Photos courtesy of Peggy Barringer – These Santas hold Chloe Mosele, Peggy Barringer’s granddaughter, during a Charlie Howard celebration on September 25, 2010.

ALBION – It will feel like a homecoming and a pilgrimage for 250-plus Santas this week when they converge in Albion for a Santa Claus Conference.

Albion is hosting the Charles W. Howard Legendary Santa Claus Conference this week with Santas from across the country – and some from outside the U.S. – in town from Thursday through Sunday. The many activities at the conference are free and open to the public.

“It’s a camaraderie and a chance to exchange ideas,” said Phil Wenz, coordinator of the event. He has worked the past 30 years as a year-round Santa at the Santa’s Village theme park in Dundee, Ill.

Wenz pushed for a “Charlie Howard Day” celebration in Albion on Sept. 25, 2010. He wanted the Santas to celebrate the hometown of Charlie Howard, who is held in high regard in the Santa community.

Howard started a Santa School in 1937, developing standards for dress and interacting with children. Howard ran the school on Phipps Road until his death in 1966.

The school has since been moved to Midland, Mich., but it still bears the name of Charlie Howard.

Wenz and the Santas try to have Santa Claus conferences every two years. Wenz wanted the multi-day event, which will draw more Santas than the special event in 2010, to come to Howard’s hometown.

These Santas gather in 2010 for a photo outside the First United Methodist Church in Albion. Charlie Howard attended the church.

Wenz would like to work with the Albion community to celebrate the Charlie Howard and Santa Claus heritage. That could be more Santa-themed events, signage about Howard and Santa, and perhaps a bronze statue for Howard dressed as Santa.

“We want to make Albion a destination for Santa Clauses,” he said.

Celebrating that Santa heritage could make Albion a tourist draw, especially when coupled with the community’s historic attractions, the Erie Canal and other resources, Wenz said.

This Santa-themed vehicle was in Albion on September 25, 2010. Albion can expect to see about 250 Santas around town in the next few days.

Photo by Tom Rivers – Michelle Restivo addresses the Board of Education on Monday, thanking the board for allowing students who refuse state tests to be allowed to read in the classroom. She said other districts have allowed children not taking the tests to go to a separate room. Albion has declined to do that.

ALBION – School officials were thanked during Monday’s Board of Education meeting for not making students “sit and stare” if they refuse to take state exams in grades 3 through 8. Those tests start today.

Albion is allowing students who refuse the tests to remain in the classroom and read quietly at their desks. The reading material won’t be books or magazines brought in by students. It will reading material supplied by the school.

“We thank you for recently allowing our children to read silently during the test period,” said Michelle Restivo, mother of two students in the district.

Many other districts are allowing students who refuse the test to go to a separate room. Restivo said the School Administrators Association of NYS encourages students refusing the tests to not remain in the same room with their classmates who are taking the test.

“It is SAANYS position that such a procedure might be distracting to test takers and some may regard such a requirement to be uncomfortable for the students opting out,” Restivo said.

Albion school leaders have decided to keep the students in the same room.

Restivo spoke on behalf of a group of parents concerned about the state tests. Many of those parents and their children are refusing the tests.

Restivo said the district has already been notified the students won’t be taking them, and those students shouldn’t be presented testing materials. To present them testing materials, and insist they sign their test booklets after parents already stated their intention to refuse the tests, is wrong and could be considered abusive by the Dignity for All Students Act, she said.

“Students who have been protected by their parents’ right to refuse tests have done absolutely nothing wrong,” she said. “Presenting these tests to students and asking them to refuse, after you have received express wishes from parents, is harassment, intimidation, bullying and abuse as defined by DASA.”

The district received some refusal letters from parents after testing labels were printed. District Superintedent Michael Bonnewell said there are about 10 to 12 students who came after the deadline who will need to sign their names. The other students refusing the tests, who notified the district before the deadline, won’t have to sign their names on the test booklets, Bonnewell said.

He said teachers or other school personnel cannot, by state law, write on those exam booklets. The students need to do that.

“Our intent is to honor the desire to refuse the test,” he said. “Our intent isn’t to make parents’ or students’ lives difficult.”

Restivo said that standardized testing is necessary, but state’s approach disempowers parents, school administrators and districts.

“Standardized tests that are teacher created and scored would provide much more insight into our children’s progress as learners,” she said. “Assessments should guide future instruction in order to provide the best education for our children, and we have little faith that these tests do that.”

