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Webutuck’s Spanish for Educators program provided teachers at the district with weekly Spanish lessons intended to improve communication between teachers and students.
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AMENIA — The Webutuck Central School District will continue to offer the Spanish for Educators program, which instructs teachers on basic principles of the Spanish language, during the 2025–2026 school year, citing the program’s success during the last term.
Webutuck offered the optional class of ten weekly sessions to faculty members beginning in February as part of an effort to address communication issues between faculty and the high percentage of students with a limited command of the English language.
According to Lauren Marquis, Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Technology at Webutuck, around 22% of Webutuck students possess a knowledge of English insufficient to learn effectively in an English-speaking classroom.
The goal of the program is not to train faculty to lead specialized classes entirely in Spanish, but rather to make existing classes taught in English more accessible to Spanish-speaking students. “We are not a bilingual school — the primary language that we utilize is English,” Marquis said.
The Spanish for Educators program is intended to complement existing measures, such as translation devices and bilingual visuals, intended to make classes learnable for Spanish speakers, while still catering to the district’s majority English-speaking population, Marquis said.
Students at Webutuck may not speak English fluently, but they are not necessarily proficient in Spanish, either. “We have a large Guatemalan population who speak K’iche’ as their first language; Spanish is technically their second language and English may be their third,” further complicating the ability of teachers to provide accessible instruction to all students, Marquis said.
In spite of the inherent challenges of being a firmly English-speaking school with a population of students not proficient in the language, the Spanish for Educators program facilitated basic dialogue in the classroom and helped build relationships between students and teachers, Marquis said.
“We had some students in the last session come in to speak Spanish with our faculty which was a really valuable experience for our staff; they formed great bonds with their students,” being able to communicate in the same language, Marquis said.
The ability to engage more easily with their students was the aspect of the program which faculty found to be the most meaningful. “We had 18 staff members who participated in the course … The providers said that the participants were very enthusiastic, they were committed and they were taking risks in learning the language of our students,” Marquis said.
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The entrance to the private Silo Ridge Field Club on Route 22 in Amenia.
Photo by Christine Bates
AMENIA — The Housing Board has considered an application from Silo Ridge and issued its recommendation to the Planning Board at a regular meeting on Thursday, July 17, to require that workforce housing regulations are met.
Because Silo Ridge is seeking to amend its Master Development Plan through an application to the Planning Board, and because the Silo Ridge Development consists of more than 10 dwelling units, workforce housing requirements must be accommodated either through construction of designated workforce housing units or through payment of a fee to the town to substitute for those units. Administration of workforce housing requirements is the responsibility of the Housing Board.
The Housing Board voted 3-0 to approve its recommendation. Housing Board member Juan Torres recused because he serves on the board of Silo Ridge Ventures, and Housing Board member Mark Hussey, Silo Ridge employee, abstained because he felt that the number of units total of 220 was inaccurate as stated in the recommendation.
“We’re taking information given to us by the Planning Board engineer, stating 220 approved units in connection with an application to change the site plan, reducing the number of units from 13 townhouse units to 10 condominium units,” explained Housing Board chairman Charlie Miller.
“We need to base our recommendation on what the Planning Board gave us,” Miller added.
Reviewing the status of Certificates of Occupancy, Miller noted that 114 COs had been issued as of the end of April, and there have been two COs issued since for a total of 116. In addition, six building permits are active.
A workshop session with the Planning Board, requested by Silo Ventures Consultant Patrick O’Leary, has been scheduled for Wednesday, July 23, expected to provide clarity on the numbers of units completed and planned. The public hearing on the change from 13 townhouse units to ten condominium units will then continue at the Wednesday, Aug. 13, meeting of the Planning Board.
“We’re saying that they have already reached the 50%,” Miller said, referring to the point at which the workforce housing regulations come into effect.
“This board’s responsibility is to apply the law as it is,” Miller added.
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