MA HOPAC

The December Mahopac Board of Education meeting was packed, both with students and with enthusiasm. During the curriculum report, Middle School Principal Ira Gurkin introduced two presentations on the unique features of Mahopac’s curriculum, a required Tech Class, and a Looping Program that keeps students with the same teachers and students from year to year.

Volunteer students put on a skit demonstrating that Tech classes allow students who may not excel at the core curriculum to enjoy and excel at one class at school. The students also testified that honor students who excel in the more abstract subjects are challenged to apply their minds to the material world around them.

But the more significant portion of the academic presentation was an impassioned defense of “looping” in Mahopac schools. Looping is a practice in which a teacher stays with the same class for more than one year; it is a multiyear placement for both the students and the teacher.

Present and past looping students and parents gave personal testimonies on the program’s effective approach to “socializing” students, and building long-lasting relationships with instructors.

Teacher Lisa Napolitano read from a letter from one parent: “Students change teachers from year to year. But we don’t change bankers or doctors on that basis, Looping fosters a more effective relationship in maintaining a person’s wellbeing.”

“I have intimate relationships with the teachers and my classmates,” eighth grader Maggie Montara said. “I know I can tell them anything if I have a problem.”

Instructor Nicholas Oliverio concluded the presentation, saying, “Looping is a bargain in a climate of tight fiscal constraints. It is a popular, effective program that doesn’t cost this school district a penny extra.”

“It’s holistic,” Oliverio continued, “founded on the belief that education is not limited to empirically measured standards alone, but trains a student into a well-rounded individual, socially, emotionally, and, of course, academically.”

Oliverio asked that other students and parents create an supportive environment for the program to thrive, and finished his emotional defense of the program by saying, “The only cost is when we lose the program.”

The December BOE meeting also honored Mahopac’s fall-season athletes for both their on- and off-the-field accomplishments. Mahopac athletes have, for the second year running, earned the state’s scholar athlete designation, which recognizes school teams for having athletes who maintain an academic average at or above 90 percent. President of the Board Penny Swift presented certificates of achievement to athletes from the boys’ varsity football, cross country, and tennis teams, as well as the girls’ field hockey, volleyball, cross country, and tennis teams.

—Michael Brendan Dougherty