Valley Central High School - Viking Log Yearbook (Montgomery, NY)

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tRightJ The feeling of intimacy suffered as a result of centralization. At one time, more than fifty students crammed into one Chemistry section. Centralization... Students get lost In the crowd But centralization reached far deep- er than school colors and buses. As was promised, the educational facil- ities improved. In fact, improved so much that VC ranks as one of the top schools in the state. Mr. lorlano, a former student of Maybrook High School said, 'iAca- demic - thatls where centralization helped the most. A small school tsuch as Maybrook I-Iighj limited you in what courses you could take. And, too, a student had the same teacher for English, science, or math every year, grades 7 - 12f' Although it is invariably agreed that the educational facilities have im- proved, there is also a general fear that we may be too big, or, as Mr. Brokaw charged, too impersonal. The forty to fifty students to one teacher ratio in chemistry class is a prime example. Mrs. DiBello, Mr. Ior- lano, and Mr. Brokaw generally agreed that the closer, one-to-one student - teacher relationship added something to education - something which tran- scends facilities. Still, one-to-one situations do re- main in small clubs and post session help. Deeper, even, than centralization's academic impact, was its social im- pact. Mr. Brokaw perceived a tension in the first students to occupy the new Valley Central building, and through- out the years, he has watched that tension gradually decrease into in- significance. There was a lot of friction, those first few years, and by friction, I mean clique-ishness. Montgomery kids wanted to be with Montgomery kids, Walden kids with Walden, and so on. And there was a rivalry which per- sisted for quite a while. Today the village-rivalry, the clique-ishness, is gone. Walden, Mont- gomery, and Maybrook high schools have melted into Valley Central. The friction has disappeared, and a new problem has taken its place. Today you tend to get lost in the crowd, as Mr. lorlano put it. ln a small school you know everyone. But here, students don't always know everyone else in their class. But there may be an advantage to that. It prepares you because when you get out in the world, crowds are a part of real life. Centralization changed our commu- nity, but in the last score of years, the world has changed, too. And the changes have brought us almost full cycle from the place we stood in 1959. tRightl The girls tennis team swung their rackets all the way to win the section championship. Sue Engels waits for a return from her Warwick opponent. 6 OPENING ESSAY

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