported the state’s application, they have serious reservations about some of the provisions and have submitted a letter to the State Department of Education expressing their concerns.

At an October 25, 2010 meeting of the Scarsdale Board of Education, Superintendent Michael McGill explained that Scarsdale was entitled to $18,000 in Race to the Top funds, $4,500 per year, over the next four years. The district was allocated these funds as a few students in the zip code are entitled to Title 1 funds. Ironically, those students do not attend our schools and the District has determined that the administrative costs of accepting the funds outweigh the benefits.

Of more concern is the new assessment program mandated by the grant, which will require the district to rate all teachers and administrators on a 100-point scale based on student test performance in their classrooms and schools. The 100-point evaluation will be based on student performance on state tests, performance on local assessments or tests and additional criteria now being determined by a state education committee.

In McGill’s opinion the new rating system will do little to improve teacher performance. In fact he says, “according to education expert Richard Rothstein this methodology is likely to misidentify teachers and categorize some who are good as underperforming, and some who are underperforming as good.” In McGill’s view, “it is possible to require compliance and raise performance to a low average, but impossible to regulate for excellence which requires initiative, individuality and creativity. The concern is that this new model of rating teachers is fundamentally questionable because it will not allow evaluators room for judgment, nor will it allow teachers to exercise creativity.” Student performance on state tests can clearly be affected by more than one teacher’s activities during the school year. According to McGill, “Imagine if a teacher has a set of kids with difficulties to begin with and is not able to meet a target due to the skills of the kids when they came into the class.”

Furthermore the new requirements may mandate the District to publish teacher’s scores.

McGill is not the only one objecting to Race to the Top requirements. In a plea published on the Found for Education website, the Brighter Choice Foundation urges charter schools not to participate in the Race to the Top grant program. Tom Carroll, the organization’s founder says, “After reviewing the administrative, regulatory, and reporting burdens required of schools that participate, and understanding how seriously the program jeopardizes the administrative and operational independence of charter schools especially in the area of teacher and principal evaluations and accountability, each charter school in the Brighter Choice Foundation network has been advised not to participate in Race to the Top.”

The Scarsdale administration believes that they already have a good teacher assessment process in place and Scarsdale10583 asked McGill for the details of the current system for evaluating teachers.

On the hiring and firing of new teachers, McGill offered the following information:

“The District has built the faculty by hiring new teachers only after careful credential checks, interviews and demonstration teaching. New teachers get support from veteran mentors. They’re evaluated through evidence-based protocols recently enhanced in collaboration with Charlotte Danielson, formerly of Princeton’s Educational Testing Service, who’s also known internationally for her work with entire states and countries.”

“Best efforts notwithstanding, some teachers ultimately can’t meet a Scarsdale standard. And in the end, neither principals nor department leaders or other teachers support sub-standard performance. Furthermore, while the Teachers Association assures legal rights are protected, it doesn’t defend incompetence. Difficult situations like these aren’t publicized, and when a dismissal is necessary, all parties try to make it as humane as possible.”

However, what about tenured teachers who are no longer performing up to standards? According to McGill, “If a tenured teacher is experiencing serious difficulties, he or she will be evaluated more rigorously. If performance doesn't improve after supportive intervention, Scarsdale is one of few school districts that can freeze the individual's pay until supervisors are satisfied he or she has rectified the relevant problems.”

Though our current evaluation system provides much scrutiny before tenure is granted, once a teacher has tenure, the school cannot fire them. The teacher can be denied a raise, but their position is ensured. But even the new Race to the Top 100-point state rating system will not change the fundamentals of tenure, leaving us little to gain from the new assessments.

We asked McGill if high-performing districts that will not receive any of the grant monies could opt-out of these new requirements. For now the answer is “no.” McGill commented:

“At this point, there's no indication that there will be any opt out. The state has been adamant since the late 1990's that as far as its reform plan is concerned, one size fits all and there are no exceptions. The District has repeatedly attempted to show Education Department officials why state reforms are generally unhelpful here and how they actually get in the way of our efforts to improve learning. These attempts, and indeed, any meaningful dialogue, have been rebuffed. The parent test boycott of 2001 was a direct outgrowth of public frustration with the program damage wreaked by state testing, despite multiple attempts on the part of the board and professional staff to reason with State education officials about the problems their plans were creating here."

So, for now it appears that we have no choice. Next year will bring more state mandated student testing as well as new state-defined criteria for teacher assessments, further diminishing local control of our schools, without providing the benefit of additional funding.