The Altamont Enterprise

Friday 24 May

Laurel Dover Searle

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New Scotland

Library budget squeaks by V’ville plan gets 57% of vote

Details: Published on Friday, 24 May 2013 21:38

By Tyler Murphy

dsc 0527-web The Enterprise — Tyler Murphy
Closing the polls: Voorheesville Administrative Assistant Deborah Baron, left, along with others, collects the school and library ballots shortly after the polls closed at 9 p.m. at the Voorheesville Middle School. Both the library and school budgets passed.NEW SCOTLAND — Nearly 60 percent of those who voted in the Voorheesville School District Tuesday supported the school’s budget.

The Voorheesville Public Library’s budget was also approved by the slim margin of 17 votes.

Of the 800 ballots cast in the school budget vote, 459, about 57.4 percent, were in favor and 341 against, the district’s $22,562,392 spending plan which is 3.17 percent larger than last year’s and will raise the tax levy in the district by 3.23 percent.

School board President Timothy Blow said the vote was closer than he thought it would be saying this year’s budget “made economic sense for the community.”

Two propositions also on the school ballot also passed. The bus purchase proposition passed with 471 in favor and 326 against. The proposition approves the purchased of two 60-passenger school buses. The repair reserve fund proposition was also approve by a vote of 511 in favor and 275 against. The proposition authorizes the transfer of up to $250,000 from the district’s unallocated fund balance in order to replenish a fund set aside for future repairs.

Heldeberg Workshop students learn about nature, science, art below escarpment

Details: Published on Monday, 20 May 2013 15:25

By Tyler Murphy

heldeberg workshop 8.09 005-web Photo submitted by Wendy Barcomb
The Heldeberg Workshop will welcome hundreds of students this July to the Helderberg escarpment. The workshop is on 250 acres of land with orchards, forests, and wetlands where a range of educational and outdoor programs are offered to school-aged children.

NEW SCOTLAND — The woodlands below the Helderbergs will soon come alive with the sound of children taking part in this summer’s 53rd annual Heldeberg Workshop.

In July, hundreds of students will participate in more than 30 educational and outdoor programs to explore the workshop’s 250 acres of orchards, forests, and wetlands nestled below the sheer cliffs of the Helderberg escarpment.

“There’re lots of places for kids to learn about the world around them,” said workshop spokeswoman Wendy Barcomb.

From the camp, students can look up at the limestone ridgeline of John Boyd Thacher State Park, as it creeps along the steep pine and maple hillside hundreds of feet above.

“We’re really proud of our quality of the classes, the professionals teaching them, and that the kids are learning outside in a wilderness area,” she said. “They are learning hands-on, they can go look at the amphibians in the pond, the trees around them. It’s a class not in a room but set out in nature.”

Some classes focus on the natural world like “Bugs and Slugs” or “Bugs and Slugs Advanced.” These classes, for example, examine local insect species and their role in nature. Students learn how to collect and preserve insects for study, how to create microscope slides and engage in other fun science activities.