VOORHEESVILLE — Students here are eager to explore new worlds.

Monday, the school board was charmed by a visitor from Indonesia and listened intently to a middle-school student who wants to try a new approach to learning.

After the terrorists’ attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, a scholarship was established to bring Muslim students to the United States, Happy Scherer, a volunteer with American Field Services, told the school board. She said Voorheesville has had students as part of that program for two years in a row.

Last year, she said, one of the students, Sulemana Abdul-Rafiu, from Ghana, had never played soccer with shoes on. Scherer took him to a podiatrist before he got his first pair of cleats to play on the school’s varsity team.
Monday night, Scherer introduced Ninuk Sumiarsih, a radiant student from Indonesia. "More than a thousand students in her country applied," said Scherer.

Sumiarsih, 17, who has studied English since she was in the second grade, first addressed the board in her native tongue, and then translated. She speaks Indonesian, Japanese, and English and is currently studying Spanish at Voorheesville.
"I love America," she said. "Everything is new...We have a different language, a different culture, different food, different everything...I have black hair. You have different colored hair."
She went on about her Voorheesville hosts, "I have a great family. I love the school...I love being here."

Responding to questions from board members, she said she will have to repeat her senior year of high school when she returns home next year. She plans to go to college to study to be a doctor.
Asked what she found most fascinating here, she replied, "I have not seen snow before. We have a tropical climate."
"We are looking for host families for next year," concluded Scherer, adding those who are interested can contact foreign-language teacher Robert Streifer at the high school.

Tech Valley High

Superintendent Linda Langevin and two faculty members will tour Tech Valley High School to see if its programs can be used at Voorheesville.

A joint venture of two area BOCES, the school opened this fall on a business campus — Rensselaer Technology Park in Troy — drawing from school districts in seven counties. Each participating school paid $18,000 to send a student, a percentage of which was to be reimbursed with BOCES aid.
"I think it’s really important...," said Ilyssa Simsek, an eighth-grader who has applied to be a student there next year; she is one of two applicants from Voorheesville. "I really want to go," she told the board.
Simsek visited the school and liked the working environment and team projects. "It was really cool," she said.
"We’d very much like for you to be able to go," said school board President David Gibson, "but, at the same time, it’s not free."
David Adkins, a resident of the district with children in its schools, said he had heard of teachers at other schools taking lessons from Tech Valley back to their districts and commented, "I’m glad we’re working towards getting the exchange."
"One of the ways of looking at this is it’s sort of a big laboratory," said Gibson. The projects that succeed can be used in other districts, he said.

The students are selected by lottery.

Colleen Bates, a Voorheesville student attending Tech Valley High this year, gave the board a glowing report last month on her first term at the new school.

Other business

In other business, the school board:

— Heard a proposal from Charles Voss to apply for a grant to put a generator in the high school for use in an emergency.

The school would become a shelter for the community and the project would require agreements with the town and village, said Voss.

Board member Kevin Kroencke suggested the elementary school might be a better choice since it is closer to the population center.
Richard Brackett, a former school board member, said a proposal for a generator had come before the board four years ago. "We snubbed our noses at it because of the security," he said;

— Welcomed Kristen Heyde as a new guidance counselor;

— Accepted resignations for three long-time employees at the elementary school — teacher’s aid Carol Relyea, attendance clerk JoAnn Donohue, and teacher Karen Beck;
— Adopted a resolution honoring Mary Lynn Williams who worked for the school from 1990 to 2008 as a teaching assistant, stating she "gave tirelessly and unselfishly";

— Appointed Elizabeth Ferenczy as a substitute teacher at the middle and high schools. She has worked for the district as a coach and been a student teacher;

— Appointed Cheryl Koenitzer as a substitute teacher’s aid at the elementary school although she does not yet have fingerprint clearance. The school’s principal, Kenneth Lein, said she was a trusted parent and substitutes are needed;

— Appointed Joy Meyer as a varsity track assistant for $1,713;

— Appointed Michael Schafer as an instructor for the Learn-to-Swim program for $12 per hour;

— Appointed Mary Flansburg as the director of the adult education program for $6,000 a year;

— Accepted 19 non-resident students for the 2008-09 school year;

— Awarded newsletter print work to REM Printing after Empire Printing and Courier Printing withdrew their bids.
"They said they couldn’t do it for the price they bid," said Assistant Superintendent for Business Sarita Winchell;
— Heard from Theresa Kennedy, middle-level administrator, that the second "Teen Night" of the year had to be canceled because, she said, "We lack parent chaperones."

For safety reasons, she said, she likes 20 chaperones; only seven parents were lined up for last Friday’s event.
"They don’t have to actually run into their child...if they don’t want that to happen," said Kennedy. Parents who want to chaperone can call the middle-school office;

— Heard from Kennedy that the middle-school lunch period will be extended from 20 minutes to 30;

— Heard from high school Principal Mark Diefendorf that Shakespeare & Company’s performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was well received.
"When you see men in tights, it can cause us to giggle. The students responded very well," he said; they laughed at the right parts;

— Reviewed a state-required School Facility Report Card from Michael Goyer, supervisor of operations, maintenance, and transportation.
The state also requires an architect’s review of school buildings every five years. In 2005, Collins & Scoville Architects found problems at the elementary school, leading to an "unsatisfactory" rating.
With work done on the recent bond-issue project, Goyer said, "We’re in the process of correction." He concluded, "It’s always going to be a work in progress";

— Heard an update from Vice President C. James Coffin, a member of the negotiations committee, on negotiations with the teachers on their contract, which expired on June 30.

Last month, teachers packed the school board meeting, as the president of the Voorheesville Teachers’ Association, Kathy Fiero, spoke of their frustrations and their goal of remedying deficiencies in the contract so it would compare favorably to other schools in the Capital Region.
"Both sides...are working behind the scenes," said Coffin. "I’m hoping against all odds, we’re really getting there";

— After months of discussion and debate, adopted a policy on disclosure of wrongful conduct, now posted on the district website.

Timothy Blow cast the lone dissenting vote. He has argued all along that events off school grounds should be reported as well.

Langevin said that if a teacher were arrested, and had been fingerprinted as required by the state since July 1, 2001, she would be informed of the arrest within 24 hours. If the teacher were hired before 2001, Langevin would hear about the arrest from the local authorities who ask for the suspect’s occupation, she said.
"As long as they’ve been reported by the police," rejoined Blow. "But if an administrator sees a teacher tokin’ up at Smitty’s, right across the street from the school, they can just walk away."

Gibson said the school would have no authority to investigate outside of its jurisdiction;

— Read a draft of a policy to prevent harassment, hazing, and bullying; and

— Met in executive session to discuss negotiated agreements.