Halloween Happenings in Scarsdale
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The Scarsdale Parks and Recreation Department will be holding their Annual Halloween Window Painting Contest and Parent/Child Halloween Window Painting program on Sunday, October 21st from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm. All students who live in or attend public or private schools in Scarsdale in grades 1 – 10 are eligible to participate in this event.
In addition to the window painting programs, there will be a Costume Parade held in the Village streets by Chase Park. The parade line up begins at 2:45 pm in front of Chase Park. The parade will start at 3:00 pm. Special entertainment and refreshments will be provided after the parade. All Pre-E and Elementary School children are welcome to participate in the costume parade.
The deadline to participate in the Halloween Window Painting programs is Wednesday, October 10th. Please register online at http://reconline.scarsdale.com .
For questions, call the Recreation Department at 722-1160.
Y.E.S. Matches Students and Jobs
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Youth Employment Service of Scarsdale, or Y.E.S., is open for business. For over 40 years, Y.E.S. has been providing, at no charge, a jobs clearinghouse service for Scarsdale youth and Scarsdale businesses and residents.
Y.E.S. matches bright, reliable youth 14 years old and up with employers in homes and businesses in Scarsdale looking for help on a one-time, short-term or longer-term basis. Jobs run the gamut, from babysitting, tutoring, arts and crafts help, computer and office work to catering and birthday party help, gardening, leaf raking, snow shoveling and painting. Through its website, employers and students can post and access job opportunities online 24/7.
In addition to the website, Y.E.S. maintains an office at the high school, open Monday through Friday 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM during the school year.
Y.E.S. is not affiliated with the high school or funded by the school district or any PTA or other organization. Y.E.S. is a stand alone, nonprofit community organization run entirely by parent volunteers and dependent solely on donations from the community to cover its costs to provide its services, primarily for website maintenance. Donations of any size are welcome and may be given online, at http://scarsdale.ny.hs-ses.com, or by mail to Y.E.S. at 2 Brewster Road. Anyone wishing to volunteer a couple of hours once every few weeks at the Y.E.S. office at the high school should contact yes.office.scarsdale@gmail.com.
Through its unique service, Y.E.S. offers the young people in our community the experience and responsibility of holding a job while helping local employers fill their needs.
The Secret to a Great College Essay
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This year, for the second time in my ten-year career as a college essay advisor, one of my students not only got into his top-choice school but also received a letter from the admissions committee specifically complimenting the strength of his essay. (This student received his letter from Tulane; my prior student received his letter from Yale.) These letters prove what college preparation companies all assert: the essay is among the top three factors in college admission, after GPA and SAT/ACT scores. Sadly, I will soon be leaving this line of work to begin my career in law, but before I depart, I would like to share the top three strategies I have developed that make a college essay worthy of a special letter from the admissions committee:
1) Hook the reader:
College admissions officers read dozens of essays every day, and hundreds of essays every week. If you don’t grab their attention within the first thirty seconds, you won’t grab it at all. Thus, without a good hook, a great essay may never receive the attention it deserves.
Last year’s essay that received the letter of praise started like this: “My favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., once wrote, ‘The most exquisite pleasure in the practice of medicine comes from nudging a layman back to safety again.’ If that is true, then the doctor who saved my life must surely have taken great pleasure in his work.” And with that hook, I knew that the great essay that followed would not go to waste.
2) Take a risk with your topic:
My students and I have written great essays together about their stuttering, their high school popularity, their tan skin, and their loneliness as over-achievers. In a world where too many students write about their successes and achievements, with my help, a student wrote a great essay about his disappointment in his high school debate career. And all of these students gained admission to top schools.
My experience proves the old saying that with greater risk comes greater reward. Admissions officers see countless essays touting the brilliance that is already apparent on paper. Why bore them with redundancy? A display of thoughtfulness, humor, and, above all, originality is a sure-fire way to make the essay count.
3) Use your own voice:
Too often I have seen a student’s natural, authentic-sounding prose stilted by a parent’s or an English teacher’s re-write. College admissions officers are not dummies: they know when an essay has been re-written by an adult. And when an essay sounds forged, it will lose all its points no matter how good it is.
For that reason, I always try to keep as much of my students’ natural voices present in the essay as possible. This effort always requires a continual, collaborative effort with the student, but the extra work that I put in pays dividends in the ring of the prose. There is nothing wrong with seeking help, but make sure that the help does not in fact hinder.
If you follow these three pieces of advice, you will be well on your way to a winning college essay. You may even receive a letter that says so!
Sam Hershey has worked as an SAT/ACT tutor and college essay adviser for over ten years. He holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and, as of last May, a J.D. from Columbia Law School. He will leave the world of tutoring in November to pursue his career in law but is available until then for tutoring and essay-writing assistance. He can be reached at samhershey@gmail.com.
New Playground Dedicated at Fox Meadow School
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At the Fox Meadow picnic on the evening of September 10, a new playground was dedicated at the school. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was the culmination of “Operation Blacktop,” a year-long project by Mr. Besancon’s fifth grade class who researched playground equipment, polled students on what they liked and raised close to $2,000 to fund the project. These funds were supplemented with donations from the Fox Meadow PTA and the Fox Meadow Neighborhood Association to pay for the new equipment and build the new space.
Fox Meadow Principal Duncan Wilson greeted the fifth graders who returned to the school for the dedication, saying, “It’s not just test scores and grades you remember … it’s the kind of work you did with Mr. Besancon.” In an email, Wilson said, “We are very proud of the students' efforts. To me, it represents a great example of real life problem solving- the kind of thinking and communicating that we want our children doing.”
Madoff Family Files Lawsuit In Hawaii
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The family of Tyler Madoff has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Hawaii in response to the loss of their son while he was on an adventure trip on the Big Island of Hawaii on July 4, 2012. Madoff, age 15, was exploring a tidal pool at Kealakekua Bay on the southwestern side of the island when he and another boy were swept out to sea by a large wave. Though the other boy was rescued by a boat, Tyler disappeared and his body has still not been recovered. Tyler, a White Plains resident, was a student at Scarsdale High School due to begin his junior year in September. His mother, Marianne Madoff, is an employee of the district and worked as the Teacher-in-Charge at the Heathcote Elementary School.
The family is represented by N.Y. Attorney Susan M. Karten and the 38 page complaint was filed in Honolulu on August 21, 2012. It names Bold Earth Adventures America’s Adventures, Abbott Wallis, Andrew Mork, Kelsey Tyler, Hawaii Pack and Paddle, Barry Mims, Nolan Keola Reed and Letitia Mims.
The lawsuit alleges the following:
The trip leader, Andrew Mork, age 22, had a criminal history and showed “questionable character, poor judgment and a lack of responsibility to perform guardianship duties.”
Hawaii Pack and Paddle, who lead the expedition that day did not have a permit to go to the area of the Napoopoo lighthouse where the incident occurred.
The guides deviated from their prescribed itinerary and took the group to the “shore area around the Napoopoo lighthouse,” “a treacherous and off limits area which consisted of jagged and crater filled lava rock terrain with violent surf pounding and churning the coastal area waters on July 4, 2012.”
“ This outrageously irresponsible decision lead to the death of Tyler” and the excursion was in “complete breach and violation of the State of Hawaii regulations.”
The guides ignored dangerous tide, wave and surf warnings and advisories posted on local, regional, state wide and national surf information sources.”
When Tyler was struck by the waves and carried away, Mork “failed to act according to his alleged training and watched Tyler being swept away.”
The suit does not specify in the amount of the damage. Karten says that “"This lawsuit will shine a light on how teen tour companies operate." The claim can be accessed here.
