Avon Central Schools

For the past year, a variety of stakeholder groups have been working hard to define our district and community values. While we’ve previously relied on the BRAVES Way (Brave-Responsible-Actively Involved-Values-Effort-Safe) and its accompanying matrix to inform our character education curriculum, it became necessary to re-examine this framework in light of the New York State Education Department’s mandate to cease using Indigenous names and imagery. A dozen stakeholder groups with representatives from our board of education, teaching faculty, facilities and transportation departments, business office, Lions and Rotary clubs and, most importantly, our student body, have been meeting to discuss our shared values and the ideals we aspire to as a district community. Using these discussions and the 60 unique shared values stakeholders came up with as a foundation, our district decided on three values that best encapsulate our district: Kindness, integrity and community. From there, our staff worked collectively to define what these values look and sound like in our school community. We feel these values pay homage to the BRAVES Way and position us to move forward together into a bright future. We shared these new values with our faculty and staff last week and today, we’re sharing them with you at the link below! Many thanks to our Elementary School Innovative Program Specialist Ian Smith for putting this announcement video together! Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8jjPlAc0YU

As part of the Rochester Broadway Theatre League’s annual Stars of Tomorrow program, select high school students from schools across the Greater Rochester are now vying to represent Rochester at the National High School Musical Theatre Awards, also known as The Jimmy Awards. Avon’s own Emma D., who portrayed Mother Superior in our drama club’s production of “Sister Act” earlier this year, will be going up against 40 other top lead performers from across the region as part of RBTL’s NYC Bound Competition. Emma will perform one song from “Sister Act” and one or two others from a list of options for a panel of expert judges, who will whittle down the initial 41 competitors to a top 10, then the final two - one leading male and one leading female - who will travel to New York for The Jimmy Awards. We know you’ll join us in wishing Emma the absolute best AND in voting for her in RBTL’s Fan Favorite competition at the link below. The person with the most votes will receive an RBTL prize package that includes tickets to an upcoming production of “Les Miserables.” Voting closes Wednesday, May 22 at 12 p.m. Let’s go, Emma! Link: https://www.rochesterfirst.com/contests/rbtl-2024-sot-may2024/#/gallery/438420914

In the video linked below, Avon Superintendent Dr. Ryan Pacatte brings viewers through the district’s budget proposal for the 2024-25 school year. Pacatte will go over much of this information at tonight’s public hearing, which begins at 7 p.m. in the Middle School Auditorium, 191 Clinton St., Avon. Residents will vote on the budget, board of education candidates and other propositions on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. Polls will be open at the Middle School Auditorium from 1 to 9 p.m. More budget information can be found on our budget webpage and in our budget newsletter at the links below. Budget presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSxdHUjvcwQ Budget webpage: https://www.avoncsd.org/page/budget Budget newsletter: https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/1897/AvonCSD/4289406/avon_budger_newsletter_FINAL_VERSION__1_.pdf

Last week, our first grade students welcomed author Kevin Kurtz into their classrooms! Kurtz, an award-winning children’s author, visited each of our first grade classrooms to lead students in some non-fiction writing exercises and activities. “The visit went great,” said First Grade Teacher Jennifer Leonard. “He worked on non-fiction writing with the students and connected it to our science unit on sky patterns. The kids loved it!” Thank you for spending the week with us, Mr. Kurtz! (Photos courtesy of Jen Leonard)

Don’t forget - the Avon Board of Education has scheduled a public hearing tonight at 7 p.m. for the purpose of collecting residents’ comments on the 2024-20256 budget proposal. The hearing will take place in our MIddle School Auditorium, 191 Clinton St., Avon. And before tonight’s hearing, make sure you take a look at our budget newsletter on our website at the link below! Link: https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/1897/AvonCSD/4289406/avon_budger_newsletter_FINAL_VERSION__1_.pdf

Congratulations to 2nd grader Norah C. and 3rd grader Phoebe L., our Elementary School Music Students of the Month for April! Each month, Music Teacher Mrs. Kaylee Corell recognizes two students as students of the month - one from third and fourth grade and one from first and second grade. Students are chosen based on how frequently they make Corell’s “Wall of Fame” for things like playing or singing a song well, answering a difficult music question correctly or displaying exceptional behavior and focus. Well done, Norah and Phoebe!

