Published in the Current
Cape Elizabeth has joined forces with two school districts, one in Missouri and one in Pennsylvania, and is looking for as many as four more “like-minded” districts to form a national consortium of schools seeking to be “world-class.”
At a two-day meeting in Portland in November, Superintendent Tom Forcella, curriculum coordinator Sarah Simmonds and School Board Chairman Marie Prager met with superintendents and assistant superintendents from Clayton, Mo., and the Palisades School District, north of Philadelphia, Pa.
“We did a lot of sharing about our districts,” Forcella said. And while the districts knew they were similar in some ways, they discovered other ways that surprised them. Beyond being districts that are well known in their own states for being strong educationally, all three districts are now teaching physics first in their high school science curriculum, something that is becoming more common but is still the exception, rather than the rule, for U.S. high schools.
Several school districts have contacted the American Associa- tion of School Administrators, seeking to join the Cape-Clayton-Palisades group, and the group’s next meeting in March will include a discussion of which schools to include.
Districts they are looking at will include those who “really have a commitment to being world-class,” Forcella said. Like Cape, he said, those districts would look not only at standardized test scores, but also at the quality of citizens and students in the district.
The school districts will be working on developing “professional learning communities,” Forcella said, and focus on quality instruction and student achievement.
Forcella said there is real value in talking to districts outside the state that are working toward similar goals. Instead of talking about state-mandated programs, Forcella said, school officials talk about actual educational issues they are facing.
“The conversations are different,” Forcella said, than those he has with superintendents from other Maine school districts.
He said the schools have real opportunities to learn from each other. The Missouri and Pennsylvania officials expressed interest in observing the lesson-study project at Pond Cove School, but they didn’t know about it before last week’s meeting, meaning they will have to wait until a future visit.
Forcella and the Missouri officials will observe a “walkthrough” program at the Pennsylvania schools in March. There, a team of people, including someone from the local university and teachers and administrators from other district schools, will visit a school and spend an entire day talking to students about their experiences and issues. At the end of the day, the visitors meet with the faculty to discuss what they have learned.
Forcella said that is a good way to get a sense of how things are going in a school without taking a lot of time to do so. He expects future consortium meetings to include people from the districts who have similar jobs, such as all the principals.
“We think alike,” Forcella said of the school officials in the group.
Thursday, December 5, 2002
Thursday, November 28, 2002
Famiglia, familiarity: Humor, poignancy, and flavor at the Good Theater
Published in the Portland Phoenix
On Thanksgiving weekend, if you haven’t yet had your fill of family interaction around the dining room table, check out Over the River and Through the Woods, put on by Good Theater at the St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center atop Munjoy Hill.
On Thanksgiving weekend, if you haven’t yet had your fill of family interaction around the dining room table, check out Over the River and Through the Woods, put on by Good Theater at the St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center atop Munjoy Hill.
In this loving and amusing Joe DiPietro play about family, faith, and food, a thirtysomething man, Nick (played by Paul Drinan), has had Sunday dinner with both sets of his grandparents every week for his whole life. The family dynamic is solid and established, and was acted strongly enough to make me react right along with Nick, in the way my grandparents would empathize with his elders.
After some trouble getting a word in edgewise around his grandparents’ direct mind-to-mouth conversation, Nick gets to make his “big announcement”: He has been offered a job promotion that would require him to move across the country.
His grandparents (Stephen Underwood and Cathy Counts, and married-couple-playing-married-couple Chris Horton and Tootie Van Reenen) latch onto Nick’s comment that he has “no reason to stay,” and take it upon themselves to give him one. Her name is Caitlin (Jeanne Handy), and she arrives at Sunday dinner one day, surprising Nick and delighting his grandparents.
Despite the embarrassment of being set up on a blind date by his grandparents, Nick sees that Caitlin is a great woman. She is interested, too, but is reluctant to get too close before Nick makes his choice.
Nick has a hard decision to make, between his family and himself, and the feelings of love, guilt, and loyalty that are woven into the fabric of the family tug strongly at his heart.
Still, his grandparents remain loyal and loving, offering insight into their own youthful loves and passions, and delivering the script’s timeless truths about family in funny and poignant moments. They remind Nick that their priority is the Italian phrase “tengo famiglia” — “I support my family” — with connotations of family as a reason for being and a purpose in life.
This sentiment is a perfect lead-in to the holiday season, though the play is technically set in mid-summer. The script, strong and well written, evokes the familial sense of holiday gatherings on its own, but the circumstances of this particular production strengthen those ties.
Last year, the play was Good Theater’s very first production. And this year, with the entire cast back for a second run, they work together in the practiced way of family members, who know each other so well as to have an innate sense of dramatic timing. They convey the feeling I have among my own family that while some things on the surface may change, the underlying love, tensions, and interactions will not.
In this year’s production, for example, the table is different. The woman from whom they borrowed last year’s table is hosting Thanksgiving now and needed her own table. It worked out just fine, as director Brian Allen’s grandfather recently moved, requiring Allen to help clean out the house. His grandparents’ table sits on the stage, and many of the details of the set are from his family, too.
Another change this year is that Handy plays Caitlin straight, rather than as a more bumbling comic. Allen noted that it is rare to get to revisit a play after a full run, but he said the cast likes the straight Caitlin better.
Because of those changes, the blocking had to be redone, but was largely successful. Only in the several asides each character has with the audience does blocking become an issue. While high-contrast lights are a great way to show that a speaker is communicating his or her private thoughts, the aim of the spotlights was distracting. The actors ended up partly in the light and partly out of it, making them appear to be less than fully present in the monologue.
The only major fault was that Nick’s solo rendition of “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby” was neither stirring nor plausible. A man today singing that to a woman is more likely to get slapped than a kiss on the cheek. If he had started more reluctantly, and Caitlin’s reaction was more guarded, the moment could have intensified as each saw the genuine interest in the other.
Many stage items added pleasant and humorous touches, from the air-conditioner sitting idle in a window — despite Nick’s complaints of excessive heat — to the crocheted afghan on the couch: a warm reminder of grandparents’ love and coziness.
And any play that uses Anthony’s Italian for the food props is worth a smell and a look. It is no wonder Nick’s grandmother looks so pleased every time she puts food on the table.
Over the River and Through the Woods
Written by Joe DiPietro. Directed by Brian P. Allen. With Cathy Counts, Paul Drinan, Jeanne Handy, Chris Horton, Tootie Van Reenen, and Stephen Underwood. Good Theater at St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center, through Dec. 1. Call (207) 883-5883.
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Middle schoolers mix it up
Published in the Current
National Mix-it-up at Lunch Day was Nov. 21, and Cape middle schoolers were certainly mixed up. The idea, carried out at schools nationwide, was to break up cliques and groups of friends for at least one day at lunch, according to school social worker Bill Kueck.
It started with the seventh- and eighth-graders at 11 a.m. As they filed into the lunchroom, members of the Student Council gave each a number, writing it in marker on their hands. The students were supposed to sit at the table with that number on it and meet new people.
Students at that grade level had mixed reviews, but that was to be expected, Kueck said.
One student thought the seating arrangement was not that different. He sat with a few of his friends and a number of students he knew, but wouldn’t normally sit with. Everyone knew where their good friends were sitting.
Eighth-grader Tucker Emerson said it was a good idea and he thought it went well.
Eighth-grader Tyler Loring said he thought it might have been organized a bit differently. At his table, all but one of the students was an eighth-grader.
That seventh-grader, Fritz Maddrell, said he thought it was a good experience, but noted that some students didn’t like it. Others might not be comfortable, even if they liked the idea.
“Some people are shy,” he said.
Most students did go along with the idea, but a few rubbed off the ink from their hands and sat with their friends as usual.
Principal Nancy Hutton said it was the first time the school had such an event, and a few kinks may need working out before it happens again.
Halfway through the first session of lunch, she ended up with a bouquet of balloons taken from tables where they had been intended to display table numbers. Instead, they became toys for the students. Some balloons ended up floating to the ceiling of the cafetorium, so Hutton took hold of the rest.
The president of the Student Council was frustrated with how the seventh- and eighth-graders handled things by not going along with the plan.
The goal, she said, was “to have everyone meet new people.”
Many of them did. The sixth-graders who came in next sat down and did a few introductions. Some kids still sat more or less on their own, at the end of a table of kids they didn’t know, but even they thought it was a good idea.
The fifth-graders were even more amenable to the idea and had fun with the idea.
In all, Kueck said, the effort went off well. And while younger students go along more easily, “with seventh and eighth grade, you expect negative reaction to things that challenge their routine,” he said.
National Mix-it-up at Lunch Day was Nov. 21, and Cape middle schoolers were certainly mixed up. The idea, carried out at schools nationwide, was to break up cliques and groups of friends for at least one day at lunch, according to school social worker Bill Kueck.
It started with the seventh- and eighth-graders at 11 a.m. As they filed into the lunchroom, members of the Student Council gave each a number, writing it in marker on their hands. The students were supposed to sit at the table with that number on it and meet new people.
Students at that grade level had mixed reviews, but that was to be expected, Kueck said.
One student thought the seating arrangement was not that different. He sat with a few of his friends and a number of students he knew, but wouldn’t normally sit with. Everyone knew where their good friends were sitting.
Eighth-grader Tucker Emerson said it was a good idea and he thought it went well.
Eighth-grader Tyler Loring said he thought it might have been organized a bit differently. At his table, all but one of the students was an eighth-grader.
That seventh-grader, Fritz Maddrell, said he thought it was a good experience, but noted that some students didn’t like it. Others might not be comfortable, even if they liked the idea.
“Some people are shy,” he said.
Most students did go along with the idea, but a few rubbed off the ink from their hands and sat with their friends as usual.
Principal Nancy Hutton said it was the first time the school had such an event, and a few kinks may need working out before it happens again.
Halfway through the first session of lunch, she ended up with a bouquet of balloons taken from tables where they had been intended to display table numbers. Instead, they became toys for the students. Some balloons ended up floating to the ceiling of the cafetorium, so Hutton took hold of the rest.
The president of the Student Council was frustrated with how the seventh- and eighth-graders handled things by not going along with the plan.
The goal, she said, was “to have everyone meet new people.”
Many of them did. The sixth-graders who came in next sat down and did a few introductions. Some kids still sat more or less on their own, at the end of a table of kids they didn’t know, but even they thought it was a good idea.
The fifth-graders were even more amenable to the idea and had fun with the idea.
In all, Kueck said, the effort went off well. And while younger students go along more easily, “with seventh and eighth grade, you expect negative reaction to things that challenge their routine,” he said.
Cape kids help Tibetan refugees
Published in the Current
Cape Elizabeth High School students have raised hundreds of dollars for a school for Tibetan refugees in northern India. During lunchtime, students are staffing a table, selling raffle tickets for a drawing to be held Dec. 18.
Prizes for the raffle include gift certificates to local restaurants and businesses and movie passes to nearby cinemas. At the top of the bill are two Compaq laptop computers donated by Konica in South Portland, the workplace of a student’s parent.
Students learned of the school, the Siddhartha School in Leh, the capital city of the northern Indian state of Ladakh, from social studies teacher Ray Cooper. Cooper heard about the school last year when its founder, Geshe Lobzang Tsetan, spoke to Cooper’s Buddhism class at the Bangor Theological Seminary campus in Portland.
Cooper wanted to help and started raising money by charging students who forgot their pens or pencils 25 cents for a replacement, which he used to offer for free.
The idea was to impress upon Cape students the sacrifices other kids make for their education. “These guys (in Ladakh) don’t get their education for free,” Cooper said.
Near the end of the year, the jar of money was stolen. A school-wide effort to replace the money was launched and may have helped the success of this year’s fund-raising efforts, according to student Allie Theriault, who is one of 15 or 20 students involved in this year’s project.
The money was replaced, and more, resulting in $150 in donations for the Siddhartha School, including matching funds from Cooper.
Theriault and others picked up the torch this year and decided to start a raffle to raise money. They didn’t expect much, but one day a student came in and said his father’s business would donate two laptop computers.
Since then, it has been easy to get people to buy the tickets, which cost $2 each or three tickets for $5. In the first four days, just sitting at the table during lunch, the students raised $179, with ticket sales expected to continue. A donation jar for spare change is also on the table, and the total in the jar remains uncounted to date.
The money will be used to support the school, which now has grades kindergarten through six and 135 students. Tsetan wants to have grades kindergarten through 10 and 200 students, but needs money to build additional rooms onto the school.
Students learn four languages, Tibetan, Ladakhi, English and Hindi, reflecting their cultural heritage and preparing them to work in a larger world. Hindi is the primary language of India and English is spoken by many people around the world.
The entrance into the Cape high school library now has a display of items of Buddhist culture, made by student Lindsay Dana with items owned by her and by Cooper.
The Cape students want to sponsor a student at the school, but may be able to do much more, depending on how much money they raise by Dec. 18.
Students recognize that donated money will go further in India than it might here, said student Anna Stressenger.
“You know that’s going to directly benefit the kids,” said Rebecca Taylor. Tsetan is dedicated to the students, Taylor said. “He is so committed to making a change in their lives.”
