MONTGOMERY C. SMITH INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL
Telephone: 518.828.4360
December Newsletter
Click Here to read the newsletter
UPCOMING DATES
HOPE Meeting 2/4 – Room 105, 6 p.m.
April Academic Academy
As part of the M. C. Smith’s Comprehensive Educational Plan, we will be utilizing a portion of the school improvement allocation to conduct April Academic Academy the week of April 5, 2010. The academy will specifically target the area identified for improvement. Read more.
School Improvement Team Seeks Members
The Intermediate School Improvement Team has been working diligently to create a Comprehensive Education Plan. The plan helps to lay out how the school will improve student performance through changes in the delivery of instruction. The plan has been approved by the board and submitted to the state. Click HERE to view the plan. The committee is looking for members who would like to join the team for the remainder of the year and for members who would like to be part of the development of a Parent Involvement Policy for the school. We will be meeting January 21st at 3:15 in the library to develop this plan. Regular meetings are the second and third Thursday of the month. Please contact Mr. Brenneman at extension 1111 if you would like to be a part of the committee.
MCSIS Students Receive Needed Dental Care
More than 1,000 children in the Hudson City School District have been receiving dental care this week and in February thanks to an innovative program of the New York University College of Dentistry. The college offered its service in a public school for the first time when it was in Montgomery C. Smith from Dec. 7-11. Read more.
Care Packages Headed to Local Soldiers
Students in the fourth-grade class of Mrs. Curry and Ms. Merwin have been applying their holiday spirit to some people who are very far away, U.S. military personnel from this area who are stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Students brought in items from a list of things soldiers need, such as toothbrushes, playing cards, razors, novels, toiletries, writing utensils, and packaged food.
On Tuesday, Dec. 8, Marilyn Martin, president of Post 42 of the American Legion Ladies Auxiliary of Chatham, brought in eight to 10 boxes and the students took turns filling them.
Auxiliary members will mail the boxes to the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The soldiers will keep some items for themselves and share others with fellow members of their units.
Fourth-Graders Create Longhouses
For the culminating project in their unit on Native Americans, several fourth-graders in the classes of Mrs. Parmentier and Mrs. Risch chose to create models of longhouses.
Mrs. Parmentier told them they didn’t need to go to Wal-Mart, because most of the necessary materials could be found right outside their homes. 
Students used twigs, bark, pine needles to create realistic-looking models of the Iroquois structures.
Hudson Students Pen Mini-Memoirs
When we hear the word “memoir” the words “big, heavy, dusty book” seem to follow close behind. But students at Montgomery C. Smith Intermediate School have been working on a different kind of memoir, one that teaches them the value of economy in writing, the six-word memoir. 
If you walk up the inclined first-floor hallway, you’ll see hundreds of these memoirs lining the walls on either side. Literacy Coordinator Lisa Dolan introduced this idea as the first schoolwide project in the new grade 3-6 Intermediate School. The memoirs are full of understated emotion:
“I went shopping with my dad.” “Always warm in my mother’s arms.”
“I was born in the summer.” “Got my dog Magnus on birthday.”
“Never wanted to love until older.”
“Cat gone for about 4 years.”
“I won hoop shoot by one.”
“I was six when father died.”
“I really loved my hermit crab.”
Early on, the idea was employed by American novelist Ernest Hemingway, whose six word memoir was “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” Dolan said she does a lesson on memoir, telling students it should refer to “one piece of your life.” She reads them a memoir, such as Jerry Seinfeld’s memoir about Halloween.
“I talk about making it meaningful, personal,” she said. “Make it tell something in some way about you.”
“My little cousin is sometimes mean.” “Always need friends to play with.”
“My brother thinks he’s all that!” “1 of my 3 dog died.”
“I have the best baby cousin” “I’m the best skateboarder on earth.”
“I wake up and I read.” “Cats adopt people. It is real.”
There are scores more memoirs now on view in the corridor, from classes throughout the building. Mrs. Dolan said the project has created a feeling of community. “Everyone is doing the same things,” she said. “They comment on each other’s and on the teachers’.” Dolan, the school’s very busy literacy coordinator and originator of the “Hudson Reads” series at the Hudson Opera House, has her own memoir: “The summit has never been enough.”
Students, Parents Raise $5,500 for HOPE
MS Smith Intermediate School H.O.P.E. (Hudson Organization of Parents
and Educators) just finished its first fundraiser of the 2009-2010
school year and we'd like to say thank you to all that participated by
selling candles, as well as purchasing them. We made approximately
$5,500 on the fundraiser. To reward classes for their hard work, we held
a raffle by grade.
The winning classes receive a pizza party. The
winners were: 3rd Grade - Mrs. Shumway's class, 4th Grade - Mrs.
Buchinsky's class, 5th Grade - Mrs. Cousen's class and 6th Grade - Ms.
Malin's class. Mrs. Ordway's and Mrs. Sheridan's classes were rewarded
with a popcorn party. Top seller for the fundraiser was Karissa
Garbarini (left) with over $700 in sales. Karissa, who is in Mrs. Buchinsky's class, received a $10
gift card for Spotty Dog, donated by Spotty Dog. Candles are due in the
second or third week in December.
Elks Donate Reference Works to 3rd and 5th Graders
Third and fifth-graders at M.C. Smith will be able to beef up their vocabularies in their spare time, thanks to gifts they received from the Hudson Elks Lodge Friday, Oct. 30. Elks Exulted Ruler Deb Minners and District Deputy Grand Exulted Ruler John Minners distributed dictionaries to all third-graders and thesauri to all fifth-graders. One-hundred-forty-five thesauri were distributed and 140 dictionaries.
ABOVE: Deb Minners gives thesauruses to fifth graders. BELOW: A student distributes dictionaries to third-graders as Deb and John Minners look on.
All the money to purchase the reference works is raised by the Elks. The Elks also sponsor college scholarships, Mrs. Minners said, and she urged students to think ahead to that time. In addition, Mr. Minners said there will be a hoop shoot free-throw contest Saturday, Nov. 7 at the high school. The contestant is open to anyone ages 8 to 13; proof of age must be presented.
Fifth-Graders Hear Sleepy Hollow Legend
Actor-director-playwright-poet David Anderson visited the fifth-grade classroom of Mrs. Curry and Mrs. Merwin at 1 p.m Friday, Oct. 30 to tell students The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, as well as other stories, and to lead a discussion about ghosts and other scary things. Above, he tells the story of a man who holds a giant in the palm of his hand.
Notification of Corrective Action
Letters from Superintendent Howe and School Choice Response
CONTACT INFORMATION
Intermediate School 828-4360
Main Office ext. 1112
- Principal Mark Brenneman ext. 1111
- Associate Principal Antonio Abitabile 1115
- Nurse’s Office 1118
- Guidance Office 1117
- Attendance 1117