Silver Creek CSD

Third-graders from Silver Creek Elementary School went on a field trip to Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve in Depew on June 15, 2023, where they enjoyed a “World of the Pond” guided lesson and hike. 🚌 🌏💧 Students from the classrooms of Estee, Schuster, Mohan, Weiss, and Williams attended along with chaperones Woods, Restivo, Burke, Kolasa, and O’Connor. 🏫 This educational experience was funded via the NYS Parks Connect Kids grant. Thank you to the staff at Reinstein Woods for being so welcoming to our Black Knights. 🫶

RIT 2023 High School Junior Awards: The following were selected in recognition of their leadership, service and achievements: (L to R) Katelyn Gard- Art and Design Award Jorge Hasbun- Science and Math Award Rachel Beadle- Computing Award Kendal Brunn- Business and Leadership Award Stephanie VanCheri- Humanities and Social Sciences Award Emily Bowers- Women in STEM Award The awardees will receive a waived application fee and a $19,000 annual award if they are admitted to RIT.

A group of students from Silver Creek Central School District enjoyed a field trip to The Buffalo Zoo on Monday, June 5, 2023. 🚌 The temperature made for a great day to see many of the animals active within their enclosures. Some of the favorites for Mrs. Heller’s class were the gorillas during feeding time and the seals doing flips. Mrs. Voigt’s class enjoyed seeing some of their favorite animals up close. 🦍 🦭 👀 Black Knights from the classrooms of Mrs. Heller, Mrs. Buczkowski, Mrs. Fennell, Mrs. Voigt, and Mrs. Tanski attended. 💛🖤💛🖤

Black Knights in Ms. Kristin McChesney’s Health & Wellness classes enjoyed the recent beautiful weather the week of June 12, 2023, for some outdoor "team-building" games. Students in Pre-Kindergarten through fifth grade engaged in playful collaborative activities as the 2022-2023 academic year comes to an end.

Second-graders from Mrs. Postle, Miss Meyerhofer, Miss Conner, Miss Kline and Mrs. Bunge's classes at Silver Creek Elementary took a field trip to Evangola State Park on June 6, 2023. 🚌 🌲 These Black Knights enjoyed participating in four educational centers including bird watching, building sand castles, playing on new playgrounds and doing a marsh study. It was awesome learning about local ecosystems and learning the names of local bodies of water. 🦅🏖️🤸💧 Thank you to the guides from the park for teaching everyone so much. We are looking forward to return visits! ☺️ 🫶🖤💛

Sophomore Mattison Larson organized a charity Four Square tournament May 23, 2023, for Silver Creek High students and teachers to compete. 💪 To promote the event, Mattison made flyers and posted them around campus. 🪧 🎊 She worked to get a total of 12 teams of one teacher and 3 students per team organized. 🏫 During the tourney, she hosted a bake sale with cupcakes, cookies and Rice Krispie treats. 🧁🍪 Mattison raised $151 via the event and donated it to the Silver Creek Food Pantry. 💰 The winner of the tournament was Mr. Sadler’s team with a total of 34 points. 🏆 Kudos to Mattison on learning a lifelong lesson on the importance of giving back to the community! 🙌🫶

SERVICE, SAND & SWAG: Dozens of members of the Class of 2023 at Silver Creek fanned out in the community to lend a hand on the annual Senior Day of Service. 🚌 💪 The 12th-graders gathered together Monday, June 5, 2023, to collaborate for a greater good. The students volunteered at various places around the community picking up trash and sticks at St. Columban’s on the Lake, Borrello Beach, Sunset Bay Beach and on the Seneca Nation territory. 🤝 Afterward, the students went to Sunset Bay Beach to have the annual beach bash where they enjoyed sun, sand, games, prizes and food. 🏖️ 🏐 🪣 🌊 🌭 🥤 🎉 Chaperones for the event were class advisors Elizabeth Guzzetta, Bridget Hojnacki, Kristen Foley, Carolyn Laurenzi, Mary Williams, and Josh Sadler. 🧑‍🏫 Thank you to the Silver Creek Parent Teacher Student Association for the prize donations. ☺️

SHE’S A BLACK KNIGHT WHO BETTERS THE LIVES OF OTHERS: Silver Creek High sophomore Karissa Buchanan is one of only two top students from Chautauqua County to receive the inaugural Anne Frank Humanitarian award sponsored by the Holocaust & Social Justice program with the Hebrew Congregation of Chautauqua. 🤩 Karissa, who was nominated by social studies teacher Mrs. Jessica Kardashian, will be honored in August as part of the Shirley Lazarus speakers series at the Chautauqua Institution. 👏 The Anne Frank Humanitarian Award is open to any student in the county who exemplifies a willingness to help others. 🫶 “In my eyes, it represents someone who, long after most of us are gone, will leave the world a better place than they found it and devotes time and effort to give back to others,” says Kardashian. “Karissa she is one of the most kind, caring, compassionate and passionate students I have ever met.” Karissa is one of the Class of 2025’s most active volunteers. She is president of History and Culture club, Knights Against Cancer, Earth Club, captain of our Quiz Bowl team, one of the curators of the Silver Creek Veteran’s Wall. 🌏 🇺🇸 “She cares about others in a way that is very rare and genuine. Karissa wants others to live a better life and does everything that she can to work to make that happen,” says Kardashian, who advises and frequently volunteers alongside the 10th-grader. In addition, Karissa served as emcee at the Bald for Bucks event this spring, taking extra care to meet with the organizers, prepare and bring an unmatched energy to an event that is both delicate and fulfilling. 🎤 “The influence Karissa has among her peers, among the people she’s volunteering with, and that she has on her teachers and the community is admirable,” says Kardashian. “Karissa was the very first person that came to mind the moment I saw the nomination information.” Please join us in congratulating Karissa. 🙌🖤💛

