School Events

Pioneer Valley Excellence in Teaching Award

Congratulations to our 2012 winners:

Keri Guyette:

and Roxanne Mariani-Prall:

The Hatfield Public Schools will once again be participating in the Pioneer Valley Excellence in Teaching Award program this year. Two Hatfield teachers will be honored this year for their tremendous commitment and impact on the children in our schools. This is the ninth year for this outstanding program. A celebration will honor the award recipients in the Hampshire/Franklin Counties on Wednesday, May 2nd, at 6:00 p.m. The MC for the evening is Channel 40 anchor person, Ray Hershel.  Each teacher will receive, among other gifts, 2 tickets to the event, $500, an engraved plaque, a corsage, pictures of the event, a three month membership to a local YMCA, and grants for course offerings by Channel 57, Westfield State University, Western New England College, and Bay Path College.  
Sponsors for the program include: Bay Path College, Channel 22, Channel 40, The Channing Bete Company, Country Bank, The Hampshire Gazette, The Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation, Langones Florest, The Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House, Mass Mutual Financial Group, Meyers Brothers Kalicka, Reel to Reel, The Reminder, Southworth Paper Company, Springfield College, Springfield Republican, STCU Credit Union, Western New England University, WGBY Channel 57, and the local YMCAs of the Pioneer Valley.

After an extremely successful fall sports season, during which all of our varsity teams played in post-season, the winter should be exciting! Many seniors graduated from the teams, but our winter athletes are training hard to prepare for their seasons. Practices have begun and spirits are high!

Boys Varsity Basketball

Boys’ Varsity basketball graduated a huge portion of the team last year: Corey Mortimer, Nick Sulda, Anthony Afflitto, Teddy Smiarowski, Nick Fitzgerald, and Kenny Banas. With so much talent gone from the 14-8 team, the underclassmen have big spots to fill. Mat Sulda returns as the leading scorer, as an average of 17.9 points and a total of 624 career points. Coach Zerneri, as usual, expects great things from the team. Returning players Mat Sulda, Seaver Rickert, Keith Natale, Michael Molloy, David Longstreeth, and Derek McMahon are stepping it up this year in hopes of post-season play. Optimistic junior Seaver Rickert adds “We don’t lose; not now, not never!”  The boys all agree that with hard work and determination success is in the future for this team.  

Girls Varsity Basketball

After graduating two key members of their team, Sarah Wickles and Allison Slysz, girl’s varsity basketball has big shoes to fill this year. Seniors Alyssa Klepacki and Amanda Hebert hope to lead the team to great success, possibly improving their record from last year of 10-10, and simply put it, “We are pumped!” Important underclassmen Danielle Duseau, Emiko Barker, and Katie Yagodzinski will need to step up as potential starters. Coach Wilcox has very high expectations for this team and the first practice was a clear reflection of his hopes.  

Varsity Cheerleading

Cheerleading begins their season with a good sized group of 16. Seniors Sierra McDonald and Alyssa Woodward will lead the team, consisting mainly of sophomores. Lauren Bradford says “It’ll be a good season since we all have experience and hopefully new cheers. GO SA!”Coach Jen Charrete and new assistant coach, Keri Guyette, are excited for the season. Mr. Duncan’s son Gavin is especially amped to visit the basketball games specifically to see the cheerleader’s amazing skills! Smith staff and fans agree that the program is building to be a great representative group of our school. The squad is proud to lead their school with spirit through new cheers and tricks!

Ice Hockey

Members of Smith Academy: Daniel Pereira, Cameron Woodward, Barrett Rogaleski, and Brandon Pashek, are all able to play high school level ice hockey thanks to a co-op program with Greenfield High School. All four students played with the program last year and were very successful with a record of 5-12-2. Daniel Pereira returns for his senior year as a key defender for the team. Cameron Woodward, also a defender, is returning for his sophomore year as an important member of the team. Goalie Barrett Rogaleski obviously has a major role on the team, something he was very successful with the previous year. And Brandon Pashek returns for his junior year as a speedy forward player important for the team’s offensive success.  Coach Duclos has very high expectations for the team. The players have been playing in the off-season in preparation for the season very quickly approaching. “It should be an interesting season” says senior Daniel Pereira. All of the players agreed that the intensity of the first practice set the tone for a season of hard-work and success.

Community Service Club has been busy at work this year. The food drive was a huge success for the community service club. Earlier in the year a representative from the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts spoke to the students about the importance of collecting food. This representative gave an inspiring perspective for the club. With the leadership of the Community Service Club, Smith Academy students collected 365 canned food items; 353 pounds of food! Mrs. Gray was the homeroom winner, which collected more than ninety items alone. 

The club, made up of many students grades 7-12, works on projects to benefit the community. They have already planned out many events for upcoming months. The annual Breakfast with Santa will be held December 10th, from 9:00-11:00 a.m.at the Hatfield Elementary School. All proceeds fundraised at this event will be used to purchase gifts to donate to the Toys for Tots organization. The club has also been working on making holiday cards to send over-seas to soldiers. The Breakfast with the Easter Bunny fundraiser is in the midst of planning, with a date in spring to be announced. Among all of this planning, the students of the club even take time to travel to the Hatfield Elementary School to interact with the younger students. Smith Academy congratulates the Community Service Club for their great accomplishments thus far, and wishes them continuing success!

Hatfield Public Schools, along with local farms, are working hard to improve students’ health. This program, titled F.R.E.S.H., is an acronym for: Farmers Rally to Enhance Students’ Health. This program is currently run by two Smith Academy students, Alyssa Woodward and Alyssa Klepacki, and town resident Bob Wagner. Ron Williams, director of food services for the Hatfield district, is the leader of this program. Williams plans school meals including fresh fruits and vegetables. With the help of the students, the required foods are packaged and brought to the Hatfield schools. This allows the food service team to provide students with healthy, nutritious meals.

Students, staff, and parents are overjoyed with this program. Students were eager to speak about the program.  Senior Sam Newton says, “The addition of fresh farm vegetables is a nice addition to our lunches.”  Another senior, Emily Pitchko adds, “The quality of potatoes has improved tremendously. They now have a more natural taste.” Secretary of Smith Academy, Karen Blanchard, adds, “I think it is great for students, and very helpful for the farmers in town.”

Already this year we have used 10 pounds of onions, 150 pounds of potatoes, 20 peppers, and 20 tomatoes from local farms.  Smith Academy mathematics teacher Mr. McCarthy says “I really enjoy it. It has really improved since past years; I especially love the cantaloupe.” Senior Jessica Suriano adds “I love the broccoli!” Another Smith Academy mathematics teacher, Mrs. LeGrand, simply says “It’s good stuff!” It is apparent, from both students and staff, that the F.R.E.S.H.  program has been a wonderful addition to school meals.