Grindstone Elementary School teacher John Kruggel.Courtesy of John Kruggel

Name: John Kruggel

School where you
teach: Grindstone Elementary School, Berea

Grade/subject you
teach: First Grade

What made you want to
be a teacher? What’s your favorite part of the job?

Both my parents are retired teachers, and one of my three
sisters is also a teacher. So I guess you could say teaching is in my blood! As
a teenager, I worked at day camps as a counselor, and I’ve coached kids in
various sports across various age levels. I always enjoyed being around my
nieces and nephews and seeing how they learned to do things and what their
reactions were to new and different experiences. The combination of all these
things put me on the path to being a teacher, and I love what I do. I feel very
lucky to have worked since 1998 in a district like the Berea City School
District, where there is so much mutual respect among teachers, staff,
administrators and Board members.

I think my favorite part of my job is the very beginning of
the day, seeing the kids come in to class in the morning. It doesn’t matter
what the weather is, what kind of mood I’m in, or how much we have to do that
day. First-graders come in so excited and full of energy and things to share.
You just can’t ask for a better start to your day!

How many former
students do you keep in touch with? Do they come back to visit?

I get to see a lot of my former students from time to time,
especially because I also live in the school district. I see the students up to
the fourth grade in our building, and often I get to see the older students at football
games and other sporting events, or perhaps when they come to our school for a
performance. This year I had a former student, who is now at the high school,
come back and teach Junior Achievement in my class. It is so neat to see them
all grown up!

Teachers often get a
bad rap, for getting summers “off.” How do you generally spend your summers?

While I do enjoy having a little more time to spend with my
family in the summer, I, like other teachers, also spend time taking classes,
looking for additional online resources for my students, networking with other
teachers to get suggestions and ideas I can use with my students, finding
special craft materials or other supplies I can use for the next year’s
lessons, etc. I am often in the building
preparing my classroom or future lessons — most teachers spend time in their
schools over the summer. Just like the school day is not over when I leave my
building, the school year is not over when there are no students. This year,
especially, with the Common Core coming in, teachers have been meeting
regularly, taking classes and workshops as part of professional growth, and
always, always learning.

I also work a second
job, since I am lucky enough to have a brother-in-law who owns his own
landscaping business. I work with him most of the summers, which is a great
change from the classroom. He does all the thinking, and I do what he tells me!

How have your lesson
plans and teaching techniques changed to keep up with technology? The Common
Core? Standardized tests?

Technology has totally reinvented teaching for me. The use of smart boards, ELMOs, and the
availability of a wide variety of online resources have made it possible for me
to get my students involved as active participants in their learning. We use technology to give immediate feedback
on diagnostic testing on computers, to check the weather and calendar items
each day, and access a variety of creative videos that present the key elements
and skills in a unique and enjoyable way — reinforcing skills in reading,
math, and writing and also make those available to students at home. Most of
today’s students have access to these technologies in their home life (iPods,
smart phones, tablets, Kindle, computers), and they enjoy that interactive way
of learning and understanding. Fortunately, students in first grade don’t have
as many of the standardized tests to deal with yet, but it’s important to
remember that any type of testing provides just one piece of information in
understanding and evaluating the ability of each child. I try to use as many
avenues as possible to help my students learn the skills and knowledge they
need.

The Common Core requires students to use higher-level
thinking, with more detail and understanding of the process of formulating answers.
Rather than memorizing outcomes, students must explain how they arrived at a
particular answer, which increases the learning. I want to use every strategy I
can to help my students be successful, lifelong learners.

What is the best
teacher thank you gift you’ve ever received?

I’ve had all kinds of great gifts from students and their
parents over the years and I’ve enjoyed every one of them. The ones that always
mean the most to me are the ones that are made by the students themselves and
come from their hearts. I keep many of those gifts in my classroom, and
whenever I look at them, I remember that student and the things that made him
or her special. Every child is special in a unique way and I am lucky to have
the opportunity to work with them as a teacher.

Volney, N.Y. — Dan Fey has built his share of homes.

He founded Spectrum Contracting more than 25 years ago and has worked on everything from high-end custom projects to ordinary remodeling gigs. For the dream home he built for himself and his wife, he took inspiration from many projects.

He also wanted to give himself a challenge.

“I took a lot of things I liked,” he said. “I wanted to do something unusual and difficult.”

The house has nearly 40 corners, unique angles and fixtures and plenty of custom, hand-made touches, including marble inlay on the floor by the front door, Fey said. The floor plan is wide open.

Nearly every place visitors sit in the home, they’ll see something different, Fey said.

“If you move 10 feet, you’ll get a whole different feeling,” he said. “As long as I’ve lived there, there are still places I can sit and see different things. I guess that’s my definition of architectural perfection.”

Fey worked with an architect on the design, but it was based on his ideas.

“It’s kind of a sneaky thing,” Fey said. “You’re not really sure what you like so much about it at first.”

With such a personal connection to the home, Fey said he has mixed feelings about selling.

Fey and his wife, Robin, are selling now to downsize. She is retired from her job as a nurse and their children are grown.

The house sits on 2.7 acres. Toward the back of the property is a wooded area with a creek running through it.

The home is on a private, paved drive.

It has real stone light posts along a circular driveway and multiple areas of gardens and landscaping. The house itself also has real stonework on the outside in some spots and vertical siding in other areas.

