Tuesday, September 5th, 2023: Citizenship & Science Academy of Syracuse Middle School held its new student orientation. New students got a walkthrough of the school and met their teachers. Welcome to the Citizenship family! Let's get ready to have some fun and make this an unforgettable experience!

Greetings Citizenship & Science Academy of Syracuse Families and Staff, 

With great pleasure, I welcome you to another exciting year at the Science Academies of New York. Serving SANY Charter Schools with nearly 3,000 students in grades K-12 in Syracuse, Utica, and Rochester as the Superintendent for the 2023-24 school year is a privilege. I look forward to working with you. I hope you had a safe and enjoyable summer and are ready to tackle anything the new school year brings. 

SANY Scholars completed 2022-23, including graduating with an associate degree, completing many college-level courses for free, receiving nationwide known micro-credentials through cybersecurity, regional championships in robotics, Gold and Silver Medals from the Congressional Award Program, science fairs, and many more. I hope that the list will grow this year. We pride ourselves on offering high-quality public education with a college preparatory STEM-based curriculum. Incredible things take place in our classrooms thanks to our outstanding teachers and staff, as well as the hard work and dedication of our Atoms. From volunteering and serving the community, music, and art to sports and extracurricular activities, our scholars are well-rounded in and out of the classroom. 

Almost one-third of  SANY High School graduating scholars completed most college-level courses needed to earn a two-year associate's degree, and a few even graduated with both a High School and Associate’s Degree Diploma. Through this program, SANY Charter Schools cover the cost of classes, books, technology fees, and lunch. Last school year, SANY celebrated its first student in history to graduate high school with an associate's degree. Our philosophy is the money SANY receives from the New York State per-pupil funding belongs to each student and will be spent for whatever helps make them successful. It is a beautiful feeling building a village through partnerships with higher education institutions like OCC, MVCC, SUNY ESF, LeMoyne College, Utica University, and D'Youville University and partnering with community business leaders. The saying "it takes a village to raise a child" comes from an African proverb and conveys that it takes a large group of people to provide a safe, healthy, loving environment. I am grateful to our community for working together and looking forward to seeing caring, contributing citizens from our beautiful Syracuse, Utica, and Rochester communities. 

Safety remains the top priority of our school. Our teachers and staff received safety and crisis management training over the summer, and I am confident we will have a safe and healthy year with the implementation of our safety protocols. Seeing the recent events in the news can be highly upsetting, but with our vigorous efforts, I know we can continue to keep violence out of our school. While we succeeded in our efforts last year, we must always be active regarding safety. Your efforts in assisting with this are highly appreciated. While looking ahead to this year, please take the time to go over our emergency and safety plan: https://www.csasyracuse.org/about-us/required-notifications/emergency-and-safety-plan.

Our faculty and staff care significantly about every student who walks through the door. I admire how teachers diligently plan their lessons while catering to each student’s ability. This year, I will continue my school visits and special events like Breakfast and Lunch with the Superintendent. I cherish the days that I get to spend with our bright students. They always teach me something new!

Thank you for all you do, and I look forward to working with you for the 2023-24 school year. 

Warmest Regards,

Dr. Tolga Hayali, Ed.D
Superintendent
SANY Charter Schools

Wednesday, August 30th, 2023: While students are away, teachers will play! Our incredible Citizenship Middle School staff emerged victorious in a friendly game of matball against Syracuse Academy of Science Middle School. Major props to our courageous staff for giving it their all and displaying team spirit that made this win possible!

Wednesday, August 9th, 2023: Dr. Basic, SANY District Safety Coordinator, provided a presentation to SANY parents, families, students, staff, and stakeholders for the annual public hearing for the District-Wide School Safety plan. Citizenship & Science Academy of Syracuse places huge importance on school safety and works with all stakeholders to ensure we are constantly improving our policies and emergency plan.

The 2023-24 SANY Safety Plan can be found here.

Thank you for working together to make our school safer for all Atoms.

Wednesday, May 17th, 2023: Citizenship & Science Academy of Syracuse students are celebrating the final 26 days of school with our annual ABC Countdown. 2nd-grade students celebrated “Art Day'' by designing toothpick creations using shapes they are learning about, such as triangles, quadrilaterals, and pentagons. Check out this incredible fusion of art and math!

Click here to view more photos. 

Friday, April 28th, 2023: Spring has sprung in class 1A at Citizenship Academy! Our 1st graders learned the importance of good soil, water, and sunlight to help little seeds grow. Students decorated their own growing cups to add some love to the process. We cannot wait to see what blooms!

Click here to view more photos. 

Tuesday, February 28th, 2023: Citizenship & Science Academy of Syracuse had the owner of Tuft Talk, Tiffany Seals, as a guest speaker to close out our 28 speakers event. Students got hands-on experience making custom rugs while also getting a history lesson about where and how tufting started. Our students' high engagement and enthusiasm made this special event a memorable and meaningful experience for everyone. 

Thank you, Tiffany, for inspiring our students!

Click here for more photos.

Tuesday, April 18th, 2023: Jason Fingerman visited Mr. Zinger's 5th-grade class to highlight careers in STEM. Mr. Fingerman works for SAAB as a Systems Engineer for Air Traffic Management Safety and Efficiency. He explained how his job is like solving one big puzzle for a living and showed Atoms the "Flight Aware" software he uses. "Flight Aware" is a real-time flight tracking system that Mr. Zinger uses in his classes as part of STEAM lessons. Mr. Fingerman also demonstrated SAAB's Aerobahn product used with commercial airlines to give the attendees a sense of how the big airlines and airports use Aerobahn to help with surface management.

Students asked insightful questions and were very interested in learning more. Thank you for your time, Mr. Fingerman! 

Click here to view more photos.

Monday, April 10th, 2023: Citizenship & Science Academy of Syracuse Atoms were welcomed back from Spring Break with an exciting surprise. The school’s newest music video will feature Citizenship Elementary Chorus students!

Stay tuned to see what the Atom’s Family is working on!

Also, we would like to give a huge shoutout to music teachers Ms. Meehan and Mr. Hernandez for making this possible!!

Please see our Facebook page for more photos.

Wednesday, March 29th, 2023: The Syracuse Academy of Science High School Robotics team visited Citizenship & Science Academy of Syracuse 6th and 7th graders to promote robotics, engineering, and STEM events in our community. Team members demonstrated their robot atom and discussed building, designing, and programming a robot. 

At the end of the presentation, Atoms had the chance to drive the robot! We hope the Robotics Team’s outreach sessions were very informative to the 43 students who attended!

Click here to see more photos.