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Written by Stacie M. Waldman

Published: 24 November 2015

Created: 24 November 2015

Last Updated: 01 December 2015

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"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world," wrote Anne Frank in her diary in 1944.

We all know the WHY we should get involved, but the WHAT and the HOW are can be more challenging to figure out on your own, so here are some easy, quick, and meaningful ways to get involved in giving during the holidays. Many recent Facebook posts on Scarsdale Moms and Westchester Moms ask about how one might participate in charitable work here in Westchester over the holidays. Some want to include their children in doing good deeds during the holiday season.

A mom of two in Edgemont works hard throughout the year to keep her kids involved in charitable work. "Every child is different," she said. "I take my son to volunteer because he is eager to help and serve and others. He enjoys it. I take my daughter to volunteer because while she can be kind when she chooses to be, she often puts herself first and is not eager to share or care for others." This mom told me that she continues to involve her daughter in volunteer work so she can learn how good she has it, and how good it can feel to help others. "As she gets older," she added, "I will continue to make a point of including it and requiring it from her."

Here's the low-down on some good deed opportunities in the Scarsdale area.

Donate Money or Items
A Quaker Ridge mom of two does the same thing we do during Chanukah and it can be done for Christmas or birthdays as well. One night, their gift is a gift of money that goes to a charity to which they would like to donate. My kids are 5 and 7 so we have always helped them figure out a cause that is important to them. My daughter loves animals (and dolphins especially), so last year she donated to the Clearwater Aquarium in Florida (home of the tail-less dolphin from Dolphin Tales 1 and 2.) My son loves soccer and we found a charity that brings soccer equipment and training to impoverished communities in the U.S. and abroad. For her birthday, my daughter asked friends to donate pet items which she gave to a local shelter. She certainly got something out of this because they let her play with the animals and wrote her a beautiful thank you note, and now she wants to do the same for her birthday this year. Bringing her to the shelter really helped her see that she was helping the animals. Be sure to check out a site like www.charitynavigator.org before you donate money.

Jen Premisler, a Quaker Ridge mom oftwo sons (ages 5 and 2) has found a wonderful way to bring charity into her home. "It started three years ago when our family was talking about Chanukah and what the kids needed or wanted; it occurred to us that our kids didn't have a true need for anything. I don't apologize for that," she continued, "but I think our boys should understand what other kids may feel during the holidays. Instilling a sense of community responsibility in them was important to us." Jen started a Chanukah tradition: one night her boys would not receive a gift but rather give a gift to a child that would otherwise not receive one. "We wanted the gift to be donated to a child locally so it was related to our community responsibility," she said. "They come shopping with me for the gift and we donate it." The first year they found a local place for gift donation but quickly realized that others wanted to participate as well. Jen found a way on her own to partner with Grace Church and Lifting Up Westchester. "My partner there, Nancy Inzinna, has been amazing throughout this journey," she said. Last year, she put a post on Facebook about what they were doing and encouraged others to join resulting in 30 families donating over 50 gifts. This year over 80 donated gifts have been promised by families in the Scarsdale community. "Lifting Up Westchester supplies the wish list from kids at the shelter and who are a part of their after school program," Jen said. "We bring the gifts to Lifting Up Westchester during Chanukah. Families that have donated gifts come with us so that kids can see what it looks like to bring this many gifts and give them away. One night of Chanukah we talk about how we donated and delivered the gifts when we light the candles. Contact Jen at jen.premisler@gmail.com if you'd like to see an underprivileged child's wish list and donate a gift.

Leslie Chang, a Scarsdale mom, is a board member with Family Services of Westchester  and looks forward to its adopt-a-family program every year. "Participating in FSW's Adopt-a-Family program has become a part of my family's holiday tradition. Last year, our adopted family was a mother with 4 children who had escaped an abusive situation. The mom had just started an entry-level job and was working hard to overcome trauma and financial obstacles. Giving to another local family in their time of need is what the holidays are all about and it's nice to share that sentiment with my children," she said.

Donate Blood/Plasma/Platelets
The New York Blood Center in Elmsford is a permanent blood donation center. You can donate once or on a regular basis and they accept blood, plasma, and platelets. You can be creative with blood donation and even make a date night out of it with your partner. The Elmsford location has later hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays and a back route gets you to fabulous restaurants in Tarrytown in 7 minutes.