Finishing the school year, Mr. Cerne's Applied Technology class partnered with Mr. Tomaszewski to create bird boxes for Eastern Blue Birds. Years ago, there was a blue bird trail on the Silver Creek campus but many of the boxes have been broken or taken down over the years. Mr. T gave a presentation to Mr. Cerne's class on his desire to rebuild this trail and the two teachers came up with a set of guidelines for the students, taking into consideration how to clean the houses, how to protect the birds from predators, and how to properly mount them around the campus, while allowing for student creativity. The students then created CAD drawings of their projects and went to work constructing their houses, utilizing CNC engraving and 3D modeling in the process. The completed projects will sound be found around the SCCS campus. 🐦

Nine outstanding students of Silver Creek High were feted for attaining the NYS Seal of Civic Readiness during the 2022-2023 academic year. 🏅👏 This special designation signifies they demonstrated civic knowledge, skills and actions, mindsets, and experiences. It acknowledges student achievement in Social Studies and English courses as well as civic engagement including community service, work-based experiences, becoming an advocate for policy change, and coordinating service projects to better the community and world. 🌏🫶 These top Black Knights gathered with staff and parents/guardians and loved ones for a celebratory breakfast Thursday, June 8, 2023, in the cafeteria. They were presented with honor cords to wear on graduation night. 🎓 Congratulations to: Payton Brennan, Emma Forthman, Grace Mullen, Isabella Kmitch, Amber Lockwood, Dylan Miller, Samantha Rankin, Harmony Sinders, and Eva Tytka. 💛🖤

Third-graders from Silver Creek Elementary School enjoyed an excursion to Evangola State Park in Brant and Sunset Grill in Irving on June 7, 2023. 🚌 🏖️🍦 While at the park, students enjoyed a sandcastle contest and playing on the playground. Afterward, they had lunch and an ice cream treat. Thank you to Sunset Grill for hosting our Black Knights! ☺️ 🖤💛 📸 Students from the classrooms of Ms. Weiss, Ms. Williams, Ms. Mohan participated. (Due to air quality concerns, the Estee/Schuster field trip is rescheduled for June 20, 2023.)

𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗝𝗨𝗦𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗞𝗜𝗖𝗞𝗦: Silver Creek Central School District hosted its 2nd annual charity kickball tournament Thursday, June 1, 2023, with 40 students and 15 staff volunteering their time for some healthy competition all for the sake of donating back to the Silver Creek Food Pantry. The four student teams made valiant effort but, in the end, The Blue Sox took their medals home. A huge thank-you to all of the student and staff participants, our referees and to Mr. Jackson for volunteering his time to deejay the event! Teacher Jessica Kardashian dropped off more than 150 canned goods plus a monetary donation Monday, June 5, 2023. Our Black Knights are grateful they were able to give back while having an awesome time together.

SCCS students Chloe and Eva Tytka were asked at Bald for Bucks to interview and tell their story and their why- and are now they are featured on a blog post on the Bald for Bucks website! Click the link to view their story! #BaldforBucks https://baldforbucks.org/silver-creek-sisters

Congratulations to the following teachers who received tenure at the Board meeting this evening: Megan Kucharski, Mary Beth Chesbro, Maxine Meyerhofer, Samantha McMullen, Stephanie Sauda

The Silver Creek Key Club had a great time volunteering for the Kiwanis annual Children's Fair this past weekend!

Good Thursday morning everyone, I would like everyone to know that we continue to monitor the air quality in our immediate location and our region because of the smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Currently our area remains in the “orange” guidance. Orange indicates that air is unhealthy for sensitive groups and those individuals should consider limiting strenuous outdoor physical activity to reduce the risk of adverse health effects. People who may be especially sensitive to the effects of elevated levels of pollutants include the very young and those with pre-existing respiratory problems such as asthma or heart disease. As with yesterday afternoon, PE classes and all other classes will remain indoors today, and we have cancelled any outdoor activities planned for afterschool. Any field trips that were planned to be outdoors have been canceled for today also. Please know that all of air that enters the building through the roof top air handlers is run through filters. This is excellent to help reduce bad air particles from entering the building. The more we keep our windows and doors closed, the cleaner the air and thus the better air quality. We will monitor this situation today and tomorrow and make a determination for tomorrow morning based on the recommendation from the Chautauqua County Dept. of Health and the Air Quality Index provided by NYS. Have a good day!

