More than 250 parents, students and staff members participated in Smithtown Central School District’s virtual Parent University on March 8. Parent University is hosted by the district’s Wellness Committee. The evening, themed “Responding to this Moment,” featured more than a dozen workshops for participants in two different sessions.

Workshops were facilitated by both community members, professionals and staff. Mental health counselor Ron Villano addressed how to manage concerns for students during this time such as anxiety, stress, feeling trapped and mental health, and school performance. Dietitian/nutritionist Colleen McDermott talked about different nutrition components to lead a healthy lifestyle, while registered sleep technologist Brendan Duffy spoke about how to protect and improve sleep.

Smithtown’s administrator for guidance and related student services Kevin Colon provided strategies for effective communication between parents and teenagers. Nesaquake Middle School reading teacher Julianne DeSilva spoke about how to encourage reading at home with ideas for how parents can engage with reading with their children and model good reading habits.

Dr. Beth Forhman’s workshop offered evidence-based suggestions to foster family and children’s resiliency during this challenging time. Dr. Marissa Abram also spoke about the impact of mental health during the pandemic and how to create self-care plan. Psychologist and therapist Craig O’Brien addressed biological stress reactions and strategies for managing anxieties.

Students in Mr. Davis’ family and consumer science class at Accompsett Middle School are combining technology and collaboration during the personal shopper project. The project is part of their unit on consumerism and financial management.

The project gave students a budget amount and a choice of a specific project to complete for their client. Working as personal shoppers, the students could choose from moving into a dorm room, making over a living room or redoing a wardrobe.

The students worked online and collaborated via Google Meet in breakout rooms, while they discussed ideas that they researched online. The students researched different items while staying within the budget. They comparison shopped for the items and took a picture, wrote a description and gave the price.

When they finished their online shopping and comparing, the students listed all the information in Google Slides as if they were presenting to their clients.

Smithtown is one of nine schools districts to be included in the recent Smart Start grant received by Western Suffolk BOCES. The purpose of the Smart Start grant is to develop, implement and share innovative programs that provide professional development and support to increase expertise in computer science, engineering and/or educational technology among teachers in grades K-8.

Smithtown was one of the component districts that expressed interest in participating in the grant. Western Suffolk BOCES was awarded $500,000 a year for each of the next five school years (2021-2022 through 2025-2026). The money allocated to each district will be based on the student population. Smithtown’s portion of the funds will support 115 teachers in computer science professional development. Beginning this summer, the district will be able to open up the training to 23 teachers per year.

Teachers will be involved in four days of professional development during the summer months and two-and-a-half days during the school year. Teachers will be trained in computer science by the company Mouse. “Our goal is to further enhance our computer science offerings here in Smithtown as well as support teachers in the delivery of our Project Lead the Way program,” said Paul Strader, assistant superintendent for curriculum and assessment.

This summer, the district will offer the training to interested K-5 STEM specialists, K-8 library media specialists, middle school math teachers and K-5 elementary classroom teachers. They will continue to expand the pool of teachers offered the professional development each school year. Teachers will receive a stipend from grant for their participation. Following the training, the teachers will be delivering at least 15-20 computer science-based lessons.

Seventh graders in Mr. Frederick’s Project Lead the Way flight/space electrical engineering class at Accompsett Middle School are creating and testing their own windmills.

The students are finishing their unit on energy and the environment and are focusing their lessons on alternative forms of energy. Their recent project has them building their own windmills during class. The students decide how many blades to use and adjust the pitch of the blades to maximize the energy. When they are complete, the students will test their windmills and measure how much energy each device outputs.

The district’s middle school librarians have been working to create a virtual Makerspace for the district’s middle school students during the past few months. Librarians Sheila Tobin Cavooris, Donna DeLuca and Deanna Jakubowsky designed the virtual space to be geared toward middle schoolers, but the activities and links included can be enjoyed at any level and will be updated periodically. These sites will give students a creative outlet with a STEAM component. The three librarians felt that this was a necessary and worthwhile undertaking, since the library’s Makerspaces currently can’t be used.

To link to the Makerspace site, visit: bitly.com/scsdmakerspace