BOONVILLE — A ribbon cutting ceremony will take place at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, May 17, at the “Hub” in the Adirondack Middle/High School to celebrate a new partnership between the Connected Community Schools team and the Adirondack Central School District.

The Hub is located across from the cafeteria at the school, 8181 Route 294, provides students and families with no-cost essentials such as food items, hygiene needs and school supplies that are available to any student or family with need, which “can make the difference between a student being ready to learn and participate rather than worry about basics,” the announcement said.

Mission

The “Connected Community Schools mission is simply to ensure that students and families’ basic needs are met so they can engage in their education worry and struggle free allowing them to be successful and have fun,” the announcement said,.

Connected Community Schools is a collaborative initiative which combines efforts of over 200 businesses and community-based agencies in pursuit of finding solutions to a wide-ranging array of challenges facing students, their families, and the school community,” the announcement added.

“In each district, we help to coordinate, streamline, and deliver needed supports and resources to students and families so they can succeed,” according to the announcement by program officials.

“The initiative has expanded their reach to serving 13 school districts, 53 school buildings and over 20,000 students,” officials added.

The initiative also provides embedded student and family engagement and classroom
programming, where community experts are invited to educate and organize engagement
opportunities for students and families. 

Opportunities for rural students

“We know that we live in a remote geographic region, and we don’t always have the same things accessible to us that urban and sub-urban areas do,” said Adirondack Superintendent of Schools Kristy McGrath.

“It is a goal of our district to not only offer an outstanding education to our students, but also to have our schools become central community ‘hubs’ to the towns and villages that our district encompasses,” the superintendent added.

“We want to ensure the residents of Adirondack Central School District have what they need, and this partnership will help us in achieving that goal,” McGrath said.

Creating supports

Danielle Martin and Melissa Roys, co-leader’s of the Connected Schools Initiative, said their team is excited to partner and become part of the Adirondack Central School family to create a Connected School that supports not only their students, families, faculty, staff and the larger community.

In addition to Adirondack, other districts participating in the Connected Community Schools program include: Camden, Canastota, Central Valley, Dolgeville, Holland Patent, Little Falls, Madison, Oneida, Rome, Waterville and Whitesboro.