I have brought my kids with me to donate blood and the techs have been great at explaining to them how donating blood can help save someone's life. This is recommended for kids ages 6+ and they should be able to sit for at least 30 minutes. Your kids might even get treated to a snack and stickers.

The Red Cross holds regular blood donation drives all over Westchester. 

Local hospitals also have blood donation centers. Call for specific donation policies and donation center hours.

Thank our Civil Servants
A great and easy way to say thanks to Scarsdale's firefighters, ambulance workers, or police is to drop off a tray of food for them. (Sandwiches, cookies, even a couple of pizzas.) Kids will love saying thank you and if they're old enough to make cards or pictures, this is always appreciated.

Church and Synagogue-based Volunteering/Charity
Contact your local religious organization about volunteer activities. Many regularly hold food drives, winter coat drives, and general clothing drives. Kids love the feeling of dumping bags of food into collection containers. Laurie Feinstein, a mom of three in Edgemont, volunteered through her synagogue this past weekend preparing food for a Thanksgiving feast hosted by the Coachman homeless shelter in White Plains. "I hope my children learn two things from the experience," she said. "One is that everybody does not have what you have so be grateful for the food, shelter and clothes that just appear in your lives. The other is that you can use your time and two hands to make someone else's day better." She tells her kids, "the bread you knead will be eaten by a child happy to pick it out of the bread basket. The cake you bake will possibly be the only dessert that child has for a week. The Thanksgiving decorations the volunteers put up may be the only ones that have ever been hung up just for them." Laurie will literally tell her children, ages 5 and 7, that while it can be sad to think about what people don't have, it also reminds us of how much power we have in our hands to make someone's life better, even if it's just for a night.

School Charity Collections
Scarsdale schools do a phenomenal job of encouraging children and parents to help those that are less fortunate. Look for information that comes home with your child about what is being collected or go to the school's website for more information.

Westchester County Diaper Bank
The Junior League of Central Westchester (JLCW) has partnered with County Executive Rob Astorino and the Department of Social Services to open the very first diaper bank in Westchester. JLCW and its partners have worked hard to increase the awareness of the need for diapers which are not a luxury item for parents. Diapers are not covered under federal assistance programs and some families must choose between buying diapers or formula, food and medication. Kids are really able to understand this concept, and there's something very cute and meaningful about watching your 3-year-old throw a big pack of diapers in a diaper collection bin. Bins exist all over Scarsdale and you can even host your own diaper drive at your child's preschool, church, synagogue, or fitness center.

Volunteer New York!
The mission of Volunteer New York is to "...inspire, mobilize, and equip individuals and groups to take positive action to address pressing challenges, support nonprofits and strengthen the quality of life in our community." The search engine on their website will allow you to learn about every volunteer opportunity in the area, and actually sign up for dates and times. "We encourage adults to serve, youth to build character, families to bond, young professionals to lead, mature adults to share their wisdom and businesses to support our community," the site reads. And they mean it- many volunteer spots welcome children of various ages.

And, of course, if you'd rather donate money, Giving Tuesday is coming up on December 1st. Just be sure to check out a site like www.charitynavigator.org to ensure that your charity is highly ranked.

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Written by Melissa Hellman

Published: 02 December 2015

Created: 02 December 2015

Last Updated: 03 December 2015

Hits: 9677

At the December 2, 2015 Board of Education meeting, President Lee Maude instructed Board members that at the next Board meeting scheduled on December 14 they would vote on the issue of including Mandarin in the middle school for 2016-2017. She added that each Board member should be prepared to make an individual statement as to why he or she has voted "yes" or "no" on the subject. She asked that Board members quickly issue a request for any further information needed in order to make a thoughtful decision on that date.

Board members will also be asked to vote on the issue of revising the busing policy. Some Board members expressed concern about having to make a decision in isolation of other budget considerations. Other Board members thought it was valuable to separate the decisions from the crunch of the budget. In any event, it was deemed important to respond to the community now on these two issues that have generated a lot of discussion. Click on these links to read our coverage of busing and Mandarin instruction in the schools.  

Also, Board President Maude announced that on December 1 the Board received a detailed report from the community Mandarin Team providing further advocacy for Mandarin in the middle school as well as recommendations for addressing issues with scheduling and leveling within the confines of the house system. The Executive Summary of the report appears below. If any community member is interested in reviewing the entire report, please send an email request to Mayra Kirkendall-Rodriguez (mrvassoc@yahoo.com).

