Onteora student Thea Millenson-Wilens is a national winner in the Letters About Literature         writing contest sponsored by the Library of Congress. Thea’s letter to Gayle Forman, author
   of If I Stay, won one of two National Prizes awarded in the Level 2 (Grades 7 and 8)
   category. The prize includes a $2,000 award.

Thea, who initially wrote the letter to Ms. Forman as part of an assignment for Denise Maltese’s Grade 8 English class, will be entering ninth grade in the fall.

Thea qualified for the national round of the competition by winning at the state level. As a winner in the New York State Letters About Literature competition, she had the opportunity to attend the New York Writers Hall of Fame’s June induction ceremony, which honored new inductees Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jennifer Egan, James Patterson, Larry Kramer, Ntozake Shange, Richard Peck, and William Cullen Bryant.

The Letters About Literature program is a national reading and writing promotion contest that is judged at the state and national levels. To enter, readers write personal letters to an author, living or dead, from any genre, explaining how that author’s work changed their way of thinking about the world or themselves.

For more information on this year’s awards, please see the Library of Congress press release at https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-19-064/library-of-congress-announces-reading-writing-competition-winners-2/2019-07-02/

The Onteora Central School District is partnering with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to help parents, guardians, and community members to safely dispose of un-needed pharmaceuticals. The goal of the DEC Pilot Pharmaceutical Take Back Program is to help protect public health, public safety, and the environment. Medication-collection kiosks are located at the Boiceville Pharmacy on Route 28 as well as at the Shandaken, Olive, and Woodstock Police Departments. For additional authorized disposal locations near you, go to: https://on.ny.gov/rxdropbox

During the months of July and August, public access to the High School/Middle School track and football field, as well as the rear side of the school building, will be restricted due to construction work. The work, involving replacing the bleachers and press tower, adding handicap parking by the track, installing retaining walls, and paving the back area of the gymnasium, was authorized by voters as part of the 2018/2019 school budget and approved by the State Education Department late last fall. “The area will be an active construction site,” says Jared Mance, Director of Facilities and Operations. “There will be heavy equipment, and a stream of contractors coming and going. To ensure everyone’s safety, we ask that students and community members to kindly respect the fact that the track, football field, and back parking lot will be off-limits to the public during July and August.”

If you have any questions, please call Mr. Mance at (845) 657-6384 or Monica Kim LaClair, Assistant Superintendent for Business, at (845) 657-8499.