Cold Spring Elementary named 2010 National Blue Ribbon School

STANFORDVILLE — Cold Spring Elementary School, part of the Pine Plains Central School District, was recently named a 2010 National Blue Ribbon School, the highest honor the U.S. Department of Education can give a school.

The Blue Ribbon Schools Program honors public and private elementary, middle and high schools throughout the country that are either high performing or have improved student achievement, according to the Department of Education’s website.

Since 1982, when the program was started, nearly 6,800 awards have been given out. There are about 133,000 eligible schools in the country and several hundred schools have been awarded several times, meaning that approximately 4.5 percent of schools nationwide have been recognized as Blue Ribbon Schools in the past.

Cold Spring is only the second Dutchess County public elementary school to ever receive the award; Noxon Road Elementary, part of the Arlington Central School District, was honored in 2007.

Cold Spring Principal Jay Glynn explained during an interview that the school was originally nominated by the state’s Education Department for being a consistently high-performing school.

Following that nomination last November, Glynn began what he called a “very involved application process,â€� which was an opportunity to lay out Cold Spring’s  strengths, the culture of the school and how the school was using data to inform instruction.

The 2010-11 school year is Glynn’s 10th as principal of Cold Spring, but the best example he provided of the school’s success occurred back in 2001.

Following a presentation by the then-assistant superintendent on discrepancies between test scores in the fourth and eighth grades, Glynn said a kindergarten teacher approached him the next day.

“She said that she couldn’t sleep the night before,� he said, “trying to figure out what the school could do better to have more of an impact on her students. And I was struck by that, that a kindergarten teacher was taking ownership for eighth-grade results. It really spoke to me.�

Glynn said that the award was definitely something to be shared by all parties involved, from teachers and staff to parents and students and the surrounding community.

“We draw from a pretty small community but there is a real strong sense of family here,� he said. “It’s the cooperative effort and I think the right things continue to be here at this school. We share this honor with people past and present. We’re all responsible for this.�

But even with the accolades, Glynn isn’t letting past accomplishments overshadow the work that needs to continue at Cold Spring, which this year has drastically reshaped its demographic. No longer a K-5 program, the Cold Spring Early Learning Center (as it’s now called) houses the entire district’s K-2 population.

Glynn said it wasn’t exactly like starting with a clean slate, but it would definitely mean a different approach to education than has been used in the past.

“I wouldn’t call it a step back, more like just heading down a different path,� he said. “The honor … it’s great stuff, and I think what it means is, ‘Yes, we’ve done well, but we’re going to continue to work just as hard.’�

The principal recalled a book he came across highlighting educational approaches that came from past Blue Ribbon schools.

“It’s nice to think that hopefully we can add to that,� he said. “There’s been a lot of outreach here over the years, whether it’s for Katrina or tsunami relief or the Grace Smith House. We’ve been able to integrate that into the grade levels as a part of that process. It’s about academic achievement but hopefully it’s been achieved by not just knowing what’s going to be on the test. It’s about finding interesting ways to learn.�

Glynn will travel to Washington, D.C.,  with recently retired teacher Laura Gilhooly, who spent 26 years teaching at Cold Spring, for the official award ceremony in November.

“There were lots of teachers to pick from, but I’ve known Laura very well, and she’s served on about 90 percent of the committees here at school and she’s still involved even though she’s retired,� Glynn said.

Gilhooly said she likes to compare Cold Spring to “a little private school, where there is a very diverse group of kids in terms of socioeconomic and academic abilities. There are programs for everyone.�

She stressed two factors in contributing significantly to the success of the school: parent participation and the district valuing everyone’s ideas.

“I think that the times where I’ve felt that the programs have been most successful, when morale is best and the school spirit is most positive, is when everyone has been able to give their input and have validation of their opinions,� she said. “When you know that, you take a vested interest in what’s happening.�

Gilhooly said the school’s achievement points to the idea that even as a small, public school, Cold Spring has a lot to offer.

“It’s a recognition,â€� she said,  “that public schools can be successful and have lots of good things going on.â€�

Latest News

Finding ‘The Right Stuff’ for a documentary

Tom Wolfe

Film still from “Radical Wolfe” courtesy of Kino Lorber

If you’ve ever wondered how retrospective documentaries are made, with their dazzling compilation of still images and rare footage spliced between contemporary interviews, The Moviehouse in Millerton, New York, offered a behind-the-scenes peek into how “the sausage is made” with a screening of director Richard Dewey’s biographical film “Radical Wolfe” on Saturday, March 2.

Coinciding with the late Tom Wolfe’s birthday, “Radical Wolfe,” now available to view on Netflix, is the first feature-length documentary to explore the life and career of the enigmatic Southern satirist, city-dwelling sartorial icon and pioneer of New Journalism — a subjective, lyrical style of long-form nonfiction that made Wolfe a celebrity in the pages of Esquire and vaulted him to the top of the best-seller lists with his drug-culture chronicle “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” and his first novel, “The Bonfire of The Vanities.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Art on view this March

“Untitled” by Maureen Dougherty

New Risen

While there are area galleries that have closed for the season, waiting to emerge with programming when the spring truly springs up, there are still plenty of art exhibitions worth seeking out this March.

At Geary Contemporary in Millerton, founded by Jack Geary and Dolly Bross Geary, Will Hutnick’s “Satellite” is a collection of medium- and large-scale acrylic on canvas abstracts that introduce mixtures of wax pastel, sand and colored pencil to create topographical-like changes in texture. Silhouettes of leaves float across seismic vibration lines in the sand while a craterous moon emerges on the horizon, all like a desert planet seen through a glitching kaleidoscope. Hutnick, a resident of Sharon and director of artistic programming at The Wassaic Project in Amenia, New York, will discuss his work at Geary with New York Times art writer Laura van Straaten Saturday, March 9, at 5 p.m.

Keep ReadingShow less
Caught on Camera: Our wildlife neighbors

Clockwise from upper left: Wildlife more rarely caught by trail cameras at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies: great blue heron, river otters, a bull moose, presenter and wildlife biologist Michael Fargione, a moose cow, and a barred owl.

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

‘You don’t need to go to Africa or Yellowstone to see the real-life world of nature. There are life and death struggles in your wood lot and backyard,” said Michael Fargione, wildlife biologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, during his lecture “Caught on Camera: Our Wildlife Neighbors.”

He showed a video of two bucks recorded them displaying their antlers, then challenging each other with a clash of antlers, which ended with one buck running off. The victor stood and pawed the ground in victory.

Keep ReadingShow less