The students encouraged their classmates to give generously and buy tickets.
“That $2 they’re going to spend on a cookie could actually have a lasting impact,” Taylor said.
Cape Elizabeth High School students have raised hundreds of dollars for a school for Tibetan refugees in northern India. During lunchtime, students are staffing a table, selling raffle tickets for a drawing to be held Dec. 18.
Prizes for the raffle include gift certificates to local restaurants and businesses and movie passes to nearby cinemas. At the top of the bill are two Compaq laptop computers donated by Konica in South Portland, the workplace of a student’s parent.
Students learned of the school, the Siddhartha School in Leh, the capital city of the northern Indian state of Ladakh, from social studies teacher Ray Cooper. Cooper heard about the school last year when its founder, Geshe Lobzang Tsetan, spoke to Cooper’s Buddhism class at the Bangor Theological Seminary campus in Portland.
Cooper wanted to help and started raising money by charging students who forgot their pens or pencils 25 cents for a replacement, which he used to offer for free.
The idea was to impress upon Cape students the sacrifices other kids make for their education. “These guys (in Ladakh) don’t get their education for free,” Cooper said.
Near the end of the year, the jar of money was stolen. A school-wide effort to replace the money was launched and may have helped the success of this year’s fund-raising efforts, according to student Allie Theriault, who is one of 15 or 20 students involved in this year’s project.
The money was replaced, and more, resulting in $150 in donations for the Siddhartha School, including matching funds from Cooper.
Theriault and others picked up the torch this year and decided to start a raffle to raise money. They didn’t expect much, but one day a student came in and said his father’s business would donate two laptop computers.
Since then, it has been easy to get people to buy the tickets, which cost $2 each or three tickets for $5. In the first four days, just sitting at the table during lunch, the students raised $179, with ticket sales expected to continue. A donation jar for spare change is also on the table, and the total in the jar remains uncounted to date.
The money will be used to support the school, which now has grades kindergarten through six and 135 students. Tsetan wants to have grades kindergarten through 10 and 200 students, but needs money to build additional rooms onto the school.
Students learn four languages, Tibetan, Ladakhi, English and Hindi, reflecting their cultural heritage and preparing them to work in a larger world. Hindi is the primary language of India and English is spoken by many people around the world.
The entrance into the Cape high school library now has a display of items of Buddhist culture, made by student Lindsay Dana with items owned by her and by Cooper.
The Cape students want to sponsor a student at the school, but may be able to do much more, depending on how much money they raise by Dec. 18.
Students recognize that donated money will go further in India than it might here, said student Anna Stressenger.
“You know that’s going to directly benefit the kids,” said Rebecca Taylor. Tsetan is dedicated to the students, Taylor said. “He is so committed to making a change in their lives.”
The students encouraged their classmates to give generously and buy tickets.
“That $2 they’re going to spend on a cookie could actually have a lasting impact,” Taylor said.
High-speed chase ends in Scarborough
Published in the Current
What would have been a routine traffic stop in Saco ended up as a high-speed car chase late Saturday night on Route 1 into Scarborough, resulting in charges against a 17-year-old Biddeford male who was driving without a license.
Saco Police Officer Kevin Gray tried to pull over a car on Main Street for running a red light and squealing its tires. Instead of pulling over, the driver fled, with two passengers in the car, heading north on Route 1, according to Saco Police Sgt. Jeffrey Holland.
The car reached speeds of 90 mph on the straightaway on Saco’s outer Route 1 and was moving so fast that an Old Orchard Beach police officer trying to set up tire-deflating road spikes at Cascade Road and Portland Road was unable to make it to the intersection in time.
The chase continued north into Scarborough, and a Scarborough officer joined it just inside the town line, as the cars headed north through the marsh, still at high speed.
“You’re basically trying to keep an eye on the guy who’s fleeing from you,” Holland said.
Another Scarborough officer successfully deployed the tire spikes at the Maine Veterans’ Home, flattening all four tires on the car, Holland said. Shortly after that, the tires fell off the rims and the car stopped right by Westwood Avenue, very nearly in front of the Scarborough police station.
The driver jumped out and ran toward the rear of Scarborough High School, Holland said, and officers lost him. An Old Orchard Beach police dog and handler were called to the scene, but failed to find the driver.
The two passengers in the car, however, had not fled. A 15-year-old female and 17-year-old male were still in the car, shaken up from the speeds of the chase. Holland said the girl had appeared “extremely upset” and had told officers she had started to pray in the back seat, fearing that the car would crash and she would be killed.
The passengers told the police who the driver was, a 17-year-old male from Biddeford whose name is not being released because he is a juvenile. A 12-pack of beer was found in the car’s trunk.
“Apparently he fled ultimately because he doesn’t have a license,” Holland said. The driver is being charged with eluding an officer, criminal speed, operating without a license and illegal transportation of liquor by a minor.
The passengers were not charged , Holland said, and were released to their parents.
What would have been a routine traffic stop in Saco ended up as a high-speed car chase late Saturday night on Route 1 into Scarborough, resulting in charges against a 17-year-old Biddeford male who was driving without a license.
Saco Police Officer Kevin Gray tried to pull over a car on Main Street for running a red light and squealing its tires. Instead of pulling over, the driver fled, with two passengers in the car, heading north on Route 1, according to Saco Police Sgt. Jeffrey Holland.
The car reached speeds of 90 mph on the straightaway on Saco’s outer Route 1 and was moving so fast that an Old Orchard Beach police officer trying to set up tire-deflating road spikes at Cascade Road and Portland Road was unable to make it to the intersection in time.
The chase continued north into Scarborough, and a Scarborough officer joined it just inside the town line, as the cars headed north through the marsh, still at high speed.
“You’re basically trying to keep an eye on the guy who’s fleeing from you,” Holland said.
Another Scarborough officer successfully deployed the tire spikes at the Maine Veterans’ Home, flattening all four tires on the car, Holland said. Shortly after that, the tires fell off the rims and the car stopped right by Westwood Avenue, very nearly in front of the Scarborough police station.
The driver jumped out and ran toward the rear of Scarborough High School, Holland said, and officers lost him. An Old Orchard Beach police dog and handler were called to the scene, but failed to find the driver.
The two passengers in the car, however, had not fled. A 15-year-old female and 17-year-old male were still in the car, shaken up from the speeds of the chase. Holland said the girl had appeared “extremely upset” and had told officers she had started to pray in the back seat, fearing that the car would crash and she would be killed.
The passengers told the police who the driver was, a 17-year-old male from Biddeford whose name is not being released because he is a juvenile. A 12-pack of beer was found in the car’s trunk.
“Apparently he fled ultimately because he doesn’t have a license,” Holland said. The driver is being charged with eluding an officer, criminal speed, operating without a license and illegal transportation of liquor by a minor.
The passengers were not charged , Holland said, and were released to their parents.
Returning with lessons from Japan
Published in the Current
Pond Cove School Principal Tom Eismeier is poised to bring more Japanese influence into his school, following a recent educational trip to Japan.
“The schools were fascinating,” Eismeier said. The three-week trip began with a series of seminars on Japanese culture and life and set the stage for the rest of his experience. The speakers conveyed a strong sense of national pride and the Japanese temperament, which favors indirect criticism over direct confrontation.
“If you’re paying attention, you get all these hints,” Eismeier said.
He wants to return to Japan at some point, and also set up a partnership between Pond Cove School and an elementary school there, hoping to deepen the connections and lessons he found on this journey.
The trip started in Tokyo, where he found a startling division between the bustle of one of the world’s busiest cities and the placid quiet of a Buddhist monastery. All that separated the two was a small ceremonial curb.
“The Japanese seem to be very good at setting up mental boundaries,” Eismeier said.
The group of 200 American educators, organized and funded by the Fulbright Memorial Foundation, split into groups of 20, who headed off to 10 prefectures around the country.
Eismeier’s group went to the area farthest north on Japan’s largest island, the prefecture that has a sister-state relationship with Maine: Aomori.
He found that unlike the U.S., “the national curriculum and the national standards are actually accepted,” Eismeier said. “The schools are the same, the structure is the same and the curriculum is the same, no matter where you are.”
On the other hand, Eismeier said, the local control that is the hallmark of American education is missing in Japan. “There is not a lot of local influence,” Eismeier said.
The influence is national, as is the learning. Teachers share information within schools and the district, and give feedback to the national government on its quality. The process is “mediated at every level,” Eismeier said, to ensure the feedback is valid and that change does not happen too rapidly.
One major change that has occurred through this process is new this year. To reduce pressure on students, a six-day school week has been shortened. Now every other week, students have only five days of school. It allows families to have more time together as well, Eismeier said.
The curriculum has been shortened as a result, he said, making teachers feel pressure to teach faster. That’s a problem in a country and an educational system where, to teachers, “how you teach is more important than what you teach,” according to Eismeier.
The central government sends out information on what the students will do and the teachers figure out how to deliver that information appropriately.
“It strikes outsiders as very rigid, and it’s really not,” Eismeier said.
The mental boundaries, however, are as strong in Aomori as in Tokyo. Teachers leave their classes alone from time to time, without any discipline problems at all.
At a welcome ceremony at one school, Eismeier looked around and realized, “Every teacher in the building is there. What are the kids doing?”
Even at recess, the students are allowed to run wild, so long as they are quiet and orderly in the classroom.
Kindergarteners were especially exciting to watch at recess.
“They had dirt and sand and water and they were making a huge mess,” Eismeier said. Afterwards, they washed themselves off before coming inside, he said, carefully hosing off their feet and hands.
Other school issues are also very different in Japan. A teacher of a junior high science class Eismeier observed was studiously ignoring students who were talking elsewhere in the room, a contrast with the American teacher’s
typical exhortations for everyone in the room to pay attention.
Also, the degree of visual learning was impressive. “The blackboards were amazing,” Eismeier said. Without being able to read Japanese, but after seeing the board, he knew how to do the lab.
There is a strong emphasis on figuring things out, Eismeier said, and on group and teamwork. That’s especially noteworthy when there is no tracking or ability grouping in the schools: Everyone performs together.
There is also very little of what Americans call “special education.” While the Japanese are worried about autism and learning disabilities, and seek to learn more from their American counterparts, the primary emphasis for Japanese special education is physical disability, Eismeier said.
He did see what Americans call the “inclusion model,” where a student with special needs was in the classroom with instructional support.
He also asked about the lesson study technique Pond Cove teachers have been using, based on a Japanese program in which teachers prepare a lesson together and then observe it being taught, and later rework the lesson to improve it further.
In Japan, Eismeier found, that happens on a variety of levels, involving teachers from the school, the district and even nationwide, with as many as 500 people observing a single lesson being taught.
Eismeier said elementary schools have some similar problems in the two countries, including competition from private kindergartens that stress academics, in place of public kindergartens focusing on socialization and community.
He did say, though, there was no four-square to be found in Japan. Nonetheless, he termed the trip a success, and said, “I want to go back.”
Pond Cove School Principal Tom Eismeier is poised to bring more Japanese influence into his school, following a recent educational trip to Japan.
“The schools were fascinating,” Eismeier said. The three-week trip began with a series of seminars on Japanese culture and life and set the stage for the rest of his experience. The speakers conveyed a strong sense of national pride and the Japanese temperament, which favors indirect criticism over direct confrontation.
“If you’re paying attention, you get all these hints,” Eismeier said.
He wants to return to Japan at some point, and also set up a partnership between Pond Cove School and an elementary school there, hoping to deepen the connections and lessons he found on this journey.
The trip started in Tokyo, where he found a startling division between the bustle of one of the world’s busiest cities and the placid quiet of a Buddhist monastery. All that separated the two was a small ceremonial curb.
“The Japanese seem to be very good at setting up mental boundaries,” Eismeier said.
The group of 200 American educators, organized and funded by the Fulbright Memorial Foundation, split into groups of 20, who headed off to 10 prefectures around the country.
Eismeier’s group went to the area farthest north on Japan’s largest island, the prefecture that has a sister-state relationship with Maine: Aomori.
He found that unlike the U.S., “the national curriculum and the national standards are actually accepted,” Eismeier said. “The schools are the same, the structure is the same and the curriculum is the same, no matter where you are.”
On the other hand, Eismeier said, the local control that is the hallmark of American education is missing in Japan. “There is not a lot of local influence,” Eismeier said.
The influence is national, as is the learning. Teachers share information within schools and the district, and give feedback to the national government on its quality. The process is “mediated at every level,” Eismeier said, to ensure the feedback is valid and that change does not happen too rapidly.
One major change that has occurred through this process is new this year. To reduce pressure on students, a six-day school week has been shortened. Now every other week, students have only five days of school. It allows families to have more time together as well, Eismeier said.
The curriculum has been shortened as a result, he said, making teachers feel pressure to teach faster. That’s a problem in a country and an educational system where, to teachers, “how you teach is more important than what you teach,” according to Eismeier.
The central government sends out information on what the students will do and the teachers figure out how to deliver that information appropriately.
“It strikes outsiders as very rigid, and it’s really not,” Eismeier said.
The mental boundaries, however, are as strong in Aomori as in Tokyo. Teachers leave their classes alone from time to time, without any discipline problems at all.
At a welcome ceremony at one school, Eismeier looked around and realized, “Every teacher in the building is there. What are the kids doing?”
Even at recess, the students are allowed to run wild, so long as they are quiet and orderly in the classroom.
Kindergarteners were especially exciting to watch at recess.
“They had dirt and sand and water and they were making a huge mess,” Eismeier said. Afterwards, they washed themselves off before coming inside, he said, carefully hosing off their feet and hands.
Other school issues are also very different in Japan. A teacher of a junior high science class Eismeier observed was studiously ignoring students who were talking elsewhere in the room, a contrast with the American teacher’s
typical exhortations for everyone in the room to pay attention.
Also, the degree of visual learning was impressive. “The blackboards were amazing,” Eismeier said. Without being able to read Japanese, but after seeing the board, he knew how to do the lab.
There is a strong emphasis on figuring things out, Eismeier said, and on group and teamwork. That’s especially noteworthy when there is no tracking or ability grouping in the schools: Everyone performs together.
There is also very little of what Americans call “special education.” While the Japanese are worried about autism and learning disabilities, and seek to learn more from their American counterparts, the primary emphasis for Japanese special education is physical disability, Eismeier said.
He did see what Americans call the “inclusion model,” where a student with special needs was in the classroom with instructional support.
He also asked about the lesson study technique Pond Cove teachers have been using, based on a Japanese program in which teachers prepare a lesson together and then observe it being taught, and later rework the lesson to improve it further.
In Japan, Eismeier found, that happens on a variety of levels, involving teachers from the school, the district and even nationwide, with as many as 500 people observing a single lesson being taught.
Eismeier said elementary schools have some similar problems in the two countries, including competition from private kindergartens that stress academics, in place of public kindergartens focusing on socialization and community.
He did say, though, there was no four-square to be found in Japan. Nonetheless, he termed the trip a success, and said, “I want to go back.”
ON AC T I V E DU TY: Pvt. Jacqueline McKe n n ey
Published in the Current
Pvt. Jacqueline McKenney of Shore Road is in the Maine Army National Guard and a first-year midshipman at the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine. A 2002 graduate of Cape Elizabeth High School, McKenney completed basic training in July at Fort Jackson, S.C., and began school at
Maine Maritime in August.
She joined the Guard in February and had to skip CEHS graduation to attend basic training.
While there, “she did really well,” said her father, Paul McKenney. She was second in her company for physical fitness.
Her basic training experience was, Paul said, “very realistic.”
Many of the recruits in her class were heading for infantry units destined for the Middle East. The drill instructors, Paul said, wanted to be sure they were trained especially well for the tough combat that could come their way.
McKenney will attend her Advanced Individual Training for work as an aviation operations specialist next summer. She is a member of the 112th Air Ambulance Company, based in Bangor.
McKenney’s family has a long history of military service. Her grandfather was in the Navy, and her father, Paul, a former active-duty Army officer, is now a major in the headquarters unit of the Maine Army National Guard. His five brothers have also served in various branches of the military, including the Maine National Guard, and Jackie’s twin brothers, Alex and Aaron, now both seniors at CEHS, are planning to enter the military when they graduate, either at one of the service academies or through an officer training program at the colleges they choose.
After graduation from Maine Maritime, McKenney is hoping to transfer into the Navy. In the meantime, she is taking advantage of an incentive program in which the Maine National Guard covers all of her tuition at any state school and gives her a salary to be a student.
“We’re very proud of her,” her father said.
Pvt. Jacqueline McKenney of Shore Road is in the Maine Army National Guard and a first-year midshipman at the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine. A 2002 graduate of Cape Elizabeth High School, McKenney completed basic training in July at Fort Jackson, S.C., and began school at
Maine Maritime in August.
She joined the Guard in February and had to skip CEHS graduation to attend basic training.
While there, “she did really well,” said her father, Paul McKenney. She was second in her company for physical fitness.
Her basic training experience was, Paul said, “very realistic.”
Many of the recruits in her class were heading for infantry units destined for the Middle East. The drill instructors, Paul said, wanted to be sure they were trained especially well for the tough combat that could come their way.
McKenney will attend her Advanced Individual Training for work as an aviation operations specialist next summer. She is a member of the 112th Air Ambulance Company, based in Bangor.
McKenney’s family has a long history of military service. Her grandfather was in the Navy, and her father, Paul, a former active-duty Army officer, is now a major in the headquarters unit of the Maine Army National Guard. His five brothers have also served in various branches of the military, including the Maine National Guard, and Jackie’s twin brothers, Alex and Aaron, now both seniors at CEHS, are planning to enter the military when they graduate, either at one of the service academies or through an officer training program at the colleges they choose.
After graduation from Maine Maritime, McKenney is hoping to transfer into the Navy. In the meantime, she is taking advantage of an incentive program in which the Maine National Guard covers all of her tuition at any state school and gives her a salary to be a student.
“We’re very proud of her,” her father said.
Student threats still under investigation
Published in the Current
A Cape Elizabeth High School student is facing possible charges of terrorizing – a misdemeanor – for making threats against at least one other student and the school, according to Police Chief Neil Williams.
Williams said the student is a male age “15 or 16.” Principal Jeff Shedd said the student made threats against at least two students and “the school community.”
Shedd and Williams both said there was no imminent danger to students or the school.
The student allegedly made threats verbally during school and electronically over computer instant messaging systems. Students who were targets of threats, as well as students who had heard about the threats from others, told school staff, Shedd said.
Details of the threat have not been released but the student apparently threatened the life of at least one person. The student has not been suspended, but has been “removed from school pending evaluation,” Shedd said, and will not be allowed back until police and school officials deem it as safe. The student is receiving assignments and instruction while out of school, Shedd said.
With the help of the school, the student and his parents, Cape police are conducting an investigation into the threats. Williams said the student was not conspiring with other students, and it is unknown whether he was actually going to carry out his threats.
“We know that there was one threat against a person,” Williams said. Part of the investigation is intended to discover if any other actual threats were made.
Williams said the “rumor mill” is hard to sort through, and officers will question people with direct knowledge of the threats, who either heard the threats themselves or received them in typed messages.
“We can’t take those things lightly,” he said. “Kids say things when they’re angry,” he said, but “you have to look into it.”
Cape police will send a computer, on which some of the threats are believed to have been typed, to the Maine Computer Crimes Task Force for analysis, though that agency has a large backlog of cases. The computer was obtained from the family without a search warrant, Williams said.
The student has not been arrested, and Williams does not expect officers to arrest him. Police officers can only make arrests for misdemeanors when they directly observe the crime being committed. No officer was a direct witness to the threats, so Williams expects a summons to be issued.
He said the parents and the student are “cooperating” with the investigation. The student’s father has turned over four guns – two handguns and two “long guns” – to police voluntarily, Williams said.
The man is allowed to own guns and they are properly registered, Williams said. Police will return the guns to the man when he and police deem it appropriate, Williams said.
Shedd said he has no reason to believe any weapons were ever brought into the school, and “there is no evidence that there was ever a plan,” he said.
After the threats were reported, Shedd said the students were called to an assembly, at which school officials told them about the incident and assured them the school was safe. “We wanted them to know that it was some gutsy students” who told school staff about the threats, Shedd said.
Rumors of the involvement of a machine gun, a “hit list,” weapons in the student’s room and a military presence at the school, Shedd said, are untrue. He said there have been military recruiters visiting the high school periodically, and that may have been the source of the rumor of military involvement.
This is the most serious case of school threatening to occur in Cape Elizabeth, though it has brought back memories of a lesser threat made about a year ago. In that case, Williams said, officers had far less information to go on at the outset. The parents of that student cooperated with the police, removed a gun from their home and got their son the assistance he needed, Williams said.
Police and school officials are working closely together and have the cooperation of the parents, Shedd said. He was glad that students had had the courage to come forward and report the problem.
“It’s working out as well as it could work out,” Shedd said.
A Cape Elizabeth High School student is facing possible charges of terrorizing – a misdemeanor – for making threats against at least one other student and the school, according to Police Chief Neil Williams.
Williams said the student is a male age “15 or 16.” Principal Jeff Shedd said the student made threats against at least two students and “the school community.”
Shedd and Williams both said there was no imminent danger to students or the school.
The student allegedly made threats verbally during school and electronically over computer instant messaging systems. Students who were targets of threats, as well as students who had heard about the threats from others, told school staff, Shedd said.
Details of the threat have not been released but the student apparently threatened the life of at least one person. The student has not been suspended, but has been “removed from school pending evaluation,” Shedd said, and will not be allowed back until police and school officials deem it as safe. The student is receiving assignments and instruction while out of school, Shedd said.
With the help of the school, the student and his parents, Cape police are conducting an investigation into the threats. Williams said the student was not conspiring with other students, and it is unknown whether he was actually going to carry out his threats.
“We know that there was one threat against a person,” Williams said. Part of the investigation is intended to discover if any other actual threats were made.
Williams said the “rumor mill” is hard to sort through, and officers will question people with direct knowledge of the threats, who either heard the threats themselves or received them in typed messages.
“We can’t take those things lightly,” he said. “Kids say things when they’re angry,” he said, but “you have to look into it.”
Cape police will send a computer, on which some of the threats are believed to have been typed, to the Maine Computer Crimes Task Force for analysis, though that agency has a large backlog of cases. The computer was obtained from the family without a search warrant, Williams said.
The student has not been arrested, and Williams does not expect officers to arrest him. Police officers can only make arrests for misdemeanors when they directly observe the crime being committed. No officer was a direct witness to the threats, so Williams expects a summons to be issued.
He said the parents and the student are “cooperating” with the investigation. The student’s father has turned over four guns – two handguns and two “long guns” – to police voluntarily, Williams said.
The man is allowed to own guns and they are properly registered, Williams said. Police will return the guns to the man when he and police deem it appropriate, Williams said.
Shedd said he has no reason to believe any weapons were ever brought into the school, and “there is no evidence that there was ever a plan,” he said.
After the threats were reported, Shedd said the students were called to an assembly, at which school officials told them about the incident and assured them the school was safe. “We wanted them to know that it was some gutsy students” who told school staff about the threats, Shedd said.
Rumors of the involvement of a machine gun, a “hit list,” weapons in the student’s room and a military presence at the school, Shedd said, are untrue. He said there have been military recruiters visiting the high school periodically, and that may have been the source of the rumor of military involvement.
This is the most serious case of school threatening to occur in Cape Elizabeth, though it has brought back memories of a lesser threat made about a year ago. In that case, Williams said, officers had far less information to go on at the outset. The parents of that student cooperated with the police, removed a gun from their home and got their son the assistance he needed, Williams said.
Police and school officials are working closely together and have the cooperation of the parents, Shedd said. He was glad that students had had the courage to come forward and report the problem.
“It’s working out as well as it could work out,” Shedd said.
Thursday, November 21, 2002
Man arrested for contact with girl at hayride
Published in the Current
George Walters of 58 Coach Lantern Lane – charged with three counts of unlawful sexual contact – was arrested Nov. 8 for violating bail conditions after he attended the Scary Hayride at Bayley’s Campground where he was in contact with a 10-year-old girl.
He remains in Cumberland County Jail without bail, awaiting a Nov. 25 hearing on whether he will be required to remain in jail until his trial, scheduled for Dec. 30.
Walters is charged with violation of his bail conditions, but no other crime related to the Scary Hayride incident. The bail conditions stem from three charges, filed in July, of felony unlawful sexual contact between January and April of this year, and prohibit him from being in the presence of any females under 16 years of age.
Court documents allege that on three successive days, Oct. 25, 26 and 27, Walters was in the presence of a male friend of his, who lives in Portland, and that friend’s 10-year-old daughter.
Oct. 25 they were roller-skating together in Portland. Oct. 26 there was a party at the Walters home in Scarborough, at which the girl and her father attended. Following the party, the group again went roller-skating. And on
Oct. 27, Walters and members of his family as well as the man and his daughter went to the Scary Hayride at Bayley’s Campground on Pine Point Road in Scarborough.
Officer Robert Moore, who arrested Walters on the initial charges and the new charge of violating his bail conditions, said the presence of the girl in Walters’s company is cause for allegations of violation of bail conditions.
Moore said he presently has no evidence Walters committed any crime at the hayride.
In July, Walters was charged with three counts of unlawful sexual contact with three separate victims. In court documents filed by Moore supporting the charges, the three alleged victims are named, as are three other
girls who, the documents say, suffered “some degree of sexual molestation” by Walters. The documents also allege Walters “views and collects child
pornography.”
The alleged victims were all known to Walters and the unlawful sexual contact allegedly occurred in the Walters home while the girls were visiting.
Court documents allege Walters repeatedly grabbed, touched and rubbed several of the girls on more than one occasion, despite the girls’ screams and cries for Walters to stop.
The bail conditions under which Walters was allowed to post $5,000 cash bail in July include prohibiting Walters from having contact with one of the
victims named in the charges, as well as two other girls not named in the charges but mentioned in supporting documents. He is also prohibited from having contact with any girl under the age of 16, and from owning or using a computer with Internet access.
Moore learned of the alleged contact at the hayride as well as the alleged prior incidents through his work at the Scarborough Middle School, where he is the school resource officer. A court document indicates the school’s principal is concerned for other girls who may visit the Walters home.
A witness statement in court documents suggests Walters’s attorney had warned him against going roller-skating and passing out Halloween candy to trick-ortreaters.
Walters is a first-class petty officer with 20 years’ service in the Coast Guard, according to Lt. j.g. Jeff Craig of the Coast Guard station in South Portland, where Walters is stationed.
He is qualified as a cook but, Craig said, Walters is currently working on the station’s maintenance staff.
Craig said the Coast Guard is not conducting a separate investigation but is cooperating with the Scarborough investigation.
Moore said the Coast Guard had asked him to arrest Walters outside the base, and Moore did so. “They had him leave the base,” Moore said.
Scarborough Detective Sgt. Rick Rouse said Walters had no prior record of sexual crimes. Walters’s attorney, Peter Rodway, did not return multiple phone calls from the Current.
George Walters of 58 Coach Lantern Lane – charged with three counts of unlawful sexual contact – was arrested Nov. 8 for violating bail conditions after he attended the Scary Hayride at Bayley’s Campground where he was in contact with a 10-year-old girl.
He remains in Cumberland County Jail without bail, awaiting a Nov. 25 hearing on whether he will be required to remain in jail until his trial, scheduled for Dec. 30.
Walters is charged with violation of his bail conditions, but no other crime related to the Scary Hayride incident. The bail conditions stem from three charges, filed in July, of felony unlawful sexual contact between January and April of this year, and prohibit him from being in the presence of any females under 16 years of age.
Court documents allege that on three successive days, Oct. 25, 26 and 27, Walters was in the presence of a male friend of his, who lives in Portland, and that friend’s 10-year-old daughter.
Oct. 25 they were roller-skating together in Portland. Oct. 26 there was a party at the Walters home in Scarborough, at which the girl and her father attended. Following the party, the group again went roller-skating. And on
Oct. 27, Walters and members of his family as well as the man and his daughter went to the Scary Hayride at Bayley’s Campground on Pine Point Road in Scarborough.
Officer Robert Moore, who arrested Walters on the initial charges and the new charge of violating his bail conditions, said the presence of the girl in Walters’s company is cause for allegations of violation of bail conditions.
Moore said he presently has no evidence Walters committed any crime at the hayride.
In July, Walters was charged with three counts of unlawful sexual contact with three separate victims. In court documents filed by Moore supporting the charges, the three alleged victims are named, as are three other
girls who, the documents say, suffered “some degree of sexual molestation” by Walters. The documents also allege Walters “views and collects child
pornography.”
The alleged victims were all known to Walters and the unlawful sexual contact allegedly occurred in the Walters home while the girls were visiting.
Court documents allege Walters repeatedly grabbed, touched and rubbed several of the girls on more than one occasion, despite the girls’ screams and cries for Walters to stop.
The bail conditions under which Walters was allowed to post $5,000 cash bail in July include prohibiting Walters from having contact with one of the
victims named in the charges, as well as two other girls not named in the charges but mentioned in supporting documents. He is also prohibited from having contact with any girl under the age of 16, and from owning or using a computer with Internet access.
Moore learned of the alleged contact at the hayride as well as the alleged prior incidents through his work at the Scarborough Middle School, where he is the school resource officer. A court document indicates the school’s principal is concerned for other girls who may visit the Walters home.
A witness statement in court documents suggests Walters’s attorney had warned him against going roller-skating and passing out Halloween candy to trick-ortreaters.
Walters is a first-class petty officer with 20 years’ service in the Coast Guard, according to Lt. j.g. Jeff Craig of the Coast Guard station in South Portland, where Walters is stationed.
He is qualified as a cook but, Craig said, Walters is currently working on the station’s maintenance staff.
Craig said the Coast Guard is not conducting a separate investigation but is cooperating with the Scarborough investigation.
Moore said the Coast Guard had asked him to arrest Walters outside the base, and Moore did so. “They had him leave the base,” Moore said.
Scarborough Detective Sgt. Rick Rouse said Walters had no prior record of sexual crimes. Walters’s attorney, Peter Rodway, did not return multiple phone calls from the Current.
Thursday, November 14, 2002
Teaching everyone to drive
Published in the Current
Scarborough’s Bill Kennedy helps physically disabled people learn to drive cars, allowing them to be more independent than they might otherwise be.
Kennedy, who owns and runs Downeast Driving School, uses a wide variety of adaptive equipment to help people drive, even if they can’t use some parts of their bodies.
“I’ve given lots of people driving lessons,” Kennedy said. Some of them are older people who have had a stroke or other medical condition that requires the state to give them another driver’s test.
Others are younger people who have a variety of disabilities that don’t affect their thinking or vision, but may make it more difficult for them to operate a car without additional help and practice.
Kennedy, who also drives a Scarborough school bus, worked for the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles as the supervisor of testing in Southern Maine for 11 years, and gave as many as 500 individual tests each year.
Now he uses that experience in his business, founded 18 months ago. “I do individual lessons to try to get them ready for the road test,” he said.
He said many of the issues he works on with drivers are bad habits, such as cutting left corners too closely. Other times he helps people use specific devices, such as a lever controlling the gas pedal and the brake, to handle the car safely.
“A lot of times what they need is a little boost in confidence,” Kennedy said.
He said some car manufacturers may help pay for equipment required for a disabled person to drive, and cautioned people to be sure their equipment is installed professionally.
Kennedy gives lessons all over the state, and recently drove up to Lewiston to teach a disabled girl to drive there, because her school didn’t have the equipment she needed.
He gets referrals from occupational therapists and also takes his car to a fair showcasing adaptive technology, hosted by Alpha One, a South Portland-based non-profit helping people with independent living.
Sue Grant, an occupational therapist and program director for driver evaluation at Alpha One, said driving is a very important ability for people. “In Maine it makes a huge difference” Grant said.
There is not much public transport, and not much of that is accessible to disabled people. Also, people who live away from bus lines may have a hard time getting to the bus stop.
There are transit arrangements for people who need help getting to and from medical appointments, but those don’t help with groceries or social visits, Grant said.
The Independent Transportation Network serving Greater Portland does offer door-to-door service for a variety of reasons, but only for seniors and people with low vision. That leaves out a lot of people.
Grant sees lots of children with developmental disabilities, but who still have the motor, thinking and visual skills to be able to drive with some adaptive equipment. She also sees people who have driver’s licenses but have recently had a stroke or other medical condition that affects their driving.
Some people in the state, she said, have full-size vans into which they drive their power wheelchairs, and drive the car using a joystick. That can be very expensive. Other modifications, though less expensive, can still be hard to afford.
Medical insurance, Grant said, usually will not cover adaptive driving equipment. “Independent transportation is not a medical necessity,” she said. And while the inability to drive is unlikely to cause injury or death, independence is very important, Grant said.
Lexi Luce, 23, grew up in central Maine where car modifications were not well known, she said. She took driver’s education and driving lessons when she was 16. Because her right side is partially paralyzed, she had an extension put on the gas pedal and drove using both feet, one for the gas and the other for the brake.
When she moved to Portland a little over a year ago, she learned about other modifications that would help her drive using only her left foot and left hand.
She bought a car, had the modifications made, and contacted Kennedy after a recommendation from Grant. After 12 hours or so of driving lessons, Luce got her license in mid-September.
She uses a left-foot gas pedal and a steering knob. “Often people have trouble adapting to a left gas pedal,” Luce said, but because her left side is her dominant side, she had no trouble at all.
Now she drives just about every day, for a wide variety of purposes, and thanks Kennedy for teaching her those skills.
Scarborough’s Bill Kennedy helps physically disabled people learn to drive cars, allowing them to be more independent than they might otherwise be.
Kennedy, who owns and runs Downeast Driving School, uses a wide variety of adaptive equipment to help people drive, even if they can’t use some parts of their bodies.
“I’ve given lots of people driving lessons,” Kennedy said. Some of them are older people who have had a stroke or other medical condition that requires the state to give them another driver’s test.
Others are younger people who have a variety of disabilities that don’t affect their thinking or vision, but may make it more difficult for them to operate a car without additional help and practice.
Kennedy, who also drives a Scarborough school bus, worked for the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles as the supervisor of testing in Southern Maine for 11 years, and gave as many as 500 individual tests each year.
Now he uses that experience in his business, founded 18 months ago. “I do individual lessons to try to get them ready for the road test,” he said.
He said many of the issues he works on with drivers are bad habits, such as cutting left corners too closely. Other times he helps people use specific devices, such as a lever controlling the gas pedal and the brake, to handle the car safely.
“A lot of times what they need is a little boost in confidence,” Kennedy said.
He said some car manufacturers may help pay for equipment required for a disabled person to drive, and cautioned people to be sure their equipment is installed professionally.
Kennedy gives lessons all over the state, and recently drove up to Lewiston to teach a disabled girl to drive there, because her school didn’t have the equipment she needed.
He gets referrals from occupational therapists and also takes his car to a fair showcasing adaptive technology, hosted by Alpha One, a South Portland-based non-profit helping people with independent living.
Sue Grant, an occupational therapist and program director for driver evaluation at Alpha One, said driving is a very important ability for people. “In Maine it makes a huge difference” Grant said.
There is not much public transport, and not much of that is accessible to disabled people. Also, people who live away from bus lines may have a hard time getting to the bus stop.
There are transit arrangements for people who need help getting to and from medical appointments, but those don’t help with groceries or social visits, Grant said.
The Independent Transportation Network serving Greater Portland does offer door-to-door service for a variety of reasons, but only for seniors and people with low vision. That leaves out a lot of people.
Grant sees lots of children with developmental disabilities, but who still have the motor, thinking and visual skills to be able to drive with some adaptive equipment. She also sees people who have driver’s licenses but have recently had a stroke or other medical condition that affects their driving.
Some people in the state, she said, have full-size vans into which they drive their power wheelchairs, and drive the car using a joystick. That can be very expensive. Other modifications, though less expensive, can still be hard to afford.
Medical insurance, Grant said, usually will not cover adaptive driving equipment. “Independent transportation is not a medical necessity,” she said. And while the inability to drive is unlikely to cause injury or death, independence is very important, Grant said.
Lexi Luce, 23, grew up in central Maine where car modifications were not well known, she said. She took driver’s education and driving lessons when she was 16. Because her right side is partially paralyzed, she had an extension put on the gas pedal and drove using both feet, one for the gas and the other for the brake.
When she moved to Portland a little over a year ago, she learned about other modifications that would help her drive using only her left foot and left hand.
She bought a car, had the modifications made, and contacted Kennedy after a recommendation from Grant. After 12 hours or so of driving lessons, Luce got her license in mid-September.
She uses a left-foot gas pedal and a steering knob. “Often people have trouble adapting to a left gas pedal,” Luce said, but because her left side is her dominant side, she had no trouble at all.
Now she drives just about every day, for a wide variety of purposes, and thanks Kennedy for teaching her those skills.
Cape reviews $9 million project
Published in the Current
Cape Elizabeth School Board members will take up discussion of a $9 million school building project at a workshop Nov. 19, to hammer out the details of a recommendation the board will make to the Town Council in January.
The full board got a comprehensive look at the project at its regular business meeting Tuesday.
Though all the town councilors were invited to attend the presentation, only three showed up: Council Chairman Jack Roberts, Finance Committee Chairman Mary Ann Lynch and Councilor Anne Swift-Kayatta. The meeting was broadcast on Cape’s community television station.
The project will allow the high school to accommodate increasing enrollment by reclaiming classrooms and administrative space now used for kindergarten and put the kindergarten back at Pond Cove School, with the rest of the elementary grades.
It will upgrade mechanical and electrical systems at the high school and add sprinklers to the 1960s-era building. It also will reconfigure teaching, instructional and physical education space and bring the high school into compliance with requirements for the disabled, such as reduced-height science lab tables.
“We are using our high school much differently today than we did 30 years ago,” said Marie Prager, who is both chair of the School Board and chair of the building subcommittee. “When the high school was built, we didn’t have special education,” she said, or computer technology.
Architect Bob Howe of HKTA Architects in Portland presented the options for work at the high school and Pond Cove separately, offering two options for each.
The more expensive high school option, at $9.4 million, would be, Howe said, an overhaul of nearly the entire building, including three small additions for the cafeteria, the entrance and physical education storage, as well as a large amount of exterior site work, including increased parking and disabled access to the upper field and track.
The second option, recommended by the building committee and likely to be more seriously considered by the School Board, is now proposed to cost $7.7 million, with the possibility that it could drop to $7.5 million.
Prager described the cheaper option as “what absolutely needs to be done” at the high school. Fewer classrooms would be renovated and the only addition would be for the cafeteria, which would be smaller than in the more expensive plan. Most of the cost savings would come from reduced work around the school, in the parking area and connecting roads and paths.
