Dear DCS Community:

I am pleased to share exciting news for the Duanesburg community. As you know, the YMCA/DACC is a special facility and its closure has left people of all ages without a valued wellness resources. After a considerable amount of planning, I can now report that a municipality is poised to purchase the facility and then donate it to the school district to operate. The facility clearly has attractive amenities (including a beautiful pool, a stand-out gymnasium, a commercial kitchen, and on and on) that we can use for instruction, extracurriculars, practices, and competitions. We also plan to use it to expand our prekindergarten program and, of course, as a center for community fitness and wellness that can be used by all residents.

While it is still too soon to go into specific details about this project, I can tell you that we will work as quickly as possible to reopen. I will reach out soon to keep you apprised of our progress.

Best,

Jim Niedermeier, Ed.D.
Superintendent

Capital Projects

• Centennial Project: We have recently had our second community forum, where we presented a preliminary scope of our next project.  If you would like to learn more the preliminary scope, please keep track on our project page.
  • If you would like to volunteer to be on a committee to help plan the Elementary School playground renovation, please sign up here and I will be in touch with you when we are ready for that element.
  •  If you would like to take a walk of the project scope of one or both school buildings, please complete this RSVP form.

• Bus Loop/Parking Lot: While this summer’s capital project only includes our new bus loop and windows, we have been able to add on renovation of the Elementary School parking lot at the same time, so there will be some days when the parking lot is inaccessible sometime in August.  I will let you know as soon as it is clear which days those will be. Here is the project page for that. 

COVID Trends

Though Schenectady County is still classified as a high transmission county, our COVID numbers have returned to more manageable levels. There were only 4 cases reported this week–down from a high of 34 two weeks ago.

Scholar Athlete

Congratulations to our scholar athletes, who were recognized in late May for their excellence in the classroom during their sports seasons. Our district has reached “School of Distinction status because 100% of our athletic teams have received the Scholar-Athlete Team award.

Retirements

Congratulations to Mary Jewell, our beloved food service director, on her recent retirement announcement. She will join Lori Kuhl, Karen Kanarkiewicz (Secondary Social Studies) and Mary Neitzel (CSE Chair), who had previously announced their retirements.

Spotlight Artist

Jessica Archambault is our valedictorian and also one of our finest artists this year. She is always raising the bar for all our younger students. She is dedicated to her all her studies and just a wonderful student to have in class.

Her last UHS intro to drawing piece, which is sewn onto canvas hand sewn on canvas, is shown here: