Avon Central Schools

Our elementary school faculty meeting looked a little... different this morning. Turns out Mrs. Kaylee Corell, our Elementary School music teacher, is an escape room fanatic (Seriously. If you ever get caught in an elaborate, life-or-death maze and need to solve a series of progressively harder clues to escape, Mrs. Corell’s the one you want to call - assuming you have cell service of course). So instead of a typical faculty meeting, Corell teamed up with Katlyn Bennetti and Nicole Rowley to create a scavenger hunt for our Elementary School staff. Working in teams, staff tackled a series of clues that brought them to the farthest reaches of the Elementary School and beyond. Each successfully solved clue yielded a puzzle piece. The team that collected all their pieces and was first to assemble their puzzle was named the winner! Our teams battled fiercely but when the smoke cleared and all the clues were solved, it was the Green Team that was first to assemble their puzzle and earn the ‘W’. Shout out to team members Christie DeWald, Kerri Levine, Heather Watkins, Rebekah Connors, Renee Kashorek, Anthony DiQuattro and Kathy Wonderly on the big win! Many thanks to Mrs. Corell, Mrs. Bennetti and Mrs. Rowley on organizing such a fun way to start the day! Oh, and Elementary School staff - we’ll do our best to convince Mrs. DeWald to ACTUALLY put up an extra personal day as a prize next time!

Avon Central Schools is actively hiring for a variety of open positions! While many positions are currently open, we’re especially keen to hire a substitute nurse (RN or LPN), food service substitutes, clerical substitutes and substitute teachers. Head on over to the ‘Employment Opportunities’ section of our website at the link below to see open positions and learn more about job responsibilities, salary and the application process. Come be part of our Braves family! Link: https://www.avoncsd.org/page/employment-applications

Due to the weather forecast, all after-school and evening activities have been canceled for today - Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024.

This is awesome! Avon’s own Kate G. is the recipient of a $500 fall athlete scholarship from Section V! As part of its mission to promote excellence in interscholastic athletics while supporting an education based learning environment, Section V offers a $500 scholarship for each sport each season to be used toward future academic endeavors. Winners are selected based on a letter of recommendation from their coach, their high school transcript and activities sheet, as well as their responses to application questions. In addition to her prowess on the cross country course this past season, Kate is also a butterfly specialist on our varsity swim team and, in the spring, competes in track. Congrats, Kate! Read more here: https://sectionv.org/awards.aspx?aow=385 Kate G. is pictured during a home cross country meet in September in the accompanying photo. (Photo courtesy of Ella O.)

It’s official. Sophomore swimmer Brandon H. is the Democrat and Chronicle’s Boys Sports Athlete of the Week! After trailing by nearly a thousand votes with hours left, Brandon pulled away to finish in the top spot with a 560-vote margin. Congrats to Brandon and shout out to Braves Nation for doing its thing!

Emery F. and Grant S. are your Elementary School Music Students of the Month for December! 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. Emery was the winner for third and fourth grade while Grant was the winner for first and second. Congratulations, you two!

Vote for Brandon! Sophomore Brandon H. is a finalist for the Democrat and Chronicle’s Boys Sports Athlete of the Week! Brandon, a middle distance specialist on our varsity swim team, was chosen as a finalist after winning the 200-yard freestyle (1:57.71) and 500-yard freestyle (5:28.66) events in our home quad meet this past Saturday. Use the link below to vote for Brandon. Voting ends tonight at 8 p.m. The winner will be announced on the D&C’s Instagram page Thursday morning. (Brandon is pictured below during the 2023 Section V Class C Championships in Bath) Link: https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/sports/high-school/2024/01/02/who-is-the-section-v-boys-athlete-of-the-week-for-dec-25-31-vote-now/72046460007/?fbclid=IwAR1efnqiwaI4IZoDJ1V277qX1jvvRZ1ISkrNWfQ2YRptLX--JYipqShgWNw

Happy New Year, Braves!

Merry Christmas, from our Braves family to yours!

Kerri Levine and Christina Ecklund had an impromptu read-aloud of “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” yesterday with a few of Diane Renner’s students. Good thing that Major Award was there to give a little light!

Our National Honor Society chapter has been selling candy grams for $1 throughout the month of December. We tagged along yesterday as they delivered them to students and staff during first period. Fun!

Thank you to everyone who came out to support our elementary school musicians yesterday at our annual Holiday Sing Along! In case you missed it, here’s a few selections at the link below courtesy of Lindsay Herkimer. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABTKHhB-wao

It’s with great pleasure that we announce our Braves Way winners for the first quarter of the 2023-24 school year! Every marking period, high school teachers nominate a student from one of their classes that exemplifies the ideals set forth in our Braves Way Matrix - brave, responsible, actively involved, value yourself and others, effort and safety - whether in an academic, social, behavioral or emotional capacity. Nominated students were recognized at a celebratory lunch last week where they enjoyed pizza and ice cream. Congratulations to our first quarter Braves Way winners: Ben H., Brenna D., Lexx S., Jake T., Chris T., Evie D., Madison S., Dylan A., Olivia N., Caleb C., Nick W., Katrina D., Bella S., Abigail S., Liliana V., Olivia S., Megan M., Brooke S., Maggie H., Joe H., Lily R., Rylee N., Jasmine F., Jacob K., Alexis R., Hunter S., Ashton D., Cassidy P., and Evan Q. (Photos courtesy of Ella O.)