The expansion to Pond Cove would be an additional wing to offer new space for the kindergarten, which would otherwise not fit in the school for at least the next 10 years, Prager said.
The first option, slated to cost $2.5 million, would put on a two-story wing at the east end of the school, into the area between the new playground and the fire station. The upstairs would have four classrooms and space for group work, teacher work and occupational therapy services. The lower level would be built into the hill a bit and would provide two multipurpose spaces, as well as a basement-like storage area, Howe said.
The second and cheaper option, at $1.5 million, and more likely to be considered seriously, would provide a one-story addition, with five classrooms, group and teacher workspace and occupational therapy room. The addition would be ready for a second story to be
added in the future, Howe said.
Pond Cove Principal Tom Eismeier summed up the proposal by saying, “We simply don’t have enough room to bring the kindergarten back. The high school needs the space. I think we have to do it.”
The School Board will decide next month what to do and make a formal proposal to the Town Council in early January. Some or all of it could be placed on the town ballot for a May referendum. Lynch, who also serves on the building committee, has said in the past that the Pond Cove part of the project may not need to go to the voters.
Town Manager Michael McGovern told the board the town’s overall debt load was low as compared to the value of the buildings it owns.
The town has about 85 percent equity in its school buildings, and expects to pay off all of its school bonds by 2015, McGovern said. Because the schools will retire $1.7 million in debt next year, the $1.5 million Pond Cove project could be done “with no negative impact on the tax rate,” McGovern said.
Bonding out the $7.7 million high school project and the Pond Cove work over the course of the next several years, McGovern said, would put peak pressure on the town’s tax rate in 2006, when roughly $2.25 of tax per $1,000 of assessed value would be needed to provide debt service on school bonds. After 2006, the debt load would drop off “rapidly,” McGovern said, with the final payments in 2024 costing less than 50 cents of the tax rate.
The School Board will discuss the proposals at a workshop session at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 19, at the high school library. Public attendance and input is welcome. The board will then decide on recommendations at a meeting scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Dec. 10, in the Town Council Chambers.
Cape Elizabeth School Board members will take up discussion of a $9 million school building project at a workshop Nov. 19, to hammer out the details of a recommendation the board will make to the Town Council in January.
The full board got a comprehensive look at the project at its regular business meeting Tuesday.
Though all the town councilors were invited to attend the presentation, only three showed up: Council Chairman Jack Roberts, Finance Committee Chairman Mary Ann Lynch and Councilor Anne Swift-Kayatta. The meeting was broadcast on Cape’s community television station.
The project will allow the high school to accommodate increasing enrollment by reclaiming classrooms and administrative space now used for kindergarten and put the kindergarten back at Pond Cove School, with the rest of the elementary grades.
It will upgrade mechanical and electrical systems at the high school and add sprinklers to the 1960s-era building. It also will reconfigure teaching, instructional and physical education space and bring the high school into compliance with requirements for the disabled, such as reduced-height science lab tables.
“We are using our high school much differently today than we did 30 years ago,” said Marie Prager, who is both chair of the School Board and chair of the building subcommittee. “When the high school was built, we didn’t have special education,” she said, or computer technology.
Architect Bob Howe of HKTA Architects in Portland presented the options for work at the high school and Pond Cove separately, offering two options for each.
The more expensive high school option, at $9.4 million, would be, Howe said, an overhaul of nearly the entire building, including three small additions for the cafeteria, the entrance and physical education storage, as well as a large amount of exterior site work, including increased parking and disabled access to the upper field and track.
The second option, recommended by the building committee and likely to be more seriously considered by the School Board, is now proposed to cost $7.7 million, with the possibility that it could drop to $7.5 million.
Prager described the cheaper option as “what absolutely needs to be done” at the high school. Fewer classrooms would be renovated and the only addition would be for the cafeteria, which would be smaller than in the more expensive plan. Most of the cost savings would come from reduced work around the school, in the parking area and connecting roads and paths.
The expansion to Pond Cove would be an additional wing to offer new space for the kindergarten, which would otherwise not fit in the school for at least the next 10 years, Prager said.
The first option, slated to cost $2.5 million, would put on a two-story wing at the east end of the school, into the area between the new playground and the fire station. The upstairs would have four classrooms and space for group work, teacher work and occupational therapy services. The lower level would be built into the hill a bit and would provide two multipurpose spaces, as well as a basement-like storage area, Howe said.
The second and cheaper option, at $1.5 million, and more likely to be considered seriously, would provide a one-story addition, with five classrooms, group and teacher workspace and occupational therapy room. The addition would be ready for a second story to be
added in the future, Howe said.
Pond Cove Principal Tom Eismeier summed up the proposal by saying, “We simply don’t have enough room to bring the kindergarten back. The high school needs the space. I think we have to do it.”
The School Board will decide next month what to do and make a formal proposal to the Town Council in early January. Some or all of it could be placed on the town ballot for a May referendum. Lynch, who also serves on the building committee, has said in the past that the Pond Cove part of the project may not need to go to the voters.
Town Manager Michael McGovern told the board the town’s overall debt load was low as compared to the value of the buildings it owns.
The town has about 85 percent equity in its school buildings, and expects to pay off all of its school bonds by 2015, McGovern said. Because the schools will retire $1.7 million in debt next year, the $1.5 million Pond Cove project could be done “with no negative impact on the tax rate,” McGovern said.
Bonding out the $7.7 million high school project and the Pond Cove work over the course of the next several years, McGovern said, would put peak pressure on the town’s tax rate in 2006, when roughly $2.25 of tax per $1,000 of assessed value would be needed to provide debt service on school bonds. After 2006, the debt load would drop off “rapidly,” McGovern said, with the final payments in 2024 costing less than 50 cents of the tax rate.
The School Board will discuss the proposals at a workshop session at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 19, at the high school library. Public attendance and input is welcome. The board will then decide on recommendations at a meeting scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Dec. 10, in the Town Council Chambers.
On Active Duty: Capt. John Ginn
Published in the Current
John Ginn, the son of Cape resident Gregg Ginn and stepson of Town Councilor Mary Ann Lynch, is an attack-helicopter pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps. Capt. Ginn attended high school in Massachusetts and went to Colby College in Waterville, graduating in 1997.
“The idea of military service was always something that interested me,” said Ginn, whose father is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. He chose a civilian college rather than a military academy or enlisting right out of high school because he wanted to continue to participate actively in football, basketball and lacrosse.
Stationed at New River, N.C., just adjacent to the large Marine base at Camp Lejeune, Ginn completed his flight training a year ago, after four years in the Marines, attending officer school, a rigorous six-month basic training course, infantry officer school, and primary and advanced flight school. He flies AH-1W SuperCobra, an attack helicopter that can carry a wide range of weapons, including missiles and rockets.
This summer, Ginn was qualified as an attack-helicopter commander, meaning he is now responsible for an entire helicopter, its crew and any weapons it may carry.
The military flight training is rigorous, he said, but rewarding. His advanced training means he has had to spend a long period of time in the service and still “owes” five additional years of service before he has the option to leave or renew his commission.
Flying Cobras, he said, is a good challenge and provides a good opportunity for camaraderie. “The Cobra community has always been a very competitive community and that was always a big draw for me,” he said.
Ginn said his infantry training has been a benefit because it allows him to know first-hand what soldiers on the ground expect from the helicopters he now flies.
“Everything in the Marine Corps is supporting the grunt on the ground,” Ginn said.
Many of the people he went through initial infantry training with are already leaving the military for civilian work, he said, while he is just getting started in a real duty station and is in early preparations for his first overseas deployment.
His wife, Jenn, has family in North Carolina, which played a big role in his choice of duty station. “There is one thing you can count on: You are going to be gone a long time,” Ginn said. He wanted to be sure his wife would have a good support structure nearby when he is away for six-month missions or shorter training missions.
Before they got married, he and Jenn had a lot of open discussions about the reality of his responsibilities, and continue to trust in their faith that things will work out well in the end.
He knows veterans are worried about the prospect of future wars, but trusts the government’s experience to handle the present Iraq and Afghanistan problems well.
A number of his fellow pilots are looking to use their flight training as a stepping-stone to commercial aviation, either for helicopter companies or major airlines. Ginn said that’s not what he’s interested in. “I wouldn’t want to trade places with anybody,” he said.
But he is not yet sure if the Marines will become a career or whether he will leverage his leadership skills into a civilian job. He has his own goals for the next few years of his service, in addition to the Marines’ goals for him. He wants to keep his options open and has considered, among other possibilities, the Secret Service.
John Ginn, the son of Cape resident Gregg Ginn and stepson of Town Councilor Mary Ann Lynch, is an attack-helicopter pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps. Capt. Ginn attended high school in Massachusetts and went to Colby College in Waterville, graduating in 1997.
“The idea of military service was always something that interested me,” said Ginn, whose father is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. He chose a civilian college rather than a military academy or enlisting right out of high school because he wanted to continue to participate actively in football, basketball and lacrosse.
Stationed at New River, N.C., just adjacent to the large Marine base at Camp Lejeune, Ginn completed his flight training a year ago, after four years in the Marines, attending officer school, a rigorous six-month basic training course, infantry officer school, and primary and advanced flight school. He flies AH-1W SuperCobra, an attack helicopter that can carry a wide range of weapons, including missiles and rockets.
This summer, Ginn was qualified as an attack-helicopter commander, meaning he is now responsible for an entire helicopter, its crew and any weapons it may carry.
The military flight training is rigorous, he said, but rewarding. His advanced training means he has had to spend a long period of time in the service and still “owes” five additional years of service before he has the option to leave or renew his commission.
Flying Cobras, he said, is a good challenge and provides a good opportunity for camaraderie. “The Cobra community has always been a very competitive community and that was always a big draw for me,” he said.
Ginn said his infantry training has been a benefit because it allows him to know first-hand what soldiers on the ground expect from the helicopters he now flies.
“Everything in the Marine Corps is supporting the grunt on the ground,” Ginn said.
Many of the people he went through initial infantry training with are already leaving the military for civilian work, he said, while he is just getting started in a real duty station and is in early preparations for his first overseas deployment.
His wife, Jenn, has family in North Carolina, which played a big role in his choice of duty station. “There is one thing you can count on: You are going to be gone a long time,” Ginn said. He wanted to be sure his wife would have a good support structure nearby when he is away for six-month missions or shorter training missions.
Before they got married, he and Jenn had a lot of open discussions about the reality of his responsibilities, and continue to trust in their faith that things will work out well in the end.
He knows veterans are worried about the prospect of future wars, but trusts the government’s experience to handle the present Iraq and Afghanistan problems well.
A number of his fellow pilots are looking to use their flight training as a stepping-stone to commercial aviation, either for helicopter companies or major airlines. Ginn said that’s not what he’s interested in. “I wouldn’t want to trade places with anybody,” he said.
But he is not yet sure if the Marines will become a career or whether he will leverage his leadership skills into a civilian job. He has his own goals for the next few years of his service, in addition to the Marines’ goals for him. He wants to keep his options open and has considered, among other possibilities, the Secret Service.
Thursday, November 7, 2002
Tomassoni joins statewide emergency team
Published in the Current
Dr. Anthony Tomassoni of Cape Elizabeth, the only medical toxicologist in the state, has been chosen to help prepare Maine for public health emergencies.
While his official title is “medical director, office of public health emergency preparedness,” what he really does, he said, is team-building.
Tomassoni is a humble man who avoids talking about what he will do without also mentioning many of the other players involved, and he encourages input from a wide range of people.
His experience is mixed, including teaching school, going to graduate school in chemistry and doing medical work in emergency medicine, toxicology and urban search-and-rescue.
“I still view myself as a teacher more than anything else,” Tomassoni said.
His experience learning varied material and working with diverse groups of people, he said, should serve him well in his new job, which he is doing alongside his previous job as director of the Northern New England Poison Control Center. Tomassoni, who was named to his new post last month, reports to the head of the state’s Department of Health.
In his work with emergency medicine and poison control, he does a lot of outreach, educating the public about ways to stay safe and how to handle chemicals carefully.
He was part of a so-called “planned deployment” of emergency personnel at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, as well as responses to the Worcester, Mass., fire in December 1999 and the World Trade Towers after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
With a new national focus on safety and emergency response, Tomassoni said Maine is well prepared for emergencies, even with a small population and not much money. “We’re a small state. People know people, and we tend to haul together as a team,” he said.
That kind of collaboration can make an emergency response very effective, he said.
One of his major priorities is to smooth the process of communications between agencies around the state. As people get more used to communicating about everyday events and developments in public health, he said, they will both use and create a system that is useful in emergencies as well.
Hospitals, he said, are already talking more to each other and to public safety agencies than before Sept. 11, leading him to think communications will be easily improved, and to great effect.
As a doctor, Tomassoni is concerned with public health infrastructure. Unlike the past, today’s immunization programs are not carried out at every school across the nation all at once. Hospitals no longer have spare beds, waiting for patients. Both are expensive, Tomassoni said, but national organization and spare capacity are both important for planning how to handle disasters.
“There’s not a lot of slack in the system that you can begin taking up in the event of an emergency,” he said.
