More than 50 fourth and fifth graders at Pavilion Central School are getting their first exposure to musical theater with a production of Peter Pan Jr., and show director Rebecca Marczyk said the students have been doing a great job getting ready for Thursday's debut.

Tryouts were in January, with much of the preparation and rehearsal until recently in classrooms.

"I find they have improved a lot from where we first started," Marczyk said. "I've seen them grow a lot. They've never been on stage before. And we've only been on the stage here for a month."

District residents will be asked to vote on the proposed plan on May 21 in the high school auditorium lobby.

The tax levy increase is under the 3.3 percent tax cap ceiling.

Superintended Mary Kate Hoffman said The budget reflects a 1.64% increase in spending from last year.

One teaching position, created with COVID relief funds, has been reduced from one full-time equivalent to a half-FTE position.

Hoffman said the district is creating at the elementary school a 12:1:1 classroom, which is a special education class with 12 students, one special ed teacher and one aide.

"We are using existing staff to better meet the needs of our students," Hoffman said. "This classroom will allow us to keep students with special needs in the district."

The budget includes funding for a $100,000 capital outlay exception project and the purchase of two buses.  

By Darrell Upright and the PCS Introduction Journalism Class

Tuesday night, Pavilion Central School hosted its first-ever full-district community event, “Eclipse Learning Night,” in preparation for the  April 8 total solar eclipse. 

Hosted nearly two weeks before the celestial occurrence, 400 students and their families mobbed the Middle-High school’s gymnasium, auditorium, and library and visited participating classrooms that sponsored eclipse-related activities.  All told, more than 600 people attended the event, held from 5 to 7:30 p.m. 

Planned by the science department staff and an ad hoc committee that started preparations in October, the event was a success for the school. 

“This exceeded expectations for attendance and involvement,” said Mr. Brian Mullin, English 12 teacher. 

Among the activities visited by students on Tuesday night were two presentations by Dr. Aaron Steinhauer, professor of Astronomy at SUNY Geneseo; the Star Lab, a portable planetarium in the school’s auditorium; readings by PCS staff of Colleen Onuffer’s “Genny Sees the Eclipse” (illustrated by Andy Reddout); the Middle-High School Book Fair; Trivia Night; concessions from Papa Roni’s and Yummie’s Ice Cream from Warsaw – who sold a special flavor created for the event, Gopher Galaxy;  and teacher-and-student-created presentations and displays to inform the public about the eclipse featuring work from students in grades Kindergarten to 12.

Students and family members also received eclipse glasses at the event. 

“We’re doing this prior to the eclipse for the community,” said Dr. Amanda Cook, the Director of Curriculum and Instruction, who planned the event with the Science Department and committee members. “From a safety standpoint, there was a concern that the public may not be familiar with” some of the dangers associated with a full solar eclipse: severe injury to the retina if viewers don’t use filtered glasses. 

“We want to share the significance of a very rare event,” she added. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.” 

Many of the students’ projects capitalized on the eclipse's importance.

According to “GeneSEE the Eclipse,” the Genesee County web page (https://visitgeneseeny.com/2024-eclipse) informing residents about it, the last full solar eclipse visible in our area was in 1925, and the next will take place in 2144.

Attendees were enthused by the event.  “I like science personally, so I like it so far.  It’s great for us (in the PCS district) because we don’t have to go anywhere” to learn about the eclipse, said 10th grader Jackson True while doing the PCS English Department’s “blackout poetry” exercise, one of numerous activities planned by school staff. 

According to the “GeneSEE the Eclipse” web page, the Monday, April 8th event will darken the sky in Genesee County, which is directly in the “path of totality.” People will experience 3 minutes and 42 seconds of full eclipse beginning at 3:19 p.m. and a partial eclipse for nearly two and a half hours. 

Photos by Darrell Upright

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Introduction to Journalism class at Pavilion Central Schools is taught by Michael Iten and is, as far as we know, the only Intro to Journalism class in Genesee County.

Since it was a small turnout in the Pavilion High School Auditorium on Thursday evening, Don Shomette, a school safety consultant, decided to have a conversation instead of his planned presentation.

He took questions and offered answers.

It's seeking bids from architectural/engineering firms to help it map out updates and upgrades at its two main school buildings, D.B. Bunce Elementary School and Pavilion Junior-Senior High School, which totals 275,800 square feet of education space.

The estimated budget for the project is between $20 million and $24 million.

Like every other school district in the nation, Pavilion Central School District teachers and administrators are frustrated by the distractions and problems created by students with mobile communication devices, particularly mobile phones.

"When you ask teachers, what's the one thing we could do to get kids more focused in school and in the classroom, it would probably be the removal of cell phones," said Charles Martelle, Pavilion's high school principal. "That doesn't mean we can come up with a way to do it that doesn't cause more distractions."

It's a problem even in elementary school, said principal Tom Wilson, and Carin Wade, a ninth-grade language teacher, chimed in with, "It's awful."

Rex Eighmey, the director of facilities for the Pavilion Central School District, gave the Board of Education on Monday a complete rundown of all the work his staff is performing during the summer months.

It's more than just keeping the lawns mowed and the floors buffed -- which board members praised as always extra shiny -- it's repairs and upgrades, among other items.

Serving as a high school sports coach takes a lot more than understanding where to put the Xs and Os if school districts are to abide by New York State regulations, a Matt Roth, athletic director in Pavilion, laid out for the Pavilion Board of Education on Monday night.

Non-teacher coaches have a multi-year program of classes they need to take and that total cost to the coach can exceed $700.