Curie Institute's Grand Opening Ceremony!

At 9:30 a.m. students, parents, faculty and guests gathered in front of the school to formally mark the event with a ribbon cutting. Assemblyman Paul Tonko joined Superintendent Ron Limoncelli, Assemblyman Amedore, Principal Mary Mathey, representatives from the offices of state Sen. Hugh Farley and Sen. Hillary Clinton, and a host of other guests in snipping the red and gold ribbon apart.

The school's newest students, the kindergartners, were introduced at the end of the ceremony. Those students will be the first to attend the magnet school from start to finish.

To view a photo gallery of the opening ceremony, click here.

Magnet schools: Laboratories for learning

The Greater Amsterdam School District is committed to providing students with cutting-edge educational opportunities to best prepare them for the challenges of the future.

The district already operates one magnet school, the Raphael J. McNulty Academy for International Studies and Literacy.

McNulty Academy opened in 2005, and its goal is to foster an environment that enables students to develop positive self-esteem and cooperative attitudes toward the interests, values, and needs of all cultures.

With the opening of the Marie Curie Institute, the Amsterdam School District is expanding its efforts to employ innovative teaching methods to prepare students for the challenges of the future. Teachers at the institute found a Chinese proverb which they believe embodies the school’s unique approach to learning.

"Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.”

The idea is to help students make real-world connections to everything they learn, which means they will be actively engaged in the process of observation, inference, hypothesis and design, and become skilled at communicating their findings in a variety of ways.

The goal is to prepare students for today’s fast-paced, constantly changing world, and for careers that very likely haven’t been invented yet.

“Children learn best when they can make a connection between what they learn and how the real world values that information,” said Patricia Kilburn, a music teacher at the Marie Curie Institute.

Students will be encouraged to make those connections through a variety of partnerships with area businesses, colleges, public institutions, and other schools around the country, as well as through traditional educational methods and principles.

“Establishing these partnerships is critical for the long-term success of a program like this. And if we are striving to expose students to meaningful, real-life situations, the best way to do that is to partner with real-life mentors,” Kilburn said.

The Marie Curie Institute is named after Madame Marie Curie, a scientist who was awarded two Nobel Prizes in the early 20th century. Madame Curie’s research helped lead to the discovery of radium, and her further research led to a process that refined the element, which is used to treat cancer and other diseases.

Teachers and administrators decided that Madame Curie’s ability to make observations, apply her knowledge, and communicate her discoveries around the world should be the foundation of the institute’s educational principles.

Therefore, students will learn to think critically, solve real-world problems, and effectively communicate their thoughts and ideas.

What do engineering and communications mean?

Engineering is simply the use of knowledge to solve problems. Engineers gather and analyze information to develop theories, which are then used to solve problems, make discoveries, or create new products. Every occupation involves some type of problem solving, so adding these principles to education teaches students to seek creative solutions, a skill that is in increasingly high demand in the real world.

Communication is the tool needed to effectively express conclusions, solutions, and discoveries. In today’s global community, communication skills are more important than ever. , and are now essential to success in school, the workplace, and daily living.

At Marie Curie, students will learn new ways to effectively share their knowledge of new information and concepts with others, to support their points of view, and offer solutions to problems. They will learn fundamental communication skills through the art of reading, writing, collaboration and presenting. These skills will be enhanced by expression through art, music and alternative media.

Students at the Marie Curie Institute will be given daily opportunities to engage in engineering and communications activities, and the school district purchased new equipment to ensure that students are using cutting-edge educational technology.

For example:

• The institute has 10 SMART boards, which are essentially large computer screens that can be used as chalkboards, but which also connect wirelessly to the Internet and can access software programs, such as Microsoft Word or Excel spreadsheets. These SMART boards combine technology with traditional classroom learning.

• The school’s new Lab Cab doubles the number of computers available to Curie students. The Lab Cab’s 30 laptop computers are stored on a handcart that can be wheeled from classroom to classroom. Bringing computers to classrooms limits the downtime experienced when students move from classroom to classroom.

• With help from teachers, students will produce a school newspaper, a television news program that will broadcast information to the school’s classrooms, and operate a radio station that will broadcast school news over the Internet.

One of the school’s main objectives is to establish partnerships with local organizations. That way, students learn about topics in school and then see practical applications of their lessons through field trips.

Partnerships have been established with a variety of organizations such as Fulton Montgomery Community College, Empire State Forest Products Association, WCSS Radio Station, The Times Union, Capital News 9, and the University at Albany’s College of Nano Skills, Science and Engineering.

Additional programs and opportunities are being established with other area businesses, which have been very supportive of the new school.

Another collaboration has been established with a magnet school in Minnesota, which is also embarking on its first year. Marie Curie teachers will correspond with the Minnesota teachers as they refine their approach to teaching at a magnet school. This collaboration may also enable Curie students to “team up” with students from Minnesota to conduct engineering experiments.

Students will be required to adhere to a dress code, which means they must wear the school’s colors, red, white, black, and tan.

The dress code achieves a number of goals at once. It places all students on an equal footing, allows the school to express its unique identity, and teaches students that school, like work, is a place that is different from home, with different rules and expectations.

“Coming to school is their job, so they need to dress and act appropriately,” said Principal Mary Mathey.