He will work with health and government officials around the state to design a system that has extra capacity without a lot of idle resources. In colonial days, when communities needed extra space for an extraordinary situation, they looked to schools and churches. Tomassoni said that may need to happen again, if an emergency occurs. He wants to set up those options ahead of time, to help everyone be better prepared.
“There is no such thing as a perfect response. They’re always improvised,” Tomassoni said. That’s because nobody knows what the next disaster will be, or where or when it will occur. “There is no way to be 100 percent prepared” for every possibility, he said. Instead, he will be working to create a strong system that can respond to any type of disaster.
Part of it will involve expanding a monitoring system at the poison center, where Tomassoni has worked since 1995, to automate reporting and monitoring of illness reports beyond specific poisons. Creating a public health alert network will help officials better understand the scope and pace of development of any disasters that may occur.
He said his work has just begun, and the challenges are many. But he expects to help reach desired goals for the emergency preparedness system, and work with many different initiatives at once to make them happen.
“It just seemed like the right thing to do at the right time,” he said.
Dr. Anthony Tomassoni of Cape Elizabeth, the only medical toxicologist in the state, has been chosen to help prepare Maine for public health emergencies.
While his official title is “medical director, office of public health emergency preparedness,” what he really does, he said, is team-building.
Tomassoni is a humble man who avoids talking about what he will do without also mentioning many of the other players involved, and he encourages input from a wide range of people.
His experience is mixed, including teaching school, going to graduate school in chemistry and doing medical work in emergency medicine, toxicology and urban search-and-rescue.
“I still view myself as a teacher more than anything else,” Tomassoni said.
His experience learning varied material and working with diverse groups of people, he said, should serve him well in his new job, which he is doing alongside his previous job as director of the Northern New England Poison Control Center. Tomassoni, who was named to his new post last month, reports to the head of the state’s Department of Health.
In his work with emergency medicine and poison control, he does a lot of outreach, educating the public about ways to stay safe and how to handle chemicals carefully.
He was part of a so-called “planned deployment” of emergency personnel at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, as well as responses to the Worcester, Mass., fire in December 1999 and the World Trade Towers after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
With a new national focus on safety and emergency response, Tomassoni said Maine is well prepared for emergencies, even with a small population and not much money. “We’re a small state. People know people, and we tend to haul together as a team,” he said.
That kind of collaboration can make an emergency response very effective, he said.
One of his major priorities is to smooth the process of communications between agencies around the state. As people get more used to communicating about everyday events and developments in public health, he said, they will both use and create a system that is useful in emergencies as well.
Hospitals, he said, are already talking more to each other and to public safety agencies than before Sept. 11, leading him to think communications will be easily improved, and to great effect.
As a doctor, Tomassoni is concerned with public health infrastructure. Unlike the past, today’s immunization programs are not carried out at every school across the nation all at once. Hospitals no longer have spare beds, waiting for patients. Both are expensive, Tomassoni said, but national organization and spare capacity are both important for planning how to handle disasters.
“There’s not a lot of slack in the system that you can begin taking up in the event of an emergency,” he said.
He will work with health and government officials around the state to design a system that has extra capacity without a lot of idle resources. In colonial days, when communities needed extra space for an extraordinary situation, they looked to schools and churches. Tomassoni said that may need to happen again, if an emergency occurs. He wants to set up those options ahead of time, to help everyone be better prepared.
“There is no such thing as a perfect response. They’re always improvised,” Tomassoni said. That’s because nobody knows what the next disaster will be, or where or when it will occur. “There is no way to be 100 percent prepared” for every possibility, he said. Instead, he will be working to create a strong system that can respond to any type of disaster.
Part of it will involve expanding a monitoring system at the poison center, where Tomassoni has worked since 1995, to automate reporting and monitoring of illness reports beyond specific poisons. Creating a public health alert network will help officials better understand the scope and pace of development of any disasters that may occur.
He said his work has just begun, and the challenges are many. But he expects to help reach desired goals for the emergency preparedness system, and work with many different initiatives at once to make them happen.
“It just seemed like the right thing to do at the right time,” he said.
Cape school building expansions at $9.2 million
Published in the Current
The School Building Committee will recommend the School Board approve a one-story, five-classroom expansion to Pond Cove estimated to cost $1.5 million and a $7.7 million renovation at the high school, including an expansion of the cafeteria to seat one-third more students than the current space allows.
That decision was made at a committee meeting Oct. 30, where it was also suggested that the Pond Cove project could be approved by the Town Council, but the high school expansion should go to voters.
Pond Cove expansion Committee member Sue Pierce said the one-story addition to Pond Cove is a better option, given tough economic times. “I think we’d have a better chance of getting it built and then expanding later,” she said. The one-story space would be structurally prepared to accept the addition of a second story in the future – an expansion needed if Cape ever adopts all-day kindergarten.
School Board and building committee Chair Marie Prager said the School Board members have indicated that the all-day kindergarten decision will be made by “a future School Board,” leading her to believe it won’t happen soon.
Committee members discussed at length the possibility of recommending the larger, two-story addition, either because they wanted the school to have the space, or because they were afraid of project cuts in the future and wanted bargaining room.
Pond Cove School Principal To m Eismeier said a one-story option with five classrooms, would provide space for the kindergarten to move into when it leaves the high school and would meet the needs of the elementary school.
Superintendent Tom Forcella said he thought going for a cheaper, smaller option at Pond Cove would make the money question easier on the high school.
“We know we’re dealing with another issue and the dollars are adding up,” he said.
In terms of Pond Cove, though, the school expansion may be possible without adding cost to the school budget.
Town Manager Mike McGovern said the schools were retiring $115,000 in debt service this year.
Borrowing $1.5 million, he said, would cost between $90,000 and $95,000 in debt service, allowing the schools’ debt load to decrease overall.
“You can essentially do it without increasing the school budget,” McGovern said.
High school renovation
Money is more of an issue at the high school, where renovation costs, higher than those for new construction, are driving the price far beyond an initially projected $2.5 million.
Renovating the 35-year-old school will involve interior work including reconfiguration of classrooms, administrative space and special education; adding some additional space to the cafeteria; and increased room for parking. A reworking of the lower field, a lighted playing space between the industrial arts wing of the school and the wetlands toward Gull Crest, is also part of the plan.
The lowest estimate presented to the building committee was just over $7.5 million, but the committee members, with the exception of Councilor Mary Ann Lynch and McGovern, decided to add $193,000 back into the cost, to pay for an expansion of the cafeteria, to hold 75 students more than its current capacity of roughly 200.
High School Principal Jeff Shedd said fitting more students into the existing space would require rearranging the school’s schedule and shortening class times to allow more lunch periods. “You lose academic time,” he said.
Prager and Forcella said overcrowding is already a big problem at lunchtime. Prager said the space needs to be larger, “so that there aren’t students eating in the hallway” and on the windowsill.
Lynch objected, asking whether the existing cafeteria could hold more kids if the tables were configured differently. “I go back to how many kids ate in that cafeteria in the 1970s,” she said.
She was also looking at the cost. She said she was trying to find “a number that feels good,” and had hit upon $9 million for both schools.
“That to me seems like a number that’s going to be a hard sell anyway,” she said.
Lynch said she still supports the project. “I’m prepared to sell it, and I think there’s a lot of need.” But she thought $9 million was going to be an upper limit.
School Board member Elaine Moloney said Lynch was looking at the project as a Town Councilor, and suggested the building committee come up with its own recommendation and let the School Board and Town Council make further revisions if they needed to.
Lynch said she wanted to be consistent, as a member of both bodies. She said she wouldn’t be able to say she supported one version of the project to the building committee but then oppose the same version when it came to the Town Council.
An additional cost to be added in to the project later will be any portable classrooms required to provide adequate teaching space during the renovation work. Because the specific timing remains unclear, that number is not now known.
Moving forward
The building committee will make its report to the School Board at its 7:30 p.m. meeting Nov. 12. McGovern advised all town councilors to get an advance look at the project, either by attending the meeting or watching it on local-access television.
He said they should also watch the School Board discussion and vote on the issue Dec. 10. He said he anticipated the Town Council would not get overly involved in questions about the specifics of the building plans.
“Basically it’s going to be fiscal capacity issues and timing issues, as opposed to digging into every last detail,” he said.
McGovern suggested the School Board propose bidding out the Pond Cove project one year and the high school work the following year, to better handle the impact. With the Pond Cove project alone, he said, “we would be retiring more principal than we would be borrowing.”
Lynch agreed, saying that might help the council approve the Pond Cove work outright and send just the high school work to a referendum.
The School Building Committee will recommend the School Board approve a one-story, five-classroom expansion to Pond Cove estimated to cost $1.5 million and a $7.7 million renovation at the high school, including an expansion of the cafeteria to seat one-third more students than the current space allows.
That decision was made at a committee meeting Oct. 30, where it was also suggested that the Pond Cove project could be approved by the Town Council, but the high school expansion should go to voters.
Pond Cove expansion Committee member Sue Pierce said the one-story addition to Pond Cove is a better option, given tough economic times. “I think we’d have a better chance of getting it built and then expanding later,” she said. The one-story space would be structurally prepared to accept the addition of a second story in the future – an expansion needed if Cape ever adopts all-day kindergarten.
School Board and building committee Chair Marie Prager said the School Board members have indicated that the all-day kindergarten decision will be made by “a future School Board,” leading her to believe it won’t happen soon.
Committee members discussed at length the possibility of recommending the larger, two-story addition, either because they wanted the school to have the space, or because they were afraid of project cuts in the future and wanted bargaining room.
Pond Cove School Principal To m Eismeier said a one-story option with five classrooms, would provide space for the kindergarten to move into when it leaves the high school and would meet the needs of the elementary school.
Superintendent Tom Forcella said he thought going for a cheaper, smaller option at Pond Cove would make the money question easier on the high school.
“We know we’re dealing with another issue and the dollars are adding up,” he said.
In terms of Pond Cove, though, the school expansion may be possible without adding cost to the school budget.
Town Manager Mike McGovern said the schools were retiring $115,000 in debt service this year.
Borrowing $1.5 million, he said, would cost between $90,000 and $95,000 in debt service, allowing the schools’ debt load to decrease overall.
“You can essentially do it without increasing the school budget,” McGovern said.
High school renovation
Money is more of an issue at the high school, where renovation costs, higher than those for new construction, are driving the price far beyond an initially projected $2.5 million.
Renovating the 35-year-old school will involve interior work including reconfiguration of classrooms, administrative space and special education; adding some additional space to the cafeteria; and increased room for parking. A reworking of the lower field, a lighted playing space between the industrial arts wing of the school and the wetlands toward Gull Crest, is also part of the plan.
The lowest estimate presented to the building committee was just over $7.5 million, but the committee members, with the exception of Councilor Mary Ann Lynch and McGovern, decided to add $193,000 back into the cost, to pay for an expansion of the cafeteria, to hold 75 students more than its current capacity of roughly 200.
High School Principal Jeff Shedd said fitting more students into the existing space would require rearranging the school’s schedule and shortening class times to allow more lunch periods. “You lose academic time,” he said.
Prager and Forcella said overcrowding is already a big problem at lunchtime. Prager said the space needs to be larger, “so that there aren’t students eating in the hallway” and on the windowsill.
Lynch objected, asking whether the existing cafeteria could hold more kids if the tables were configured differently. “I go back to how many kids ate in that cafeteria in the 1970s,” she said.
She was also looking at the cost. She said she was trying to find “a number that feels good,” and had hit upon $9 million for both schools.
“That to me seems like a number that’s going to be a hard sell anyway,” she said.
Lynch said she still supports the project. “I’m prepared to sell it, and I think there’s a lot of need.” But she thought $9 million was going to be an upper limit.
School Board member Elaine Moloney said Lynch was looking at the project as a Town Councilor, and suggested the building committee come up with its own recommendation and let the School Board and Town Council make further revisions if they needed to.
Lynch said she wanted to be consistent, as a member of both bodies. She said she wouldn’t be able to say she supported one version of the project to the building committee but then oppose the same version when it came to the Town Council.
An additional cost to be added in to the project later will be any portable classrooms required to provide adequate teaching space during the renovation work. Because the specific timing remains unclear, that number is not now known.
Moving forward
The building committee will make its report to the School Board at its 7:30 p.m. meeting Nov. 12. McGovern advised all town councilors to get an advance look at the project, either by attending the meeting or watching it on local-access television.
He said they should also watch the School Board discussion and vote on the issue Dec. 10. He said he anticipated the Town Council would not get overly involved in questions about the specifics of the building plans.
“Basically it’s going to be fiscal capacity issues and timing issues, as opposed to digging into every last detail,” he said.
McGovern suggested the School Board propose bidding out the Pond Cove project one year and the high school work the following year, to better handle the impact. With the Pond Cove project alone, he said, “we would be retiring more principal than we would be borrowing.”
Lynch agreed, saying that might help the council approve the Pond Cove work outright and send just the high school work to a referendum.
Cape property manager files for bankruptcy
Published in the Current
Joseph H. Gallant III of South Portland filed for bankruptcy protection Oct. 10, shortly before Cape Elizabeth police started getting complaints about bad checks and missing payments from his companies.
