Superintendent's Blog

The 117th Annual Saline High School Alumni Banquet was held tonight in Union School. It was fitting that the event was located at Union School, as we celebrated the class of 1958, who was the last class to graduate from Union School. The next year, the class of 1959 graduated from what is now Liberty School.


Patricia Visel Aungst spoke about the class of '58 - 43 members strong, 25 of whom still live within 30 miles of Saline. For comparison, there were 428 graduates in the Saline High School Class of 2008. There were also a good number of former students from the classes of 1948 and 1943, who were celebrating their 60th and 65th reunions.


Joan Starkey and Kathy Raus Hoey performed "You'll Never Walk Alone" just as they had at their graduation on June 5, 1958.

In looking at the 2007-2008 evaluation of the Weber-Blaess Schoolhouse from the Saline Area School Historic Preservation Foundation, I was impressed by the number of people who visited this past year. Over 40 groups, including virtually every 3rd & 4th grade class from the Saline District, spent time in the schoolhouse learning about the rural education system that existed in the Saline area up until about 50 years ago. It’s a team effort, led by Jim and Cheryl Hoeft, there were 6 docents and another 3 docents in training.

It’s great to see that over 1,300 individuals benefited in one year.Thinking back to our trip to Greenfield Village in Dearborn to visit a schoolhouse when I was in elementary school and now trying to manage a budget that includes $4.00+ fuel prices, having this schoolhouse resource in our community is wonderful!

I also got word of an upcoming event at the schoolhouse at 520 Woodland Drive, Saline.On Sunday, August 17th there will be an old fashioned ice cream social.The event will include numerous activities for children and adults.

On Friday, it's time to head to Battle Creek! Saline defeated Detroit Southeastern in the Quarterfinal and have advanced to the State Semi Finals on Friday, June 13th in Battle Creek. Saline (31-9) takes on Troy (27-11) at Noon on Morrison Field.

The Pleasant Ridge site is under major renovation including parking lots and drainage capacity.



Improvements to the Woodland Meadows playground have also begun to take shape. The asphalt fitness pathway is being constructed with future developments later this summer and into the fall. A special thank you to Ms. Heather Kellstrom and the Woodland Meadows PTA who developed a CARES proposal to access a portion of the funds for this project.

What a run! Over the past 5 years, the Saline Varsity Boys Golf squad has set the standard for excellence in boy's high school golf in the Michigan. This year they were State Runner-Up. Six shots out of the Championship and had two individuals in the top 10, Matt Paterini and Phil Gieseker. A deeper look shows SEC titles, District and Regional titles, numerous major tournament wins. Along the way there were a variety of individual medalists, showing the depth of the program.

For the past five years in the State Tournament, Saline Boys Golf has finished:
2003: 2nd
2004: 21st
2005: 2nd
2006: 1st (undeafeated)
2008: 2nd
2009: Is looking solid with excellent underclassman returning.


Coach Carol Melcher has established a program that simply reloads. In the bigger (and more important) picture she has helped developed a group of young men into leaders in the classroom, on the course, and in life.

Congratulations to the Saline Varsity Baseball sqaud on winning back to back Regional titles! They advance to face Detroit Southeastern on Tuesday at 4pm. The game will be played at Carleton Airport High School.

Friday marked the end of the year for Pooh Corner Preschool. The annual graduation ceremonies were held at Mill Pond Park and culminated with the 110 "graduates" walking across the bridge to receive their "diplomas". The students also demonstrate several of the activities they have worked on during the year.


It was very successful year for Pooh Corner. The move from Union School to Houghton School was smooth and provided for synergy with the Houghton programs and staff.

Pooh Corner is almost full for the 2008-2009 school year. Call 429-8024 for registration information

We had a Technology Committee meeting this week. While I sort of knew this…. I quickly learned again how passionate we are about how we utilize technology. I was also reminded that with technology, personal preference and bias (For example, I’m a Mac guy) tend to influence our opinions regarding what is the best course of action for future implementation.

The meeting allowed us to gather a great deal of feedback regarding procedural steps for the 2008-2009 school year. Clearly, this committee will be a vital part of our plan to gather input.

One of the discussions at the meeting was related to using ”Google Applications” as a district standard for everything from email to word processing to presentations. The big pluses are it’s free, doesn’t require upgrades, and can allow for collaboration with multiple students or co-workers.

Note to Staff & Students: I promise - Microsoft Office will be available next year.