Be sure to attend the December 14, 2015 business meeting that begins at 8:00pm to see the how the Board votes.

Executive Summary of Report from The Mandarin Team

Recently, Mandarin in the Middle School Initiative Team (MMSIT), compromised of a group of Scarsdale parents, submitted a memorandum to the Scarsdale school administration and the School Board with detailed analysis of the benefits of extending Mandarin into the Middle School. MMSIT will be commenting on this report at the December 14th school board meeting and welcomes you to join them. This is the Executive Summary of the 100-page memorandum prepared by Claire He, Brice Kirkendall-Rodríguez, Mayra Kirkendall-Rodríguez, Joanne Teoh, and Julie Zhu.

After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik on October 1957, the United States Congress signed the National Defense Education Act , establishing the legitimacy of federal funding for higher education, including for foreign language education. Almost six decades later, the US is in a second language illiteracy crisis . Less than 20% of Americans report speaking a language other than English, while 53% of Europeans and increasing numbers in other parts of the world can converse in a second language .

Numerous studies demonstrate that studying and speaking a foreign language aid with cognitive development . Even without ever leaving the US, the private and public sectors have significant demand for foreign languages speakers , especially those who speak non-Romance languages. Additionally, foreign language speakers in the US command a salary premium .

In a World Language Committee assembled by the Scarsdale Union Free School District , the committee stated in April 2008 that 'Mandarin remains the Committee's language choice for its strategic importance in the world economic scene, its connection to 21st century skills, and its interest to Scarsdale students and the community.' The World Language Committee recommended that Mandarin be added starting in the sixth grade. At that time, due to budget constraints and a desire to further analyze how Mandarin would be implemented in the middle school, the decision was made to add Mandarin only to the high school curriculum.

Over seven years later, Mandarin has not been introduced in the Scarsdale Middle School. Foreign language instruction does not begin until the second grade and is limited to Spanish, which is taught only twice every six days without differentiating ability; courses are often taught by non-native instructors. In the Middle School, foreign language choice consists of two Romance languages, Spanish and French, where students also are not differentiated by ability and classes are often taught by non-native speakers.

The Mandarin in the Middle School Initiative Team , advocates Mandarin inclusion. China is of paramount importance to the United States, since it is the second largest economy globally. China is now the US's second largest trading partner after Canada .

Mandarin is spoken by over a billion people globally, while in the US, Mandarin is the third most spoken language after English and Spanish. The Chinese population is the fastest growing group in the US .

President Obama launched 'The 1 Million Initiative' to increase the number of Mandarin speakers in the US; moreover, Mandarin is one of the languages considered to be critical to the U.S. national security by the U.S. Department of Education . Across the United States and in nearby tri-state public and private schools, Mandarin is already being taught in middle schools and sometimes even in pre-school and elementary schools. Middle schools in nearby Brewster, Croton Harmon, Mamaroneck, New Rochelle, Pelham, Rye, and White Plains offer Mandarin, as do middle schools in Westport, Connecticut, Linden and Princeton, New Jersey, and Great Neck, Syosset, and New York, New York.

On October 2015, the Scarsdale School Administration sent out four surveys to determine language demand both in the Middle and High Schools. The response to all surveys was significantly higher than typical email surveys and far higher than voter turnout for the Scarsdale school budget . Over 80% of Scarsdale parents who responded to the K-5th grade survey want the current Romance language program expanded. Of those parents, over 50% want Mandarin included. Despite the survey results, the Scarsdale administration determined that the survey response rate was 'too low' without providing a comparison benchmark.

The Mandarin in the Middle School Initiative Team proposes that the administration improve the current course scheduling. We recommend that an entire house takes languages in the same period. Periods 1, 2, 3, 7 and 8 do not conflict with lunch for any grade. Four of these could be used to teach world languages. Students within each house should be enrolled in classes on the basis of their language ability and not grade. Placement tests (oral and verbal) would determine student distribution among levels at the start of each school year .

Our recommendation would allow not only including Mandarin in the Middle School, but also would provide the ability to improve greatly how Spanish and French are currently taught by teaching those languages at different levels to accommodate students' different language backgrounds.

