Hudson adds details to reopening plan

by JEANETTE WOLFBERG

HUDSON—Feedback needed from parents, the school calendar, and athletic facilities, in addition to preparation for school reopening, received attention at the Hudson City School District (HCSD) Board of Education meeting August 4. (See story that follows for more.)

Parents and guardians will be asked to tell the district whether they want their children to get their schooling 100% online or to come to school in person if and when possible; and whether they intend to drive their children to school, or have them take a bus. The district needs this information in order to allocate classrooms and determine school day schedules.

Superintendent Maria L. Suttmeier requested that when families commit to a lesson model and transportation mode they stick with it for an entire semester. Read more…

Skate park upgrade offers cool way to maintain social distance

by TAYLOR CALL

Work to upgrade and renovate the skate park at Chatham’s Crellin Park took place over the last two weekends. The genesis for this improvement came from Chatham Area Recreation Project (CARP), a local non-profit. In talking with some of the veteran skaters in the area CARP came up with several modifications to make the current park much more open, enjoyable and “skateable.” The skate park was created and funded by The Crellin Park Foundation in 2008. With the support of the town and the funding by The Crellin Park Foundation, CARP worked with Bonded Concrete, Herrington’s, ACP, Dan Crellin and Sam Gleason for the donations of materials and equipment to make the improvements possible. The park is now open sunrise to 9 p.m. Working on the upgrades were Tiger Coleman, Matt Fisher, Justin Smith, Mike Cerqua and Eammon McBride. Photo by Taylor Call

 

School plans go missing? Not really

by EMILIA TEASDALE

By EMILIA TEASDALE

KINDERHOOK—Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Monday, August 10 that 107 school districts in the state had not submitted a plan for in-person learning and set a new Friday deadline for those plans. In Columbia County, Ichabod Crane (Kinderhook) and Germantown school districts were on the list, but both districts say they sent their plans to the state Education Department (SED) and sent the required information to the state Department of Health (DOH) by or before the original July 31 deadline.

The Ichabod Crane School District posted a statement on its website on Monday saying, “We can confirm that the district did indeed submit its full reopening plan on time to New York State on July 31 and received an email confirmation of our submission on the same day…. We are currently investigating the matter further. In the meanwhile, our full reopening plan is currently available on our Reopening Information & Updates page, where it has also been publicly available since July 31.”

Germantown also released a statement on its website saying the district submitted “the REOPEN GCS – A Living Document to the NYS Education Department on time (July 31, 2020). GCSD also submitted the required Dept. of Health Affirmation ahead of the deadline (7/14/2020). Upon learning yesterday that there was a second NY Department of Health requirement (to submit a link to the plan on the district’s website), we did it immediately.”

The press release from the governor’s office says, “The state continues to review plans based on set criteria. Districts that are found to be out of compliance will get a letter from the state Department of Health today (August 10) and a follow-up call naming the sections of their plans that are deficient, in which case they will have until Friday to amend their plan. Read more…

Led by young, Hudson march calls for fair housing

by JEANETTE WOLFBERG

Two of the marchers in Hudson August 6 calling for extension of the federal moratorium on evictions. Photo by Jeanette Wolfberg

HUDSON—Demonstrators rallied for housing justice in Hudson August 6, pausing in front of the offices of state Assemblymember Didi Barrett (D-106th) and Congressman Antonio Delgado (D-19th) on Warren Street. At that point Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson (D) and Alderman Calvin Lewis, Jr. (D 3rd Ward), along with others, spoke.

Young people from Kite’s Nest’s Social Justice Leadership Academy led the march. Kite’s Nest is a center for “liberatory education,” according to its website, and runs several educational activities. It timed the event to coincide with the expiration of the the federal pandemic eviction moratorium. Neither Ms. Barrett nor Mr. Delgado was present.

The goals of rally organizers included:

1. Extend the eviction moratorium

2. House the homeless

3. Cancel rent due for the remainder of the Covid-19 pandemic.

4. Regulate short term rentals like the ones offered by Airbnb.

Read more…

Chatham sees limits as schools prepare to reopen

by EMILIA TEASDALE

CHATHAM—The school district held a virtual town hall meeting July 27 on Zoom about the plans for reopening school in September. School Superintendent Salvatore DeAngelo apologized for the technological difficulties during the meeting which limited the number of participants who could join online.

He said during the meeting that there were over 100 people participating on Zoom and that he thought the district had paid for a license that would allow 500 people, since he knew there would be a large turnout for the session.

The video of the meeting was posted on the district website sit on July 29.Like all district’s in the county, Chatham is required to have a plan to reopen and to submit the plan to the state by July 31. They needed to have three different approaches to reopening—a plan for in-personlearning, a plan for all remote or online learning, and a third plan that would be a hybrid of the in-person and online learning. Read more…