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Strawberry Rhubarb Crisps In Space
Minor Fire Assessed

KYSERIKE — At the Rondout Valley Central School District Board meeting on Tuesday, November 14, Superintendent of Schools Rosario Agostaro reported on the fire in the school's auditorium the previous day.

On Monday afternoon at about 2 p.m., said Agostaro, "we had a scary situation. As the pupils were leaving school for the day I received a note stating that we had a real fire. That really scared me. Any time it's real, when it's not a practice, gets my adrenaline going."

It would seem, said the superintendent, that what happened was, "one of the high school auditorium drapes was too close to the theater lights and the coating caught fire. The smell was noticed and an alarm was triggered."

"There were tons of firefighters on the scene," said Agostaro. Fire companies from Accord, High Falls, Stone Ridge and Kripplebush attended the incident. "For me," said Agostaro, "an overwhelming feature was how many of the volunteer firefighters were former students."

"Our staff and pupils were phenomenal," he continued. "We had to make a lot of quick decisions, but they all got home. Many board members were with me during the event and the high school staff were here until 5:15."

The superintendent said he was "incredibly proud of how well things went."

The fire, deemed accidental, resulted in minor damage and a smoke-filled auditorium said Accord Fire Chief Richard Demorest. Insurance teams and other investigators will be in the school over the next few days assessing the damage.

BOCES Update
At the meeting, Dr. Charles V. Khoury, district superintendent and chief executive officer of Ulster Boces, outlined what programs are available.

Dr. Khoury said that Rondout students are transported to the BOCES Port Ewen campus by bus and that the most popular programs were auto-mechanics, cosmetology, electronics, and nursing assistance. New courses this year include carpentry and drone technology. Few realize, said Dr. Khoury, what a growing industry drone technology is. BOCES, he said, was the first educational facility in the state to offer a drone course, a subset of the commercial aviation license program.

Students attending BOCES courses earn community college credits and the courses are aids in obtaining licenses, as in nursing and cosmetology.

Ulster County Strawberry Rhubarb Crisps Aboard The ISS
Dr. Khoury is particularly proud of the expansive BOCES culinary program. "Iron Chefs," he said, "stated that our program is the best culinary school program across the country.

Last year, he said, astronauts returned from the International Space Station and said what they missed most in space was home cooking, especially desserts.

"We threw the challenge to come up with a space dessert out to the BOCES culinary class. Three young ladies designed a very detailed recipe for a Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp that met the NASA specifics and entered it into a contest with fourteen other teams from around the country. They were announced the winners in April.

"Just two days ago, said Dr. Khoury, "we got a message from NASA saying that Strawberry Rhubarb Crisps were aboard the recent resupply flight to the International Space Station. So, Ulster County desserts are now aboard the Space Station!"

Parent Protest
Some sixty parents and pupils attended the meeting to support six who made heartfelt public comments supporting the district's retention of school nurse, Rita Stoddard. An anonymous-to-the-public call for the nurse's transfer out of the district had been made by a member of the public. The reason for the call was not given as personnel matters are not made public. Board members who wished to remain anonymous stated that Stoddard would remain at the school.

A motion to create a position for a full-time senior crisis counselor was passed. Actions were initiated in locating a new board member to replace Mike Baden, who was elected Supervisor of the Town of Rochester in last week's elections, forcing him to retire from the school board.



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