The Fayetteville-Manlius Central School District on Monday honored longtime girls'tennis coach Phil Rudolph and presented a K'12 music showcase to the board and community. Scott Sugar, the district's director of athletics, introduced Rudolph and noted the coach returned to the district in 1984 after graduating from Cornell and led the girls varsity program for four decades.

"Phil has been a teacher and a coach here," Sugar said while recognizing Rudolph's career, noting a reported coaching record of 573 wins and 11 losses and that Rudolph's teams won roughly 30 sectional championships over a 32-year span. Sugar also said a prolonged team winning streak attracted national attention in Sports Illustrated.

The evening included a multi-grade music presentation that district staff framed as demonstration of a scaffolded curriculum. "Music is for everyone," Mr. Hiebert told the board, describing an approach that builds from steady beat and matching pitch in early grades to ensemble literacy in middle and high school.

Shelly Brooks, the elementary music teacher, led a short demonstration of early-grade learning goals: steady beat, pitch-matching and echoing melodic patterns. Later, Hiebert said the district begins formal strings instruction in fourth grade and reported more than 200 fourth-grade students in the strings program; many fifth graders continue on wind, percussion or string instruments.

Board members praised the program and publicly thanked music educators for their work with students and families. The presentation closed with a preview of high-school swing-choir repertoire and a brief question-and-answer period about the year's musical (the high-school show this year is "Newsies").

The recognitions and the music showcase underscored the district's emphasis on arts participation and local support for extracurricular programs. The board did not take formal action on the program during the meeting.