PRESENTATION
Canton Scholarship Recipients
Canton Dollar for Scholars has grown from $15,000 to award $98,000 this year in scholarships. Collinsville Trick or Trot is their largest fundraiser. Rotary awarded 7 scholarships in Canton for $8,000. This morning four recipients joined us for breakfast, they each said thank you and shared a few words.
Maggie Gibbons will be attending Providence College undeclared major switching to business or global studies.
Megan Ausere will be attending Southern Methodist University in Cox School of Business and will declare her major sophomore year.
Ella Cookman will be attending Brandice University as a biochemistry major with a minor in women and gender studies.
John Rottkamp will be attending Rochester Institute of Technology for aerospace engineering.
Evan Masseto could not attend but wrote a thank you letter. He will be attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for aerospace and mechanical engineering. Aidan Kalafus and Nathan Clark are also recipients who were not in attendance.
Kevin Case discussed the past year as superintendent for Canton Public Schools. He commented that the students present today are exemplary of the students in the Canton Public School system. The past year was a difficult year with the ongoing pandemic. The year started with masks, students eating in classrooms, high positivity rates, and many sleepless nights where Kevin worried if there would be enough staff at the schools. Thankfully with lots of moving parts, everything worked out. The second half of the year ran much more smoothly and the year ended on a positive note. All of the principals showed student achievement scores and with all things considering, the scores are still on the rise.
Canton also enjoyed a good year for their athletic teams, and worked over 9 months to come up with an equity statement. They had 45 community stakeholders, including scholarship recipient Ella Cookman, form a coalition called We Speak that addressed diversity, equity, and inclusion. Canton administrators want all students to feel like they are in a safe and inclusive environment to achieve at the highest level possible, and while this is always a goal, it is now a major focus. There were eight professional development workshops focusing on this during early release days in equity.
Kevin also discussed school safety in regards to school shootings and intruders. They often practice protocols with the Canton Police Department which has proven effective with a quick response time when someone accidentally activated the emergency response system. Canton also hired a contractor to make sure doors close and latch right away. The town was also granted $130,000 to upgrade security cameras and install security film on the windows. The security film is not bullet proof, but will prevent the windows from shattering and allowing intruders in the building. They are revisiting the possibility of hiring resource officers. When entering the building, guests must provide a driver's license that is run through a database. Those convicted of sex offenses and certain felonies are not allowed in the building – this includes parents with these convictions.
There was conversation about mental health and reporting on students with concerning behavior. Kevin commented that Canton was able to hire additional school social workers and a school psychology and the Canton Public School system has a goal that every student can have one adult that they can trust. This creates community that helps to address any red flags.
Turning to a lighter subject, Kevin said he was just as surprised as us to see that Canton High was removing trees. He even opened an email from an 8th grader with the subject line "The Lorax is not happy". The downed trees are making room for a new softball field and they will be planting new trees as the project progresses.
After 36 years in the Canton Public School system and 16 as superintendent, Kevin is going to retire after completing the next academic year. He said that being superintendent is like a ministry and he wants to continue ministry work in a different way while studying at The General Theological Seminary in Manhatten. While he is not sure ordination is in his future, he looks forward to the next step in his journey.
Rotarians also asked the high school graduates about what it was like applying for college this time. They all agreed it was very unusual given that thousands of more students who took a gap year from the pandemic were applying at the same time of them. John commented that at RIT over 54,000 students applied - over 3 times as many as before the pandemic. Many colleges do not require SAT scores and the students had to make difficult decisions whether or not to include them to stand out. Ella commented that she chose to write an argumentative essay which earned her admission rather than sending in test scores.