Gallant owns Higgins Beach Property Management and Silver Sands Properties, both rental property management firms based at 299 Ocean House Road in Cape Elizabeth.
Cape police are investigating the complaints, which include a woman from Pittsburgh, Pa., who complained Oct. 15 that she had not received her security deposit back after renting a property this summer and an Oct. 17 report from a resident of the Surf Road area that a property management company had “failed to pay them their income from rental property. ”
A Portsmouth, R.I., resident told police Oct. 19 that she had received a bad check from the company. On Oct. 22, a Jacksonville, Fla., resident told Cape police he had received a bad check as well.
“We’re still waiting for more complaints,” said Capt. Brent Sinclair. He said the department has sent two cases to the district attorney’s office for review and has four more that it will send as more documentation becomes available.
Sinclair said Detective Paul Fenton was scheduled to meet with the district attorney next week to discuss the case.
According to records filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Portland, Gallant asked for protection under Chapter 13, which allows people to keep property and instead undertake a repayment plan over three to five years.
Creditors’ claims in the court totaled more than $30,000 as of Nov. 4, including $18,900 claimed by six owners of seven rental properties in Higgins Beach; $9,965 to a resident of Cape Elizabeth for a rental home on Surfside Road; $1,808 to a Portland law firm for legal services from October 2001 to October 2002; $346 to Central Maine Power for unpaid electrical bills; and $297 to an office supply firm in Pennsylvania for checks and envelopes for mailing checks.
Other claimants, without dollar amounts, included General Motors Acceptance Corporation, which finances vehicle purchases, and a member of a law firm based in Saco and Portland.
Gallant’s lawyer, James Molleur, said he has asked the court for permission to auction off a piece of property Gallant owns in Higgins Beach. The proceeds from the sale, expected to occur in mid-December, should enable Gallant to pay all of his creditors in full, Molleur said.
That process may take until the middle of next year, Molleur said, because of the nature of the court’s processing of bankruptcy cases. He said Gallant filed for protection to eliminate “stressful” calls from creditors.
Molleur said he has heard from several creditors since the filing, all of whom “have been very nice,” and are “pleased that they’re going to be paid.”
One creditor, Cynthia Walsh, of Austin, Texas, who filed documents with the court indicating Gallant owes her $4,445, said she had not heard of a payment plan. As someone who was born and raised in Maine, as was her husband, she said, “I was really surprised that something like this would happen in Maine.”
She said she would have been willing to work with Gallant had he called and indicated he was having money problems, but “we were really shocked” to have a large check from Gallant come back from the bank with insufficient funds.
Walsh said she and the people she knows who rented their property through Gallant have owned their properties “for years and years” and are keeping them as future retirement homes.
Gallant did not return multiple phone calls and pager messages from the Current.
Joseph H. Gallant III of South Portland filed for bankruptcy protection Oct. 10, shortly before Cape Elizabeth police started getting complaints about bad checks and missing payments from his companies.
Gallant owns Higgins Beach Property Management and Silver Sands Properties, both rental property management firms based at 299 Ocean House Road in Cape Elizabeth.
Cape police are investigating the complaints, which include a woman from Pittsburgh, Pa., who complained Oct. 15 that she had not received her security deposit back after renting a property this summer and an Oct. 17 report from a resident of the Surf Road area that a property management company had “failed to pay them their income from rental property. ”
A Portsmouth, R.I., resident told police Oct. 19 that she had received a bad check from the company. On Oct. 22, a Jacksonville, Fla., resident told Cape police he had received a bad check as well.
“We’re still waiting for more complaints,” said Capt. Brent Sinclair. He said the department has sent two cases to the district attorney’s office for review and has four more that it will send as more documentation becomes available.
Sinclair said Detective Paul Fenton was scheduled to meet with the district attorney next week to discuss the case.
According to records filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Portland, Gallant asked for protection under Chapter 13, which allows people to keep property and instead undertake a repayment plan over three to five years.
Creditors’ claims in the court totaled more than $30,000 as of Nov. 4, including $18,900 claimed by six owners of seven rental properties in Higgins Beach; $9,965 to a resident of Cape Elizabeth for a rental home on Surfside Road; $1,808 to a Portland law firm for legal services from October 2001 to October 2002; $346 to Central Maine Power for unpaid electrical bills; and $297 to an office supply firm in Pennsylvania for checks and envelopes for mailing checks.
Other claimants, without dollar amounts, included General Motors Acceptance Corporation, which finances vehicle purchases, and a member of a law firm based in Saco and Portland.
Gallant’s lawyer, James Molleur, said he has asked the court for permission to auction off a piece of property Gallant owns in Higgins Beach. The proceeds from the sale, expected to occur in mid-December, should enable Gallant to pay all of his creditors in full, Molleur said.
That process may take until the middle of next year, Molleur said, because of the nature of the court’s processing of bankruptcy cases. He said Gallant filed for protection to eliminate “stressful” calls from creditors.
Molleur said he has heard from several creditors since the filing, all of whom “have been very nice,” and are “pleased that they’re going to be paid.”
One creditor, Cynthia Walsh, of Austin, Texas, who filed documents with the court indicating Gallant owes her $4,445, said she had not heard of a payment plan. As someone who was born and raised in Maine, as was her husband, she said, “I was really surprised that something like this would happen in Maine.”
She said she would have been willing to work with Gallant had he called and indicated he was having money problems, but “we were really shocked” to have a large check from Gallant come back from the bank with insufficient funds.
Walsh said she and the people she knows who rented their property through Gallant have owned their properties “for years and years” and are keeping them as future retirement homes.
Gallant did not return multiple phone calls and pager messages from the Current.
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
Former Westbrook man dies in Maryland
Published in the American Journal
Eric Schmehl, 34, formerly of Giles Street, Westbrook, died when he was hit by a car while riding a bicycle in Easton, Md., Nov. 3.
Schmehl, according to his father, Jay, grew up in Warnersville, Pa., and came to Maine in 1999 to seek work as a physical therapist. He worked at Maine Medical Center in Portland for two years and then worked for Alpha One in South Portland.
About six months ago, he left Maine and took up work for a company employing medical professionals who travel around the country filling short-term positions.
Schmehl worked in Pennsylvania and was working in Maryland when he was killed.
According to Easton police, Schmehl had a green light and was crossing a four-lane highway on his bike when he was hit by a 16-yearold female driver making a left turn from the oncoming lane.
Eric Schmehl, 34, formerly of Giles Street, Westbrook, died when he was hit by a car while riding a bicycle in Easton, Md., Nov. 3.
Schmehl, according to his father, Jay, grew up in Warnersville, Pa., and came to Maine in 1999 to seek work as a physical therapist. He worked at Maine Medical Center in Portland for two years and then worked for Alpha One in South Portland.
About six months ago, he left Maine and took up work for a company employing medical professionals who travel around the country filling short-term positions.
Schmehl worked in Pennsylvania and was working in Maryland when he was killed.
According to Easton police, Schmehl had a green light and was crossing a four-lane highway on his bike when he was hit by a 16-yearold female driver making a left turn from the oncoming lane.
Auto shop explosion injures two
Published in the Current and the American Journal
A container of “waste oil and other products” exploded around 11 a.m., Nov. 5, at the VIPDiscount Auto Center at 207 Waterman Drive in South Portland, injuring two male employees, according to South Portland Fire Chief John True.
True said it was a “major explosion” followed by a “flash of fire,” which did not ignite any other material.
Some of the liquid caused chemical burns on the face of one worker, who was taken to a Portland hospital. Asecond worker was taken to a hospital as well, with a possible broken bone.
The fire department covered the liquid spill with foam and waited for an environmental cleanup company to arrive.
True said the exact contents of the container were unknown, but “if the mixture’s right and the conditions are right,” waste oil and other car fluids can explode.
The South Portland Police Department is investigating and notified the state Bureau of Labor and the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration.
A container of “waste oil and other products” exploded around 11 a.m., Nov. 5, at the VIPDiscount Auto Center at 207 Waterman Drive in South Portland, injuring two male employees, according to South Portland Fire Chief John True.
True said it was a “major explosion” followed by a “flash of fire,” which did not ignite any other material.
Some of the liquid caused chemical burns on the face of one worker, who was taken to a Portland hospital. Asecond worker was taken to a hospital as well, with a possible broken bone.
The fire department covered the liquid spill with foam and waited for an environmental cleanup company to arrive.
True said the exact contents of the container were unknown, but “if the mixture’s right and the conditions are right,” waste oil and other car fluids can explode.
The South Portland Police Department is investigating and notified the state Bureau of Labor and the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration.
Thursday, October 31, 2002
Cape appeals to parents, tightens rules, to stop teen drinking
Published in the Current
In a letter to parents of Cape Elizabeth High School students, Principal Jeff Shedd laid out new procedures for chaperoning dances and challenged parents to help reduce student drinking outside of school functions. He also attacked the current athletic contract on abstaining from substance abuse as ineffective.
One student was suspended after the recent homecoming dance because the student was drunk at the dance and got sick. Shedd’s letter, which went out on Oct. 16, said he had heard of other students who might have been drinking or drunk at the dance, some of whom may have gotten sick in the girls’ bathroom.
The “narrow school problem” of drinking at or before dances, Shedd said, will be solved with additional chaperones, increasing numbers but also broadening the range of adults who will supervise dances.
Previously, dances had to have six chaperones, all staff members at the school, one of whom had to be the faculty advisor of the class sponsoring the dance.
Now, there will be nearly triple that number, with six CEHS staff, six parents, one administrator and the sponsoring class’s faculty advisor, for a total of 14. In addition, there will be one coach from each sport in season, as well as a police officer.
In addition, existing rules preventing students from bringing bags and bottles into the dance and prohibiting students from leaving the dance and then returning will continue to be enforced, Shedd said.
The additional supervision will make it easier for adults to enforce these, he said.
Shedd’s letter went on to say, “these measures will do nothing, however, to address the community-wide issue of teenage substance abuse and drinking at events outside of school.”
Shedd encouraged parents to work together to send consistent messages to children in the community, and asked parents to include in their in-home discipline a requirement that students who are caught drinking report themselves to school authorities, as required in the school’s athletic contract.
He said the “act of signing an athletic contract is an excusable lie they are forced to tell as the price for participating in school athletics.” If parents don’t enforce the athletic contract, they are making things worse, the letter said.
The School Board last year changed the athletic contract to make it more pointed and to encourage parents to act responsibly when their kids violate the provisions, which include forswearing drugs and alcohol on penalty of suspension from a game or sports season.
“It’s still not enough,” Shedd told the Current.
A recent meeting of the High School Parents Association had an extended discussion on the subject of teen drinking, Shedd said.
Beth Currier, vice president of the HSPA, said the meeting was the group’s normal monthly meeting and had been scheduled to include a question and-answer session with Shedd and assistant principal Mark Tinkham even before Shedd’s letter went home to parents.
But as a result of the letter, Currier said, “we had a much better than average turnout,” around 30 parents rather than the usual 10.
Currier said parents appreciated the letter. “It was really helpful to have an issue like that addressed with the facts,” she said. She was glad the school was communicating directly with parents on the issue.
The parents who were at the meeting, mostly with children in their freshman and sophomore years, were interested in dealing with the problem, and agreed that school dances were but a small part of the problem.
“We can make the dances chem-free,” Currier said. “The hard issue that we need to talk about and change is really the community climate culture change.”
She said a sports booster group had met the night before and discussed whether the athletic contract works, and why it applies to just athletes.
Currier said the parents agreed they could meet and discuss the issue of teen drinking for many hours, but decided to also address other questions about the high school and have another similar session at the next parents association meeting, Dec. 4.
Currier said if there was still interest in dealing with the subject, the association would look at scheduling a special meeting on the issue.
She said in the past she has noticed that people get concerned about teen drinking when something happens, but when nothing has happened for a while, “it disappears quickly” from discussion topics.
“It is hard to make real changes,” she said.
But she said there is concern about weekend parties, as well as school parties, and was looking forward to seeing how the next discussion went.
In a letter to parents of Cape Elizabeth High School students, Principal Jeff Shedd laid out new procedures for chaperoning dances and challenged parents to help reduce student drinking outside of school functions. He also attacked the current athletic contract on abstaining from substance abuse as ineffective.
One student was suspended after the recent homecoming dance because the student was drunk at the dance and got sick. Shedd’s letter, which went out on Oct. 16, said he had heard of other students who might have been drinking or drunk at the dance, some of whom may have gotten sick in the girls’ bathroom.
The “narrow school problem” of drinking at or before dances, Shedd said, will be solved with additional chaperones, increasing numbers but also broadening the range of adults who will supervise dances.
Previously, dances had to have six chaperones, all staff members at the school, one of whom had to be the faculty advisor of the class sponsoring the dance.
Now, there will be nearly triple that number, with six CEHS staff, six parents, one administrator and the sponsoring class’s faculty advisor, for a total of 14. In addition, there will be one coach from each sport in season, as well as a police officer.