The town of Avon is once again offering a summer recreation program for children who will be entering grades K through 6 in September 2024. Children will participate in outdoor activities, arts, crafts, games and special events. This year, there are 3 options to register: 1. Fill out the form below and return it to the Avon Town Offices at 27 Genesee St. 2. Email the completed form to recreation@avon-ny.org. 3. Sign up online at the link here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeqsEOkcxYO8UMm8LP1pDROswLDehJt0w0ZdZ9eeKpe9zabZw/viewform Registration is due June 7.

Don’t forget - Superintendent Ryan Pacatte will lead a webinar TONIGHT on Avon’s budget proposal with a particular focus on the district’s projected revenues for the 2024-25 school year. Use the link below or scan the QR code in the accompanying image to join the webinar, which begins at 5:30 p.m. Link: https://meet.google.com/jzw-vbxw-hju

Another run, another record for junior Finn S.! Before yesterday’s meet against Geneseo, our teams’ last home meet of the season, Finn asked coach Samantha Walker whether he could run the 3,200 for the first time this season. “When he finished his race yesterday, I told him his time, to which he informed me he broke the school record,” said Walker. “I didn't believe him, so I had to check for myself and found out he did indeed break the school record!” Finn ran a 10:15.64, besting his time from last season by more than 97 seconds and breaking Avon’s old school record of 10:22.32 set by Nick Campbell in 2009 by more than 6 seconds! “With a school record now in the 800 meters and 3,200 meters, Finn has his eyes set on the record for the 1,600 meters and 3,000-meter steeplechase for next year,” said Walker. Last night was also senior night where we recognized seniors Brenna D., Kaitlyn G., Cassidy P., Isis S. and Fabian S. The Braves are next in action at the LCAA Championships next week. Congratulations to Finn and our seniors! (Photos courtesy of Samantha Walker)

Heads up, Avon - our budget newsletter will be distributed in this weekend’s edition of the Genesee Valley Penny Saver. It’s chock full of information about our 2024-25 budget proposal which district residents will vote on Tuesday, May 21. Polls will be open in our Middle School Auditorium, 191 Clinton St., Avon, from 1 to 9 p.m. We’ve also posted it on our website at the link below. Link: https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/1897/AvonCSD/4289406/avon_budger_newsletter_FINAL_VERSION__1_.pdf

Our varsity track and field athletes traveled to Batavia Saturday for the highly competitive Batavia Invitational. With 22 schools in attendance, Avon did more than just show up and compete. Our girls team had a total of 10 season personal records, 3 of which were career bests. Isis S. was the only girl to score for Avon, placing 6th in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 17.81 seconds. This is a season best time for Isis and is only .03 seconds away from her career best from last season. Salogar also competed in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1:21.45, earning a season best time by 1.59 seconds. Mollie G. also had a day full of personal best performances, competing in the Pentathlon. Mollie earned season bests in 4 of her 5 events for the day: 10-meter hurdles (18.56), 800-meter run (2:58.37), high jump (4 feet, 3.25 inches) and shot put (22 feet, 7.75 inches), earning her career best in shot put by 1 foot, 2.25 inches. Megan K. had a season best in the 800-meter run by 4.38 seconds with a time of 2:51.46. Cassidy P. had a season best in shot put by .5 inches with a distance of 20 feet, .5 inches. Hannah C. had a season and career best in discus by 10 inches with a distance of 55 feet, 2 inches. Savannah S. has a season and career best in the 1,500-meter run by 19 seconds with a time of 7:58.26. Our boys had a total of 21 season personal records, 9 of which were career bests. Finn S., Blayden B. and Jordan M. scored for the boys. Finn placed 2nd in the 1,600-meter run to earn a spot on the podium with a time of 4:36.73, beating his season and career best time by 18 seconds. Blayden placed 6th in the Pentathlon with 2,146 points (a career best by 375 points), having an outstanding day with season bests in all 5 of his events, 4 of which were career bests: 100-meter hurdles (18.16), long jump (16 feet, 10.75 inches), high jump (4 feet, 11 inches), shot put (29 feet, 2.5 inches), and 1,500-meter (5:26.42). Jordan placed by tying for 6th place in high jump with a jump of 5 feet, 10 inches, earning a season best by 1 inch. “The personal bests for both the girls and boys this season hasn’t stopped, making this a very successful season for us,” said Coach Samantha Walker. “The boys and girls will compete next at home versus Geneseo on Tuesday for their last dual meet of the season. After this, the team will be working to prepare for the championship season and are expecting more great performances. Their mental toughness and contagious positivity has taken them far this season. We can't wait to see them continue to surprise us in the championship season!” (Photos courtesy of Samantha Walker)

Budget season is upon us and there are some important dates fast approaching that we don’t want you to miss. Take a look at the graphic below to see we've got coming up!