Elsewhere outside, the home has a 2,000-square-foot cedar deck along its back and an 18-by-38 in-ground pool.

THE DETAILS:

Address: 18 Creekside Drive, Volney, N.Y. 13069
Price: $374,900
Size: 3,167 square feet
Lot size: 2.68 acres
Monthly Mortgage: $1,482.46 (based on this week’s national average rate of 4.29 percent by Freddie Mac for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with a 20 percent down payment. Fees and points are not included.)
Taxes: $11,832
Built: 1993
School District: Fulton

Great room: The great room, with 24-foot ceilings, large windows and a wood-burning fireplace, is visible from the home’s front entrance. It has custom built-in shelving and a built-in entertainment center. Its windows look toward a wooded area and a stream that runs by the house.

Office/dining room: The home’s office, with 10-foot ceilings, is to the left of the front entrance. To the right is the formal dining room. Above the doors to each room are open transoms surrounded by oak casings.

Sunroom: The sunroom is off the great room. It has vaulted ceilings, French doors and skylights. The sunroom leads to a screened porch, which allows access to the deck along the home’s back.

Kitchen: The kitchen is off the sunroom. It has a ceramic tile floor, Wood-Mode cabinetry, 14-foot ceilings, multiple pantries and inlaid designs in the counters. It also has a work desk located by a window with a view of the front yard.

Master suite: The bedroom has a walk-in closet and hardwood trim. The bathroom has a whirlpool tub, double vanity and a combination of marble and ceramic tile. The floor is granite. The bathroom also has a glass shower.

Bedrooms/bathrooms: The home has a total of four bedrooms, three full bathrooms and one half bathroom. A balcony on the second floor looks down onto the great room from above. The upstairs also features a guest suite with its own bathroom. Another full bathroom is located in between the other two bedrooms on the second floor.

Basement: The basement is partially finished and includes a sunken game room, bar area and exercise room. The house also has an attached, three-car garage.

Agent: Sandra Farrands
RealtyUSA
18 Canalview Mall, Fulton, N.Y. 13069
Phone: (315) 952-8216
Email: sfarrands@realtyusa.com
Website: www.realtyusa.com

To nominate a listing for House of the Week send an email to home@syracuse.com. Contact Kevin Tampone at ktampone@syracuse.com or (315) 454-2112 and follow him on Twitter @ktampone.

Apart from modern technologies that promise to keep your home safe, there are also some easy landscaping ideas that can make your home more secure, writes Simran Chhibber.

Having come across umpteen signs displaying alerts like ‘Beware of Dogs’, ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ etc., I had often wondered if these ways to deter unwanted company onto a property were as effective as thought to be?

Or whether there were subtler, friendlier or rather better looking means than ugly chain link fences to prevent intruders of the likes of burglars and robbers?

Observing a few facts about recent burglaries helped me understand the psyche of housebreakers better.

Recent studies have indicated that most robbers take only about a minute to break into a property and less than 10 minutes to polish off a house.

The aim being, to vanish before getting noticed.

Another interesting fact that came up was that robbers usually strike at night somewhere around midnight till early dawn hours.

Robbers usually are no strangers, rather they are young amateurs living in nearby areas.

Whilst establishing privacy, homeowners too, sometimes settle for towering hedges and profusely thick shrubbery and mostly these attributes that provide privacy on one hand, also make the perfect screen to shield a burglar on the other.

Scrutinising these facts led to a little research on my part and I got more answers than I thought I would.

Here are a few landscaping tips that could aid in keeping housebreakers away.

Keep the hedges short

Tall hedges, bushes and shrubs provide the requisite hiding garb that robbers look for.

Keeping the hedges trimmed to about three feet and clipping tree branches so the canopy starts at least eight feet from the ground, shall ensure that your garden isn’t providing a hideout for the robbers and that your house is visible to the neighbours and passers-by, eliminating hiding places for intruders.

Gravel wonders

Laying a path of gravel or stone up to your door and below your external windows ensures that even subtle footsteps can be heard loudly.

Hence, a robber walking on it cannot go unnoticed or unheard.

Pea gravel, for example, available in a light stone colour can mingle flawlessly with the existing landscaping and makes a loud crunching noise to inform the homeowners of an intruder’s presence.

As an added bonus, gravel or stones are a water-saving substitute to grass in dry conditions.

Thorny bushes can help too

Bedecking the space below the windows with a thorny plant like a bougainvillea bush, rose, cactus or any other barbed vegetation is sure to deter the entry of an intruder.

Installing a good security system

Recent crime studies reveal that homes with security systems are three times less likely to be burgled than homes without them.

A display board about the home security system on your front kerb might dissuade some criminals, even if it is a sham.

Motion-activated lights

Motion-activated lights can actually make the robbers feel that the light has been switched on because of them. This new gizmo can actually scare off housebreakers, catching them unaware.

And because the lights are only triggered off when required, they can be a cost-effective and an environmentally-friendly choice.

A busy looking house

When away from your house, ensure that your house doesn’t look empty.

Simple things like keeping your car in the driveway or a friendly request to the neighbours asking them to pick up dropped newspapers etc can aid to the cause.

Leaving your TV or music system set up to an alarm can lead to the house looking abuzz with activity.

Landscaping is often ignored and missed as an element of home safety.

However, keeping these suggestions in mind can help ascertain that your home is safe and secure.

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