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Written by Melissa Hellman

Published: 19 November 2015

Created: 19 November 2015

Last Updated: 19 November 2015

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Lynne Shain, Scarsdale's Assistant Superintendent for Instruction, presented the results of the world language review community surveys at a BOE study session on November 15. She announced that based on survey results, "the administration recommends continuing the current world language offerings at the middle school and high school for the 2016-17 school year."

As background, during the 2015-16 budgeting process a group of parents presented a petition to the Board requesting Mandarin language instruction in the middle school. In March, the Board responded that it would study the issue for possible addition to the 2016-17 curriculum. This undertaking was further formalized by the inclusion of a world language review as part of the 2015-18 Transition Plan document that is serving as the guidepost for Board of Education endeavors. A committee, comprised of teachers and administrators from the elementary, middle and high school was formed in May to conduct the review and make a recommendation for future changes to the world language program.

The committee sent out four surveys to parents and students over the month of October. Each was designed to gather certain information about interest in world language offerings and potential enrollment in middle school Mandarin.

Survey 1 was sent to parents of students in K-5th grades to determine if adding additional languages to the middle school was important to parents, which languages parents would like to see added and to specifically ask for the language choices by year, if Mandarin was offered. The response rate for this survey was 39%.

Survey 2 was sent to parents of K-11th grade students to determine whether parents would like additional world languages added to the high school program (Mandarin has been offered at the high school since 2011-12) and to determine if parents were interested in their children enrolling in more than one language at a time in their high school program. The response rate for this survey was 17%.

Survey 3 was sent to students in 6th-11th grade to determine their interest in adding an additional language. The response rate for this survey was 9%.

Survey 4 was sent to parents of current 5th graders to get a more accurate count of probable 6th grade student world language choices in the 2016-17 school year if Mandarin was available in the middle school. The response rate for this survey was 54%.

Surveys 1 and 4 had the highest response rate most likely because this group has the most interest in the middle school language offerings in the near term.

Some of the key findings of Survey 1 are that 47% of respondents thought that adding a language at the middle school was very important and an additional 22% ranked it as important. 56% of respondents thought that the additional language should be Mandarin. This survey also determined that a number of the parents who indicated Mandarin as first choice for an additional language at the middle school already have their children enrolled in Mandarin outside of school. This information is considered significant because there would be no leveling of language classes in the middle school. Consequently, there is concern that students who take Mandarin outside of school would already be beyond a 6th grade introductory course.

Survey 4, which attempted to get at the actual middle school language enrollment numbers for next year if Mandarin was offered, indicated that respondents' student enrollment by language would be as shown below.

While the interest in Mandarin is slightly higher than the interest in French, in the administration's view, it is not a strong enough number to justify the programmatic, logistical and financial implications of adding the program at this time. There were some questions raised about the possibility of replacing French with Mandarin. Board member William Natbony noted although the numbers for Mandarin interest were higher than French, surveys did not ask parents if they would like to see French replaced by Mandarin. During discussion Board member Chris Morin supposed, "if we were starting from scratch I think maybe the votes would have been for Spanish and Mandarin rather than Spanish and French, but we are not starting from scratch and we have a very practical set of issues to confront". Some of the issues include the cost of recruiting and hiring a full-time Mandarin teacher and the cost associated with the required corresponding staff reduction in the world language department. Other considerations have to do with the complexities of the middle school schedule driven by the house system (requiring offering the language by grade in all 4 houses), leveling with consideration for the number of students who take Mandarin outside of school, and concern about a drop out rate as has been seen in significant numbers in Mandarin classes in the high school.

The public comment period of the 8:00pm business meeting occurred shortly after the conclusion of Shain's report and recommendation. Mandarin supporters in the community were undeterred and many approached the mic to reiterate their views on the importance of adding Mandarin to the middle school. A few speakers attempted to address some of the concerns raised by Shain such as the drop out rate in the high school may be improved if students began to learn the language earlier and the response rates for surveys 1 and 4 were not "low" even though a low response rate was cited as a factor in driving the Administration's recommendation. Following the meeting, supporters of Mandarin sent a letter to Scarsdale10583 for publication. Read it here.

The detailed survey results as well as further explanations on the issues under consideration can be found in the appendix to the meeting agenda (pages 4-45). The entire study session can be viewed on the Video on Demand site.