TITLE DEFENDERS: Avon seniors Austin L. and Dom P. captured the Section V Class B2 doubles title this past weekend for the second straight year! After a first round bye at Churchville-Chili High School Saturday, Austin and Dom topped teams from Marcus-Whitman (10-0), Penn Yan (10-1) and East Rochester (10-3) en route to the finals where they defeated the team of Jack Currin and Jake Elmore from Le Roy, 6-4, 6-1, to win their second sectional title in as many years. Their sectional patch now in hand, Austin and Dom will next travel to Brockport High School May 24 for state qualifier matches against the top doubles teams from classes A and B for a chance to compete in the New York State Championships at the USTA’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, New York City. Austin and Dom won’t be going to Brockport alone however as our team of Nick and Ryan W. also punched their state qualifiers ticket after tying for 3rd in the B2 bracket Saturday. Nick and Ryan won their first match over Williamson, 10-7, in the round of 16 but fell to a team from Le Roy, 3-10, in the quarterfinals. Backs against the wall in the consolation bracket, Nick and Ryan rattled off 2 straight wins, 10-1 over the team of DeRoo/Smith from North Rose-Wolcott and 6-3, 6-1 over the team of Francis/Antonicelli from East Rochester, to assure their place in Brockport later this month. Congratulations, Austin and Dom and Nick and Ryan! (Photos courtesy of Adam Wheeler)

Avon’s own Jessie C. started out Thursday’s game against Warsaw with 494 career strikeouts. By the time Braves’ 7-0 win over the Tigers was official, Jessie had hurled 18 Ks and passed the 500 career strikeouts milestone. A sophomore, Jessie now has 512 career strikeouts with 7 games left to go in the regular season. Congratulations, Jessie, and our entire varsity softball team! The Braves are now 8-3 on the season and are next in action Monday, May 6, at home against Le Roy. Game time is 4:30 p.m. (Photos courtesy of Hailie Myers)

On Wednesday, Elizabeth Patteson’s painting and printmaking students took a field trip to the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts’ gallery spaces up on Livingston County’s Murray Hill campus in Mount Morris. Morgan Hellquist, executive director of GVCA, led students on a tour of the campus and taught them a bit about GVCA’s history. Then, students had a chance to see some of the paintings currently on display in the galley space and even got to take a look around the Council’s storage area. “Hundreds of artworks were once created there during the New Deal era in the 1930s as part of the Federal Art program,” said Patteson. “The paintings have quite a history of display, poor storage, office employees taking them home with them, inadequate storage again, things like that. The gallery is currently fundraising to create better storage and restore some of the works.” Many thanks to GVCA for hosting our students! (Photos courtesy of Elizabeth Patteson)

Over the past few weeks, Wendy Dale’s 4th grade English students have been working on a non-fiction research project and recently, they headed up to the high school to share their work with Mrs. Cordula Kennell’s creative writing students! Dale’s students could choose either a person or an animal, as long as they chose a topic they knew nothing about. Some of the topics Dale’s students chose included sea slugs, salamanders, chinchillas, blobfish, Giannis Antetokuonmpo, Zendaya and Leo Messi. “The high school students offered feedback and lots of compliments on the 4th graders’ writing. Students also had a few minutes to share things about themselves and my kids liked that part too,” said Dale. “One of my students shared today that they enjoyed sharing their writing as it gave them a purpose for actually doing the project!” (Photos courtesy of Wendy Dale)