𝗙𝗢𝗖𝗨𝗦 𝗚𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗣 𝗦𝗘𝗧 𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗗𝗔𝗬, 𝗝𝗨𝗡𝗘 𝟭𝟮, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯: The Board of Education has contracted with Danielle O'Connor Consulting and associates to conduct an audit on Student Support Services at Silver Creek Central School District. We are very interested in your thoughts, ideas, and feedback around these critical services for students. As always, the school district is looking for ways to further develop a positive school culture for staff and students and to serve its school population well. In order to obtain your feedback 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗮 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟭𝟮, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯, 𝗮𝘁 𝟱:𝟬𝟬 𝗽.𝗺. 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘂𝗺. Please attend if you are available. For those of you unable to attend or if you would like to share information, you may reach Ms. O'Connor on her cell phone at (716) 581-3943 to speak with her or to schedule an appointment. Your insights and opinions are valued and we look forward to hearing from you. Read the focus group/parent forum letter in full via this website: https://5il.co/1w0qp

Good Wednesday afternoon everyone, I would like everyone to know that we continue to monitor the air quality in our immediate location and our region because of the smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Currently our area remains in the “orange” guidance. Orange indicates that air is unhealthy for sensitive groups and those individuals should consider limiting strenuous outdoor physical activity to reduce the risk of adverse health effects. People who may be especially sensitive to the effects of elevated levels of pollutants include the very young and those with pre-existing respiratory problems such as asthma or heart disease. We have requested that PE classes remain indoors for the remainder of the day and cancelled any outdoor activities planned for afterschool. The Gala event will proceed as planned for this evening. This event is here on our Main campus from approximately 5:00 - 7:00pm in the auditorium. Lastly, please know that all of air that enters the building through the roof top air handlers is run through filters. This is excellent to help reduce bad air particles from entering the building. The more we keep our windows and doors closed, the cleaner the air and thus the better air quality. I’ve also requested the auditorium be air conditioned for this evening’s concert. By turning on the air conditioning units for the auditorium, we reduce the amount of air being pulled in from outside – the air is recycled and conditioned. This is good to help reduce any smell and pollution from outside. The forecast seems to indicate the air quality should be better for tomorrow. Rest assured, we will monitor this closely for tomorrow and the next few days as needed. Have a good day!

𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗔𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗦𝗘: 𝗔𝗧 𝗞𝗜𝗗𝗦' 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗚𝗘, 𝗜𝗧 𝗜𝗦 𝗖𝗢𝗢𝗟 𝗧𝗢 𝗕𝗘 𝗔 𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗪-𝗜𝗧-𝗔𝗟𝗟 A celebration of deeper learning was held in May 2023 for the Knight University program at Silver Creek Central School District, now in its seventh year. Knight U, a grant-funded afterschool opportunity, centers around topics of interest to the educators and teachers’ individual passions. Parents/guardians and families of Knight U participants gathered May 11 for displays and performances by the kids’ college “graduates.” The spring 2023 semester featured classes on yoga, drumming, community service, self-expression, bowling and weightlifting. One goal of Knight U is for Silver Creek students to become “experts” by demonstrating their skills while explaining what they learned through their activities and lessons. The other goals include having fun and building stronger relationships with their instructors and peers. Academics are infused in numerous ways. For example, students in “The Wonderful World of Bowling” led by Ms. Schumaker and Mr. Colson not only enjoyed field trips to Hanover Lanes, but they also learned about the history of bowling and how to keep score the “old fashioned” way. “Relax and Unwind” with Ms. Conner had the students practicing relaxation and learning about the health benefits of regulating emotions while enhancing their memory and concentration. Stress management was also a bonus to Mrs. Jamie Monaco’s “Bucket Beats” class, which focused on drumming. The young musicians learned to collaborate to pick up each other's rhythm while listening carefully. Ms. Robbins led the “Expressive Art” option, which suggested fun ways to learn about oneself through writing, drawing, painting, music while managing frustration and anxiety, among other complicated feelings. Community service and building relationships were at the heart of “Kind Kids in Action” with Ms. McChesney, who taught students that being a nice person is contagious. They worked together to cultivate positivity and happiness not only in themselves but their classmates and community via random acts of kindness. The first-ever high school Knights U course was Curls for Girls, a weightlifting course led by Ms. Dole. It met from March to May 2023. It was so successful that they anticipate expanding options for students in grades 6-12. Silver Creek is eager to offer additional middle school and high school courses in 2023-2024, along with the well-established elementary program. Knight U courses are filled on a first come, first serve basis and spaces are limited. The district anticipates developing fresh course offerings and sharing registration information with families during the 2023-2024 academic year.

Third-graders from Silver Creek Elementary School took an educational field trip to the Buffalo Museum of Science on Thursday, June 1, 2023. Students from the classrooms of Ester, Mohan, Schuster, Weiss, Williams, O’Connor and Tanski enjoyed lessons on the water cycle