Sound Shore

Clifford J. Levy, an editor at the New York Times and member of New Rochelle High School’s class of 1985, just won his second Pulitzer Prize. Levy, 43, joined the Times as a news assistant in 1990 and went on to run the paper’s news bureaus in Albany and, later, Moscow, according to his biography on the paper’s website. In 2003 he won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. And on Monday, he and a colleague, Ellen Barry, were awarded a Pulitzer for international reporting for their coverage of Russia’s “faltering justice system,” the award’s citation says.

Levy, who lives in Brooklyn with his wife and their three children, was named deputy managing editor of the Times’ Metro section in March.

As the budget season nears, and with the prospect of a 2 percent cap on property tax on the horizon, New Rochelle School District officials are asking the public to weight in.

On Thursday the district launched a six-question survey (though one of those questions has eight parts) on its website, www.nred.org.

The survey asks respondents to rate the importance of issues like class size; preserving advanced-placement classes and electives like psychology; the use of up-to-date technology in class; and junior varsity and varsity athletics.

Other questions focus on survey takers’ background: What’s your connection to the school district? How often do you vote in school elections? What kinds of concerns get you to the polls?

The survey will be online through Feb. 10.

In a statement, Superintendent Richard Oranisciak cited the cuts in state aid for education proposed by the governor in the budget he released earlier this week.

“It is critical for us to hear from all constituencies about what is most vital to them as we look to make appropriate reductions in spending, while maintaining the high quality of education that the New Rochelle community has come to expect.”

In addition to the web-based survey, the district and Board of Education will broadcast video of two meetings: the Community Input Forum, on Feb. 10, and a budget review session, on March 2.

The meetings, which start at 7 pm., will be carried by the district’s public-access channel on cable TV and will stream live on its website.

District spokesman Paul Costiglio said the broadcasts and the survey were firsts for the district. He said answers to the survey would be taken seriously.

“No school district in this state can shy away from the fact that there will need to be cuts and reductions,” Costiglio said. “We’re just trying to figure out where everybody stands, what’s at the top of mind.”

It takes a lot to get to Scotland’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival — and New Rochelle High School’s TheaterWorks kids should know: In August, the high school will send its third cast to the American High School Theater Festival that is part of the Fringe.

Theatre Works presented “Hair” in 2003 and “The Cradle Will Rock” in 2006. This summer, it’s “Saving Seatown: The Underwater Superhero Musical,” which began as a senior project created by students of the high school’s PAVE Theater program. It has been expanded into a full-length musical by two of the former students, Paul Rigano and Katy Weiller.

You can see what Scottish audiences will see, months in advance, when “Seatown” gets it American premiere, at New Rochelle’s Linda Kelly Theatre April 28 through May 1.

To help get the cast to Edinburgh, members of Theater Works will hold their annual dinner-theater fundraiser at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 3, 4, and 5.

For $15 ($12 for students and seniors), patrons will get dinner (chicken, pasta, salad, soda or water, coffee or tea and dessert) and a cabaret show, followed by a performance of Alan Haehnel’s comedy “The Idiot’s Guide to High School,” billed as “a humorous review of high school’s pratfalls.”

The dinner and cabaret are in the cafeteria in the school’s new wing. The performance is across the hall in the intimate Linda Kelly Theater.

Call 914-546-3938 to make a reservation, which is recommended.

NEW ROCHELLE—Board of Education meetings are often pretty dry affairs. No offense to school officials, but the nitty gritty of the education business, while of undeniable importance, can fall a little short of riveting. Get the students involved in a BOE meeting, however, and wow—what a difference.
The New Rochelle Board of Education meeting Tuesday night began with a performance by four high school flutists—sophomore Rachel Heinemann, junior Christopher Roldan, senior Christine Torres and junior Beth Treffeisen. Standing at center stage of the new Linda E. Kelly Theater, the quartet let fly a beautiful rendition of Scherzo Opus 77, by A. Wouters.
From there, Raj Basak, a senior, sang a knockout version of “Bring Him Home,” from the Broadway musical “Les Miserables.”
Junior Rachel Kessler was recognized for her swimming achievements, the football team earned accolades for its record and, finally, a trio of ringers enrolled in the school’s architectural design program, Jeremy Cutler, Shannon McCullough and Patrick Rice, spun 3D computer models of their plans for homes and other buildings.
It made for an impressive evening.
The musicians are part of New Rochelle’s Performance and Visual Arts Education, or PAVE, program, in which students get to school early to explore, practice and refine their art. There are 375 students enrolled in the program, which was introduced in 1999.
In the architecture program, which was recently developed and added to the curriculum, 30 students are earning college credit and receive training on professional-grade engineering software.
In his report to board members, New Rochelle High School Principal Don Conetta said the school’s aim was to use programs like these to get each student so interested and invested in a subject that he or she is “excited to come to school.”