We were driving by the elementary school the other day when a pop of color near the main entrance caught our eye. Turns out, this absolutely beautiful garden of tulips and daffodils is all thanks to our kindergarteners who planted the bulbs last fall with the help of Mr. Michael Garrett, one of our teacher aides. “He came to me to see if the kindergarteners were interested in helping plant bulbs to spruce up the front entrance,” said Kindergarten Teacher Heather Watkins. “There was no initial academic component to it, but it has weaved its way nicely into our current curriculum as we have been studying living things and plants the past two weeks, so we’ve been making some extra stops on our way out to study their hard work and notice the parts of the flower that we have been learning about in class.” While the garden may have been Garrett’s idea, he credited Watkins and her family and Elementary School Physical Education Teacher Katlyn Bennetti and her family with helping make it a reality. “They spent a Saturday afternoon pulling weeds out of the area and Mrs. Watkins supervised kindergarten volunteers from all 4 kindergarten classes who planted bulbs during their afternoon playground time,” said Garrett. “It took 4 afternoons to plant 320 bulbs. The beauty that we're all enjoying this spring is the product of these people's work and I for one am very grateful!” Thank you to our kindergarteners, Mrs. Watkins, Mrs. Bennetti and Mr. Garrett for brightening up our campus!

SAVE THE DATE: In consideration of our varsity track & field, baseball and softball athletes, the 7-12 Spring Choral Concert originally scheduled for May 16 has been rescheduled for May 29. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to see you at our Middle School Auditorium, 191 Clinton St., Avon, on the 29th at 7 p.m.!

Solid turnout for Library Media Specialist Suzanne Freeman’s Painting Party in the High School Library last week. Have to say - we’re pretty impressed with what our painters managed in just 30 minutes! (Photos courtesy of Suzanne Freeman)

Our varsity track and field athletes traveled to Le Roy last night. Our boys came out with the 70-60 win over the Oatkan Knights while our girls team fought hard before ultimately falling, 45-87. For our girls team: • Sophie P. was the top scorer for the girls team with 15 points, earning 1st place in the 3,000-meter run (13:04) and 1st place in the 1,500-meter run (5:46). • Kaitlyn G, was our next top scorer with 11 points, earning 1st in the 800-meter run (2:43) and 3rd in the 1,500 meters (5:58). • Sophie and Kaitlyn were also both part of the winning 4x800-meter relay team, along with Megan K. and Maria G. with a time of (11:26). • Mollie G. took 1st in the long jump (15 feet, 3 inches), 2nd in the 100-meter hurdles (19.34), and 3rd in the high jump (3 feet, 10 inches). • Megan K. placed 3rd in the 3,000-meter run (13:10). • Isis S. took 1st in the 100-meter hurdles (18.74) and 3rd in the 400 hurdles (1:23). • Brenna D. tied for 1st in high jump (4 feet, 3 inches) and 3rd in long jump (14 feet). • Cassidy P. took 3rd in both the shot put (19 feet, 8 inches) and discus (54 feet, 3 inches) • Quinn F. took 3rd in the triple jump (19 feet, 8 inches). For our boys team: • Finn S. was the top scorer for the boys with 18 points, earning 1st in the 800-meter (2:23) and 1,600-meter (5:02) runs and 2nd in the 400 meters with a shocking time of 54.74. • Fabian S. and Elijah R. were our next top scorers, each earning 12 points for the team. Fabi scored 2nd place finishes in the 100-meter dash (12.14) and 200-meter run with an impressive time of 24.44 and a 3rd place in the 400-meter run (55.94) while Eli scored with a 1st place finish in the triple jump (35 feet, 7 inches) and 3rd place finishes in the 200 meters (25.54) and long jump (17 feet). • Finn, Fabi, and El were part of the winning 4x400-meter relay team, along with Jordan M. • Sage P. took 1st place in the 400-meter hurdles (1:03.54), 2nd in the 110 hurdles (18.74),and 2nd place in the long jump (17 feet, 1 inch), setting a personal record in all 3 events. • Jordan M. tied for 1st in the high jump (5 feet, 5 inches) and took 3rd in the 100-meter dash (12.24). • Wyatt K. took 2nd in the 3,200 meters (11:30) and 3rd in the 1,600 meters (5:23). • Blayden B took 2nd place in the 400 hurdles (1:33) and 1st in the 110 hurdles (18.64). • Luigi M. scored his first points on varsity this season as an 8th grader, earning 2nd place in the 800 meters (2:27). • Dominick G. took 3rd place in the 3,200 meters (14:08). • Gabriel M. placed 3rd in the discus (79 feet, 11 inches). The Braves will next be in action this weekend at the Batavia Invitational. (Photos courtesy of Samantha Walker)