Bonnewell said he shares many of the concerns raised by Restivo, parents and staff about the testing, but the district has to follow the state education rules.

“It remains the law of the land and we have to work to change that law to make it appropriate,” he said.

Restivo said the parents aren’t asking the district to not follow education laws. By refusing the tests, Restivo said parents and their children are exercising their democratic rights to stand up for their principles, believing it will lead to a greater good.

“It is our opinion that teachers and students are not failing, like the state has led us to believe,” Restivo said. “Rather the state has failed us by over-testing our children, and misusing the results. We refuse the NYS Common Core assessments in grades 3-8. We support Albion Central School District – its administrators, teachers and students. Most importantly, we support our children and we ask that you will, too.”

One student, Freshman Class Vice President Riley Seielstad, also addressed the board and the parents in the crowd and urged students to take the tests. She worries the “opt out” movement could result in less funding for school districts, perhaps hurting music and sports programs.

State aid isn’t supposed to be affected if students refuse the tests.

Seielstad urged students to take the exams, which are 90 minutes a day over six days.

“I think 90 minutes is worth the effort for music and sports,” she said.

District named elementary school in honor of school leader

Ron Sodoma is pictured last May when he attended the Albion Honors Convocation Dinner.

ALBION – Ron Sodoma, a retired Albion Central School superintendent who fostered character education and service learning programs, while pushing for campus upgrades and solid financial footing for the district, has died.

Mr. Sodoma was fighting cancer and was in hospice care. He was living in Green Castle, Pa., with his wife Karen, a retired Albion teacher. They raised their daughters, Amanda and Becky, in Albion.

Sodoma had a 35-year career at Albion. He started as an elementary school teacher, became principal of the Waterport school, then assistant superintendent and the last 18 ½ years as superintendent.

He retired in December 2002. About two years later there was a ceremony, naming the elementary school in his honor. He said then the district’s success and its commitment to every child is a team effort.

“His heart was here,” said Michael Bonafede, the former Board of Education president who served closely with Sodoma and his successor, Dr. Ada Grabowski. “He believed in the community, the children and a well-rounded education.”

Sodoma may have moved away, but he contributed to community causes, including the capital campaigns for the new Hoag Library and Hospice residence in Albion.

He and his wife were back last May to attend the Honors Convocation for graduating Albion seniors.

While Sodoma was superintendent, the district implemented a character education program, service learning initiatives and also an alternative high school program at the Orleans County Nursing Home – efforts that won the district national awards and remain a part of the school today.

“He was instrumental in developing the culture at the district,” Bonafede said. “He had a pure heart, with good intentions and children were first.”

Sodoma was skilled with planning and the district’s financials. For many years Albion had one of the lowest per pupil costs in the state. The district maintained that low rate while preserving reserve funds and tackling needed campus renovations and improvements.

The district’s sound fiscal shape, the care of its campus and its committed staff attracted Michael Bonnewell to the job about five years ago when Grabowski retired, following Sodoma.

“From my point of view when I was applying this was an attractive place to be,” Bonnewell said. “The finances were incredibly well managed and that goes back a long ways.”

Sodoma’s legacy lives on at the school with the many teachers, administrators and staff he hired that continue to serve the district, Bonnewell said.

Richard Pucher also served as a local superintendent for 18 ½ years. He led the Lyndonville district and retired just before Sodoma. The two were often on the phone each week.

“He was willing to help his fellow superintendents,” Pucher said.

Sodoma could have gone to bigger districts and more lucrative salaries, but he was committed to Albion for the long haul, Pucher said.

“He was always interested in impacting his district, helping educators and bettering young people,” Pucher said.

He saw Sodoma as a skilled planner, looking years into the future and making the needed incremental changes to reach the goal.

Jason Smith, the current Lyndonville superintendent, was a high school social studies teacher when Sodoma encouraged him to pursue administration, first as dean of students and then as a vice principal in Albion. Smith would work as a principal in Elba before being hired as Lyndonville superintendent.

He remembers his first day at Lyndonville. There were flowers from Sodoma, with a card, “Call me if you need anything.”

Many teachers hired by Sodoma would go on to be superintendents, a legacy that includes Jeff Evoy in Medina, Roger Klatt in Barker and Roy-Hart, and Mickey Edwards in Wyoming. In addition, Carol D’Agostino is Kendall’s high school principal and Matt Calderon, a former Albion vice principal, is Pembroke’s district superintendent.

“His superintendent’s tree is quite large,” Smith said. “He encouraged a lot of people.”