Niagara Gazette - NIAGARA FALLS: School board deals with vandals and students struggling with cursive

Tue, Dec 02 2008

Published: August 29, 2008 03:33 pm

NIAGARA FALLS: School board deals with vandals and students struggling with cursive

By Caitlin Murray
E-mail Caitlin
Niagara Gazette

Problems with vandals outside Niagara Street Elementary are prompting Niagara Falls School District heads to look at increasing surveillance outside the school in the evening hours.

From youths climbing onto the roof and constant garbage covering the ground to rarer instances of trash cans being set on fire and graffiti sprawling across walls, long-time problems near the site are garnering more than a second look. District employees pick up garbage every morning, but it’s getting hard to keep up with, Superintendent Carmen Granto said Thursday. Facilities workers have noticed chips to the parking lot curbs from skateboarders and are still trying to remove stubborn graffiti applied with a permanent marker as the first day of school fast approaches, said Butch Beyer, building and grounds superintendent.

“We’ve been having more and more (problems) with the number of kids out there everyday,” Beyer said. “Everyday more and more trash is left behind.”

One solution includes adding a safety officer from 3 to 11 p.m. to monitor the building. A safety officer at Gaskill Preparatory School was recently laid off but if the district can find the funds, they may be able to bring back the position to Niagara Street. Gaskill still has one other safety officer.

“It’s good in one sense that the kids have a place to go, but we should have somebody there,” Granto said. “... It’s a matter of finding funds right now and to see if it’s effective. I’ll report back to the board in September.”

By next month, Granto hopes to have to roughly $5,400 allocated toward moving some of Niagara Street Elementary’s indoor cameras to monitor the outside area instead, where problems more commonly occur.

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The district is gearing up to implement its new handwriting instruction program this year to all students from pre-kindergarten through sixth-grade. Though the district did offer handwriting instruction before, many students were struggling to complete their state assessment tests because they were printing their essays instead of using cursive, district assessment officer Marcia Capone reported to the school board in February.

A special handwriting committee had been charged with investigating why some students were not using longhand writing and the result is this year’s new cursive program. By last month, the board had already approved $50,000 toward a new workbook series that will carry the students through elementary school.

When school starts next week, 15 minutes will be set aside everyday for handwriting work in the classroom, said Carol Gold, head of curriculum and instruction.

“We did in the past teach handwriting but not in the formal sense — it was supposed to be taught but we didn’t have a specific program,” Gold said. “Two years ago we did purchase (a writing program), so it’s not like we didn’t have it, but not every child had a workbook; only third grade did. It didn’t seem to be enough of a structured program.”

Now, with time focused specifically on handwriting and a workbook series following each child in all elementary grades, the goal is to have all children writing in cursive by fourth-grade, Gold said.

But technology may be another hindrance influencing children’s behavior — text messages and e-mails have replaced handwritten notes for youngsters in today’s digital world. Some board members noted at a prior board meeting even some adults print and don’t seem to know cursive well.