Starpoint Central School District

A Long Term Review

I'm going to be 60 in a few weeks, and I still have vivid memories of Mrs. Kelsey and Miss Lake, my kindergarten and 1st grade teachers. My family moved from the area while I was still in elementary school, but Starpoint gave me a great start. I can tell you from personal experience that there are far worse schools, places that fail their students big time, every day. I've had a long professional career (BA and 2 Masters) and am very grateful to the professionals at Starpoint who gave me great encouragement.

My brother and I were early readers, and they gave my parents the encouragement and suggestions that helped us to later develop solid study skills and an analytical approach to reading. I developed a lifelong love of history from their suggestions that my parents add some non-fiction to the mix of children's storybooks and old family volumes of fairy tales and Bibles stories that had been my staples at home.

I was probably a handful in a lot of ways, but I always felt my teachers cared about me and my success in school and life. You can't ask for more than that.

A word to parents:
I suppose that like most schools in the U.S. the curriculum at Starpoint has been changed over the last decade or so to emphasize school standings in statewide tests and so-called "employment readiness." This has been the ruin of many a good school. A solid core of the 3 R's is important, but its disciplines like music, art, history and even recreation (that goes far beyond football teams; how many 40 year old football players do you know?) that contribute to important parts of our lives that aren't as easy to measure as basic math or reading comprehension skills. These things are the glue that holds a society together. All of it goes toward making us more aware of ourselves as a nation, a people with a common history of hard work and struggle, to become informed voters, bound by an allegiance to notions that don't show up on those statewide tests, like liberty, freedom, equality before the law. If you think those things are too grand to worry about when it comes to school kids, you couldn't be more wrong. It's the most important time to worry.

Starpoint is great. I go there, and its great. They have a pool. AND a Fitness Lab. All my friends go there! I hope you like it too because it's great!

This school cares about how well there student do in all subject.The teachers try not to be a teacher but a friend to all students. In a couple of my class there were bad kids that i thought teachers were just going to let go or just don't care, but they didn't. I have had so many great experiences at starpoint and wouldn't go to any other school.