Pleasantville board honors students across arts, STEM and writing; approves Pleasantville Fund for Learning grants

The Pleasantville Union Free School District celebrated student achievements across multiple disciplines and approved teacher grants from the Pleasantville Fund for Learning (PFL).

The board’s student‑recognition program honored Bedford Road School’s fourth‑grade 'fill‑a‑bucket' team for kindness and peer mentorship, student‑council members for school leadership, middle‑ and high‑school participants in the Olympics of the Visual Arts and Science Olympiad teams that qualified for state competition and returned with medals. Writing contest coordinator Joe Wallace praised this year’s entries as "the single best, deepest, most passionate, most varied year that there’s ever been." Wallace then announced grade‑level winners and Scholastic Writing recognitions.

High school principal Joe Palumbo announced Metro Award nominations and winners for the school’s production, and students who traveled on a cultural‑exchange trip to France summarized their research projects, including computational‑fluid‑dynamics work and studies of memory and political music.

PFL co‑presidents Danielle Kayley and Andrea Bush presented two grants approved this year: a Bedford Road School library revitalization to support curriculum‑linked projects and a high‑school photography studio equipped with lighting, cameras and printers to support portfolios and artwork documentation. The board moved to accept the grants and approved the consent agenda by voice vote; no opposed votes were recorded.

In other business, the student ex‑officio board member Julian described the ad‑hoc selection process used this year and introduced Brady Cashman as the incoming student representative.