Friends,
On Tuesday, February 9th, the entire Senior Class of the Town of Webb UFSD attended the Oneida-Herkimer BOCES Job Fair as part of their English 12 speech curriculum.
These students have been working on interview skills, including how to shake hands, speak, dress, and create a resume.
As members of the Town of Webb UFSD community, I thought you might like to know how great your Senior Class of 2016 performed.
They were the highlight of the Job Fair. Corporate sponsors were tracking me down to tell me how impressed they were with how well our kids dressed, spoke, and presented themselves.
The director of the B.O.C.E.S. told me our kids were the models for how all students should be.
Watching them perform was quite impressive to me, even emotional at times. Without any prompting, I saw our students shaking hands, conversing, and passing out resumes.
Managing them or chaperoning them was not really a job at all; they were adults, mature and effective: All of them!
One lady mentioned to me that several of our kids were employable right now, and wanted to know how did our school manage to do this.
What a great question for us to consider!
I don’t think my English 12 speech unit actually accomplished that much. We certainly have done some good work on skills, but I truly think that these students are the product of the overall great culture that we have here at the Town of Webb.
The teachers are outstanding K-12, and the support staff is great. We have a tightly knit, caring community, and a safe and supportive atmosphere that includes bus drivers, custodians and cafeteria workers.
The support for education by the business community and the property owners is very good, and hard working families are the backbone of our culture here in the Adirondacks.
Our expectations are very high for our students, higher than most of us even understand. When they make mistakes, sometimes it feels like the building might shake.
When they don’t perform well, it is noticed and talked over quite a bit; it might even make both local newspapers!
That’s what it is like in a small community that cares.
Yet, when they succeed and shine, we need give them some credit and take a little bit for ourselves too.
Perhaps, you might have forgotten or not considered what this current Senior Class of 2016 has gone through these last several months.
You have done great work not just educating them, but pulling them through very tough, emotionally wrenching times, the likes of which I hadn’t seen in my entire career.
So, I thank all of you for contributing to their success and future, and hope that you might pat yourselves on the back, at least for one day.
Cordially,
Michael Cunningham
Senior Advisor
Town of Webb UFSD