Well, that touched off a conversation that continued via email about whether or not the direction was prudent. I enjoyed the discussion – I noticed how we tended to debate what the move would mean to our own area. The larger conversation about philosophy was initially lost , however, it ended up as part of the dialogue.

In the end, I was very heartened by the honest debate over the direction of our technology efforts. This is a very positive sign for the future.

I would like to thank everyone who supported and participated in the Graduation Ceremony for the Class of 2008. It was a wonderful event from the students cresting the hill and entering the stadium to the tossing of the mortarboards. Click here to watch the video from the Saline Reporter.


The 428 graduates leave behind a legacy of achievement and are poised for great accomplishments in the future.

Mr. Ben Williams and I, along with the Board of Education, central administration and guest speaker Ms. Jean Durst were the first to leave for the field.



The ceremony marked the end of Ms. Kim Van Hoek’s tenure on the school board. In her quest to always remain a part of Saline Area Schools, she now moves on to serve on the Saline Area School Foundation.

It was a big day for Saline in Bedford on Saturday. Both Baseball and Softball won District Titles! They move on to Regional competition this Saturday, here in Saline.

Check out Mr. Nathan Bush's blog to order your own DVD of this year's graduation ceremony. This a great keepsake, and it helps support our video production classes.

Over the past couple weeks, Harvest 4th graders have been showing off their “Powerpoint” skills with the media specialist Ms. Michelle Kraft. I was able to check in on Ms. Jasmine Dudzik’s class today. The students researched their subject (insects) in Ms. Linda McCormick’s Quest class.


Their presentations were shown on our Smartboard and included graphics, text, audio clips and more. It was fun to watch how the use of technology helped hold the focus of the students and deliver the content in a fun interactive environment.

On Tuesday, the Saline Area School Foundation hosted an “After School Reception” at Union School to celebrate grant recipients, donors, foundation advisors and foundation advocates. The event included presentations from Ms. Michelle Barnes and Mr. Juan Lauchu. Each provided the attendees with information about their grants and highlighted the success their projects achieved with the financial support of the Saline Area School Foundation.

Foundation President Lou Candiotti called on all of us to support the Foundation in their mission to support Saline Area Schools.

We had a chance to meet the newest Foundation trustees – Ms. Christine Faeth, Mr. Dennis Valenti and Ms. Kimberly Van Hoek.

The event included excellent refreshments donated by Benny’s Bakery, Brecon Village, Busch’s ValuLand, Country Market, Flaming Shish, Jasmine Thai & China Bistro and the Manchester Bakery. It was also great to see several members of the Saline High School National Honor Society that were on hand to help support the event.

The newly renovated and expanded Saline District Library is now open for business. I was able to stop in today at 9:00am when the doors re-opened. The "official" grand opening is set for this Saturday, May 31st at 10:00am. Below are some pictures of the new facility.

There was a nice crowd downtown today to watch the Memorial Day Parade. Both our High School and Middle School bands marched in honor of those who have served our country.

Ms. Su-Fen Lin, director of our Pooh Corner pre-school recently gave me the book, “Blocks to Robots” by Marina Umachi Bers to read. I think this was because over the last several years as the Director of Community Education, Ms. Lin and I have had numerous philosophical conversations about early childhood education. These discussions often centered around what does the future hold for our youngest learners who are housed at Houghton School.

My first exposure to early childhood education curriculum was the High Scope philosophy that Pooh Corner used starting in the 1990’s. I then learned about the Reggio framework that we now have been incorporating into the early childhood curriculum. Both of these focus on “Key Experiences” that children may learn. For example, “Listening and Responding” is one of those experiences. You ask a child to “tell me where you want to play next.” They respond, “I want to play with the blocks. I want to build a castle today.” Throughout this conversation, the child is encouraged to “listen to the question and respond.” This curriculum also provides support for staff in creating developmentally appropriate play/learning spaces.

“Blocks to Robots” builds on the High Scope and the Reggio foundation. It emphasizes that playful learning can be blended with science, math and technology even with “blocks” and a variety of other play materials. If the above child played with blocks that tumbled in, a discussion can occur “why the castle fell down.” This fun activity provides children with complex concepts based on a constructivist approach to teaching and learning that is fundamental to their healthy development. I am eager to witness the creative, problem solving projects that our pre-school students will participate in next year using this approach.

It's "Field Day" season at our elementary schools! Below are some pictures from Woodland Meadows.







Here's one from Pleasant Ridge with the help of the Saline Fire Department. They had their field day at the high school athletic complex.


Here's a Houghton picture from Mr. Jason Priebe.