Superintendent's Message
Ms. Christine Hamill
From our humble beginnings almost one hundred years ago as Common District #4, Town of North Greenbush....
... to our move to the Main Avenue building in the early 1950’s...
...and finally to our current location on East Avenue off of Winter Street in 1970...,
our District has always provided a quality educational program at a reasonable cost per pupil.
Along the way, we also changed our school legal classification from a Common School District to a Union Free School District some time in the early 1980’s. The term "Union Free" has caused some confusion over the years because people associate it with our teachers union and don’t understand how we can be union free and still have a teachers union. In an attempt to help clear up the confusion surrounding this subject, I think I have found a good definition of Union Free as follows:
A union free school district is a school district generally formed from one or more common school districts to operate a high school program, which common school districts cannot do. First authorized by legislation in 1853, union free school districts are administered by a school board of between three and nine members. Currently, not all union free school districts operate a secondary school program but do, as we now do, send tuition students to neighboring high schools.
Our District has one K-8 school building named the Gardner-Dickinson Elementary School. It is located at the end of East Avenue off of Winter Street. Our District Business Office is located here as well. If you want to find us please click on "Where in the World is Gardner-Dickinson?" As indicated above, we do not have our own high school and presently offer choice of Troy High School, East Greenbush High School, Brunswick High School, Averill Park High School or Tech Valley High School. Our District also accepts grade 2-8 students on a tuition basis from the North Greenbush Common School District (The Little Red School House) which is located close by. We also provide transportation for them on a contract basis.
We are one of only fifteen K-8 Districts in New York State! I’m convinced that this configuration does make a difference in our performance and quality of student life. Check out our most recent New York State Report Card to see what I mean. I believe that our K-8 program configuration is the secret to our student success. The challenge is to produce a quality program and climate for student success at a reasonable cost. The New York State Department of Education reports that we are doing a good job in both student performance and cost.
I have mentioned our smallness has a lot to do with our success and our creating an atmosphere of being a unique or "special" place for all of our students. Small schools are designed to produce this special experience. If you want to know more about why small schools like ours are special just click on Why are Small Schools So Special?
I hope that you enjoy your visit to our Wed Page and that you keep coming back to see what we are doing. There is always something new and exciting happening in the Wynantskill Union Free School District.