A wind farm in Wyoming County, NY gives an idea of the size and scope of the turbines that may soon be put in place in Villenova and Hanover. (Photo from the Buffalo News)

ARKWRIGHT – A $156 Million wind farm in northern Chautauqua County is making progress and will commence with construction next year.

That’s according to officials with the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency, who participated in the announcement on Wednesday in the Arkwright Town Hall.

IDA officials say that Arkwright Summit Wind Farm LLC – a company owned by EDP Renewables North America LLC (EDPR) – will build 36 wind turbines with a maximum generating capacity of 78.4 megawatts- which is enough electricity to power approximately 31,500 households. The wind farm will span approximately 6500 acres of leased private land in the Towns of Arkwright and Pomfret.

In addition to the turbines, the wind farm will include one permanent meteorological tower, an operation and maintenance building, underground electrical lines and communication cables, an overhead generator lead line, and a system of gravel access roads, parking, landscaping and related improvements.

The large scale wind project – which has been in the works for over ten years – has received local municipal approval, and the IDA approved financial assistance for the project in October 2015.

According to EDPR officials, the Wind Farm will pay a total of $313,600 each year for 30 years to be split among Chautauqua County, the towns of Pomfret and Arkwright, and the Pine Valley, Forestville, and Fredonia school districts.

In addition, more than $500,000 will be paid in annual lease payments to participating land owners.

The company anticipates the creation of six permanent jobs in addition to 250 part time positions during the wind farm’s construction.

Standardized testing begins this week for students in grades 3 through 8, who will be taking ELA (English Language Arts), starting on Tuesday. The math exams begin next week.

The tests are given in order to assess how each school district has applied the Common Core teaching standards to their curriculum. Since first being given, they’ve been a sore subject for parents and teachers across the state. Parents feel the additional tests add unneeded stress to their child’s live, while teachers feel the tests are unfair because they often involve testing parts of curriculum that teachers themselves have yet to implement in their teaching. The tests were also initially going to be used to help measure teacher performance, although that has since been removed as evaluation criteria by the state education department.

Jamestown School Superintendent Tim Mains told WRFA last week that the state education department has also responded to concerns brought forward by parents.

“There’s a new vendor that’s managing the process and even though that new vendor is so new that they have to use old questions that were field tested by the previous company, they took those questions and put them in front of teachers,” Mains explained. “So they had teachers who read every single item, threw out things that they felt weren’t grade appropriate or that they didn’t think were fair. They shortened the test a bit. And the biggest piece, which I personally love, is that they no longer will have a time limit.”

Mains adds that by removing the time limit on the exams, there should be less stress for students since they know they won’t have to rush through the exam.

Jamestown Public Schools Superintendent Tim Mains

It remains to be seen if parents in the county will be satisfied with the changes, or if they will instead try to opt their students out of the exam. In 2015, Jamestown Public Schools reported an opt-out rate of 2 percent for the ELA exam, and a 3 percent opt-out rate for the math exam. The school district with the highest percentage of opt-outs in Chautauqua County was Fredonia School district with a 53 percent math assessment refusal rate and a 50 percent refusal rate for the ELA exams.

Mains said he’s hopeful that Jamestown will have a high participation rate because it’s crucial that the district knows how will it is doing in teaching the common core curriculum.

“I know that there are some folks who take objection to the common core, but the higher standards are exactly where we need to be, exactly where we need to be headed, and I want our children to perform well and be able to meet those standards,” he said. “If they’re not meeting those standards then we want to know, and we can’t know if they are not taking those tests.”

Mains said a newsletter recently went out to parents reminding them the tests are taking place this week, and also asking parents to make sure their children are prepared by getting rest, eating a breakfast that is low in sugar and high in protein, and to also reassure their children.

“Parents need to remind their children that the tests are not about them,” Mains said. “It’s not to say how smart they are, it’s simply to say how much can you do and show as much to do as you can. If you don’t know a question, then make your best guess or go onto a question that you can answer.”

In all, there will be three days of English tests this week and three days of math tests next week.