On Monday, May 24 New Rochelle High School students in Mr. Scott Rubins’ Forensic Science classes took their final exam for the science class in the field in the New Rochelle Nature Study Woods, located on Webster Avenue in New Rochelle.  These Science students visit a mock crime scene set up in conjunction with the New Rochelle Police Department.  There teams of students conducted investigations and searched for clues.  Police set up the scene with Mr. Rubins to create realistic scenarios for students to investigate and collect evidence.

We wrote earlier this spring about Don and Jane Cecil of Harrison, who we honored as “local heroes” for the scholarship program they set up for Westchester students. The list of this year’s honorees is out, and it includes a local recipient; she will be officially honored Monday at a ceremony with the Cecils and County Executive Rob Astorino.

According to her bio, Tracy Robertson of New Rochelle High School “is on the board of the New Rochelle Chapter of “Operation Smile” and also involved in the local JCC’s youth activities.  She has volunteered with the “Sandwich Brigade” to benefit the New Rochelle Soup Kitchen and as a teacher’s assistant at Temple Israel of New Rochelle since 10th grade. Tracy participated in the New Rochelle Police Department’s “Explorer” program that develops leadership qualities in students.  Tracy already has four college credits in accounting and will attend Hofstra University in the fall.”

Overall, 15 low-income students from eight high schools will receive $10,000 over four years of college. From the announcement: “The scholarships are given to students based on academic performance, community achievements and financial need. All of the recipients have strong academic backgrounds, and many are active in their church and community and participate in after-school activities. In some cases, they have had to work to assist their families with living expenses.”

To encourage students to complete their education, the program offers an increase in the amount of the scholarship for each year they remain in school. Freshmen receive $1,000, sophomores, $2,000, juniors, $3,000; and seniors, $4,000.

I recently wrote about the Good HeART Club at New Rochelle High School. Art teacher Anne Marie Funigiello and students Chrissy Conroy, Nicole Freeman, Katy Stillwagon, and Josh Ackerman started the club in 2007 to offer art lessons to special education students at the school, who did not have it in their curriculum. The students give up two lunch periods a week, one for lesson planning and the other for teaching the students.  The club has imparted lessons in art, compassion and friendship, say those involved. The founding students are now graduating seniors. One of them, Conroy, said this about the experience: “When we walked out of that first class, we felt so empowered and good about ourselves. That feeling was so much better than having a lunch period.” Get the full story here: At New Rochelle High School, students teach art and compassion

Check out a gallery of photos here.

This Friday the New Rochelle High School English Department will present a celebration of “The Life and Works of Edgar Allen Poe.” The event is the 10th annual such literary conference, in which students study particular authors and the times in which they lived and wrote.

Among the events planned, according to the district:

• An honors seminar with presentations by distinguished guests, including Barbara Cantalupo, who is Associate Professor of English at Penn State, Lehigh Valley.  Professor Cantalupo will speak about “The Poe You Might Not Know.”  Also presenting is David S. Reynolds, who is a Distinguished Professor of English, at CUNY who will speak of “Poe in His Times.” Returning to moderate and lecture for the tenth consecutive year is Richard Kopley, a graduate of the NRHS Class of ’67. Mr. Kopley is Professor of English at Penn State University, and will lecture on “The Secrets of The Purloined Letter.”

• A unique game show, “What Do You Know About Edgar Allan Poe?”  Students in the PAVE (Performing and Visual Arts Education) program will present a skit based on Edgar Allen Poe.

• Students in English classes will also participate in a computer-based multi-media scavenger hunt based on the Life and Works of Edgar Allen Poe.

The festival has previously focused on authors F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Edith Wharton, Frederick Douglass and Robert Frost. It is sponsored by the New Rochelle Fund for Educational Excellence.

Art students at New Rochelle High School will get the chance to lounge under the fall foliage and use it as a source of inspiration for their class work. Students will sketch and paint outdoors as part of the school’s annual Fall Art Day tomorrow, with a focus on Impressionism and Pointilism.

High schoolers aren’t the only ones learning. Unschooled in the arts, I had to look up a few of the terms when I read the press release. Pointilism, for one. I learned from Wikipedia that pointilism is “a style of painting in which small distinct dots of color create the impression of a wide selection of other colors and blending.” Points = dots. Should have figured that one out.

I’m told students from sculpture, ceramics and 3-D advanced placement classes will participate in a Raku firing in the parking lot near the school loading dock. Raku? 3-D? What? Here’s what else I learned. 3-D has to do with studio art, and Raku is a kind of clay firing method that uses a quick heat and a contained cool-down process to make a crackling effect or metallic patterns.

I’ve posted a picture above from the school’s outdoor art day last spring.