Shout out to senior Chris T., who's been named to the All-Greater Rochester Football First Team in the small schools division! Full piece from the D&C here: https://www.democratandchronicle.com/in-depth/sports/high-school/agr/2023/12/19/all-greater-rochester-fall-teams-2023-football-soccer-volleyball-field-hockey-cross-country-swim/71690771007/

Our very own Jessica Mucci was a presenter at Genesee Community College yesterday at the Digital Media in the Classroom Conference put on by Genesee Valley BOCES. Mucci, our middle school library media specialist, led a presentation on Book Creator, an aptly-named program that allows students to create their own digital books. Well done, Miss Mucci!

Members of the High School Art Club stopped by the elementary school last week to do a snowman-making activity with some of our kindergarteners! Members created directions for the activity, an example snowman and helped students with their work. After everyone had finished their snowman, members did face-painting with the kindergarteners. One kindergartener, Wyatt P., even got a chance to try his hand at face-painting. Special shout out to Art Club member Ella O. for being such a good sport! (Photos courtesy of Elizabeth Patteson)

We stopped by the Elementary School Library earlier this week to see the Avon Athlete Read program in action. The idea for this new program was born last year when Library Media Specialist Jessica Mucci noticed that some elementary school students were expressing a disinterest in reading because they play sports, essentially suggesting that if you’re an athlete, you can’t be a reader, too. Looking to dispel that sentiment before it could take root, Mucci got together with Ian Smith, an innovative program specialist who runs the Elementary School Library and also teaches STEAM, and High School LMS Suzanne Freeman. Together, the trio came up with Avon Athletes Read - a program where high school students who are also varsity athletes come speak with elementary school students about the connection between being a good reader - and learner, generally - and being an athlete. We stopped by a pair of read alouds Wednesday - two of the 10 that took place this week. Unfortunately, a loud heating vent mucked up the audio in our footage of varsity girls basketball team members Maria G. and Maggie V. reading “Click, Clack, Moo,” by Doreen Cronin aloud to Mrs. Stanton’s third grade class. Fortunately, Mr. Tom LaGrou was able to cut air to the vent for the second read aloud we attended with junior Addison U. and Sophia F., both juniors, who are also members of our varsity girls basketball team! Addison and Sophia did a brief Q&A with Tracy Wangelin’s first grade class, then read “The Dot,” by Peter Reynolds aloud to the class. Our younger students had a lot of good questions for Addison and Sophia and really enjoyed “The Dot,” which they were already familiar with from an art class assignment earlier this year. Our high school readers also reported they’ve had a wonderful time during the read alouds - some even ran into siblings or students they worked with during summer camp down in the elementary school! We can’t wait until our next round of Avon Athletes Read sessions later this year and be sure to check out our video of Addison’s and Sophia’s read aloud at the link below! Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrUsbOW6LhU

Heads up, Avon. Our Fall Newsletter will be delivered in this weekend’s edition of the Genesee Valley Penny Saver. As always, you can also head over to our website and read it there at the link below. Link: https://www.avoncsd.org/documents/district/newsletters/190033

On Monday, members of our Level I PageTurners team headed to Caledonia-Mumford Central Schools for their fall competition and ALMOST came away with the win! Because we have so many team members - 25 students in grades 3 through 5 - Avon students broke up into two smaller teams for the sake of the competition, said Coach Jessica Mucci. “There were a total of 10 books on our fall list and I am so proud to say that we had multiple students on our team that read either 9 or all 10 of them,” said Mucci. “This shows amazing commitment to an activity that is in addition to their regular school work. Our students showed great sportsmanship and pride in representing our school and showing what they know.” The next PageTurners competition is in March in Avon. Results from Monday’s competition at Cal-Mum are as follows: 1st: St. Agnes (27 points) 2nd: Avon Team 1 (24 points) 3rd: Caledonia-Mumford Team 2 (23 points) 4th: Avon Team 2 (20 points) 5th: Caledonia-Mumford Team 1 (19 points) (Photos courtesy of Jessica Mucci)

We stopped by Mrs. Lorrie McLaughlin’s classroom last week to check out her sophomore Earth science students’ mineral displays. McLaughlin’s students have been learning about different types of minerals in class and created informational displays about a chosen mineral to help teach their fellow students about its properties. McLaughlin’s students were voting on their favorite displays last week with the winning student in line for a special prize. We’re trying to convince Mrs. McLaughlin to make the prize a diamond, but aren’t sure she’s going to go for it…