In addition, existing rules preventing students from bringing bags and bottles into the dance and prohibiting students from leaving the dance and then returning will continue to be enforced, Shedd said.
The additional supervision will make it easier for adults to enforce these, he said.
Shedd’s letter went on to say, “these measures will do nothing, however, to address the community-wide issue of teenage substance abuse and drinking at events outside of school.”
Shedd encouraged parents to work together to send consistent messages to children in the community, and asked parents to include in their in-home discipline a requirement that students who are caught drinking report themselves to school authorities, as required in the school’s athletic contract.
He said the “act of signing an athletic contract is an excusable lie they are forced to tell as the price for participating in school athletics.” If parents don’t enforce the athletic contract, they are making things worse, the letter said.
The School Board last year changed the athletic contract to make it more pointed and to encourage parents to act responsibly when their kids violate the provisions, which include forswearing drugs and alcohol on penalty of suspension from a game or sports season.
“It’s still not enough,” Shedd told the Current.
A recent meeting of the High School Parents Association had an extended discussion on the subject of teen drinking, Shedd said.
Beth Currier, vice president of the HSPA, said the meeting was the group’s normal monthly meeting and had been scheduled to include a question and-answer session with Shedd and assistant principal Mark Tinkham even before Shedd’s letter went home to parents.
But as a result of the letter, Currier said, “we had a much better than average turnout,” around 30 parents rather than the usual 10.
Currier said parents appreciated the letter. “It was really helpful to have an issue like that addressed with the facts,” she said. She was glad the school was communicating directly with parents on the issue.
The parents who were at the meeting, mostly with children in their freshman and sophomore years, were interested in dealing with the problem, and agreed that school dances were but a small part of the problem.
“We can make the dances chem-free,” Currier said. “The hard issue that we need to talk about and change is really the community climate culture change.”
She said a sports booster group had met the night before and discussed whether the athletic contract works, and why it applies to just athletes.
Currier said the parents agreed they could meet and discuss the issue of teen drinking for many hours, but decided to also address other questions about the high school and have another similar session at the next parents association meeting, Dec. 4.
Currier said if there was still interest in dealing with the subject, the association would look at scheduling a special meeting on the issue.
She said in the past she has noticed that people get concerned about teen drinking when something happens, but when nothing has happened for a while, “it disappears quickly” from discussion topics.
“It is hard to make real changes,” she said.
But she said there is concern about weekend parties, as well as school parties, and was looking forward to seeing how the next discussion went.
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Cape Girl Scouts welcome a Kenyan friend
Published in the Current and the American Journal
“Hujambo Esther,” said the sign welcoming Esther Ndungwa Musau to the house in Cape Elizabeth where 10 of her pen pals were gathering for a meeting and a meal.
Inside, Musau was the center of a pod of girls moving from room to room throughout the house. “These girls are good,” said the soft-spoken, 19-year-old from Mbooli, near Machakos, southeast of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
The girls had spent a lot of time with Musau, who is living with a number of families during her three-week stay.
Troop member Bridget Carver said the group had begun writing to Musau after starting a sponsorship through Save the Children. The troop sends roughly $300 a year to fund Musau’s education.
Over the course of the correspondence, which has lasted four years now, Musau wrote to the girls about problems with her eyes.
The girls, who originally wanted to go to Kenya to meet their pen pal, decided it would be cheaper and easier to bring her to the U.S. Another benefit, they thought, would be the opportunity for Musau to get medical care for her eyes and also visit a dentist.
“We used all our cookie money and magazine money,” said Paige St. Germaine.
They raised about $2,000, including a donation from the Rotary Club of
South Portland and Cape Elizabeth. The flight cost $1,700, the girls said.
They remembered sitting in the cold outside Sam’s Club selling cookies to raise money, and taking notes of various excuses people gave for not buying any cookies. The troop will host a spaghetti dinner Nov. 1 to replenish the troop’s supply of funds.
Musau hadn’t heard from the girls in a while, because she graduated from school several months ago. But when her former teachers told her the girls wanted to pay her way to the U.S., she was surprised.
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” she said. But she learned that the Scouts were serious, and decided to put her faith in her pen friends. It was her first time in an airplane, and she was very excited about seeing the U.S.
“At the same time I was nervous,” she said. She had never actually met any of the girls and didn’t know what they or their families would be like in person.
“I said, ‘God is there,’” she said, and took the leap of faith. She knew that they were good people, and she figured that if they were willing to bring her to their homes, they would treat her well when she arrived.
She had known the girls for a while in their letters, starting when they were in first grade. “They were just teaching themselves how to write,” Musau said, remembering with a smile the letters she got on large-rule paper, in little-kid handwriting.
The Scouts also got Dr. Jeff Berman, a Cape resident who works at the Maine Eye Center in Portland, to donate eye care. Musau had chronic conjunctivitis that caused some scraping of her cornea.
Berman gave her some eye drops that should take care of the problem. Her dental care was donated by Dr. Leonard Brennan of Portland.
All of the girls said they would like to visit Musau in Kenya at some point down the road. Scout Meredith Sills was proud of the group’s achievement.
“We brought our pen pal here,” she said.
“Hujambo Esther,” said the sign welcoming Esther Ndungwa Musau to the house in Cape Elizabeth where 10 of her pen pals were gathering for a meeting and a meal.
Inside, Musau was the center of a pod of girls moving from room to room throughout the house. “These girls are good,” said the soft-spoken, 19-year-old from Mbooli, near Machakos, southeast of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
The girls had spent a lot of time with Musau, who is living with a number of families during her three-week stay.
Troop member Bridget Carver said the group had begun writing to Musau after starting a sponsorship through Save the Children. The troop sends roughly $300 a year to fund Musau’s education.
Over the course of the correspondence, which has lasted four years now, Musau wrote to the girls about problems with her eyes.
The girls, who originally wanted to go to Kenya to meet their pen pal, decided it would be cheaper and easier to bring her to the U.S. Another benefit, they thought, would be the opportunity for Musau to get medical care for her eyes and also visit a dentist.
“We used all our cookie money and magazine money,” said Paige St. Germaine.
They raised about $2,000, including a donation from the Rotary Club of
South Portland and Cape Elizabeth. The flight cost $1,700, the girls said.
They remembered sitting in the cold outside Sam’s Club selling cookies to raise money, and taking notes of various excuses people gave for not buying any cookies. The troop will host a spaghetti dinner Nov. 1 to replenish the troop’s supply of funds.
Musau hadn’t heard from the girls in a while, because she graduated from school several months ago. But when her former teachers told her the girls wanted to pay her way to the U.S., she was surprised.
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” she said. But she learned that the Scouts were serious, and decided to put her faith in her pen friends. It was her first time in an airplane, and she was very excited about seeing the U.S.
“At the same time I was nervous,” she said. She had never actually met any of the girls and didn’t know what they or their families would be like in person.
“I said, ‘God is there,’” she said, and took the leap of faith. She knew that they were good people, and she figured that if they were willing to bring her to their homes, they would treat her well when she arrived.
She had known the girls for a while in their letters, starting when they were in first grade. “They were just teaching themselves how to write,” Musau said, remembering with a smile the letters she got on large-rule paper, in little-kid handwriting.
The Scouts also got Dr. Jeff Berman, a Cape resident who works at the Maine Eye Center in Portland, to donate eye care. Musau had chronic conjunctivitis that caused some scraping of her cornea.
Berman gave her some eye drops that should take care of the problem. Her dental care was donated by Dr. Leonard Brennan of Portland.
All of the girls said they would like to visit Musau in Kenya at some point down the road. Scout Meredith Sills was proud of the group’s achievement.
“We brought our pen pal here,” she said.
History lost in now stalled project
Published in the Current and the American Journal
Nearly complete on the outside, but utterly abandoned, a new version of an historic house sits on Shore Road behind orange fencing and signs warning against trespassing. Its view is a commanding one of the ocean, but from the road it looks lost and alone.
Work has stopped on the house, after nearly a year of demolition and reconstruction, because the owners are taking care of family business out of state, according to project architect and builder Marcel Nadeau of Anastos and Nadeau of Yarmouth.
Nadeau said the owners, Darrell and Patricia Mayeux of South Portland, did not tell him if or when work would resume, and added that he thought they might try to sell the home.
The house was not a John Calvin Stevens house, as some in town had thought, but was designed by another prominent Portland-area architect in
the late 1890s and early 1900s, and was almost entirely original as recently as 1998.
The house, at 878 Shore Road, was designed by Austin W. Pease and built by Mrs. George F. Thurston sometime before 1910, according to Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. In 1910, a pen sketch of the ocean side of the house was published in the journal of the Portland Board of Trade, Shettleworth said.
Pease also designed a house, at 20 Summit Road, which made it onto an expanded list of historic structures that failed to gain Town Council approval in December 2001. At that time, the council also did away with an existing list of structures subject to a 45-day waiting period before any demolition could occur.
The Mayeux house was not on either of those lists, but still interested Shettleworth.
Photos taken when the house was on the market in 1998, Shettleworth said, indicate that it was “largely unaltered” over the past 100 years, both inside and out. He said that before renovations and remodeling began, “the present owners had an early 20th century shingle-style summer cottage.”
The past year’s work, he said, was best described as “extensive modeling and enlargement.”
“What they did was to radically alter the appearance of the house,” Shettleworth said. Some of the features have been preserved, he said, while others are no longer there.
Two bay windows next to the main entrance are still in the remodeled house, but the “eyebrow dormer” window originally on the third floor was removed to make way for an expanded gambrel, which is both taller and includes more windows than the Pease version, Shettleworth said.
He said the interior photos from 1998 indicate the inside was probably very close to the original as well, and he does not know what has happened to the inside during renovations.
The garage and octagonal turret were added recently, he said, and were not part of the Pease design.
Shettleworth said this type of project worries him. “Those of us concerned about historic preservation in Maine discourage owners from doing this
level of alteration” to largely intact buildings of that age, he said. Even if the new home looks like the old one, there are small changes that make it less than it was. “It’s not the original house,” he said.
Project architect Nadeau said he did not know that the house had any historic value.
The owners did not return multiple phone calls from the Current.
Nearly complete on the outside, but utterly abandoned, a new version of an historic house sits on Shore Road behind orange fencing and signs warning against trespassing. Its view is a commanding one of the ocean, but from the road it looks lost and alone.
Work has stopped on the house, after nearly a year of demolition and reconstruction, because the owners are taking care of family business out of state, according to project architect and builder Marcel Nadeau of Anastos and Nadeau of Yarmouth.
Nadeau said the owners, Darrell and Patricia Mayeux of South Portland, did not tell him if or when work would resume, and added that he thought they might try to sell the home.
The house was not a John Calvin Stevens house, as some in town had thought, but was designed by another prominent Portland-area architect in
the late 1890s and early 1900s, and was almost entirely original as recently as 1998.
The house, at 878 Shore Road, was designed by Austin W. Pease and built by Mrs. George F. Thurston sometime before 1910, according to Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. In 1910, a pen sketch of the ocean side of the house was published in the journal of the Portland Board of Trade, Shettleworth said.
Pease also designed a house, at 20 Summit Road, which made it onto an expanded list of historic structures that failed to gain Town Council approval in December 2001. At that time, the council also did away with an existing list of structures subject to a 45-day waiting period before any demolition could occur.
The Mayeux house was not on either of those lists, but still interested Shettleworth.
Photos taken when the house was on the market in 1998, Shettleworth said, indicate that it was “largely unaltered” over the past 100 years, both inside and out. He said that before renovations and remodeling began, “the present owners had an early 20th century shingle-style summer cottage.”
The past year’s work, he said, was best described as “extensive modeling and enlargement.”
“What they did was to radically alter the appearance of the house,” Shettleworth said. Some of the features have been preserved, he said, while others are no longer there.
Two bay windows next to the main entrance are still in the remodeled house, but the “eyebrow dormer” window originally on the third floor was removed to make way for an expanded gambrel, which is both taller and includes more windows than the Pease version, Shettleworth said.
He said the interior photos from 1998 indicate the inside was probably very close to the original as well, and he does not know what has happened to the inside during renovations.
The garage and octagonal turret were added recently, he said, and were not part of the Pease design.
Shettleworth said this type of project worries him. “Those of us concerned about historic preservation in Maine discourage owners from doing this
level of alteration” to largely intact buildings of that age, he said. Even if the new home looks like the old one, there are small changes that make it less than it was. “It’s not the original house,” he said.
Project architect Nadeau said he did not know that the house had any historic value.
The owners did not return multiple phone calls from the Current.
Teens talk to legislators about drugs
Published in the Current and the American Journal
Seven students from Cape Elizabeth High School participated in a videoconference with the Maine Legislative Youth Advisory Council Oct. 18 to give legislators some insight on why kids use drugs and alcohol.
Students from Belfast Area High School also participated in the event, which used Cape’s videoconferencing link from the old lecture hall room.
Also participating were members of the public, who used the opportunity to address legislators in Augusta. Sen. Lynn Bromley and Rep. Janet McLaughlin were on hand in Cape for the discussion as well.
Adam Welch, a senior at Belfast, said he had recently stopped drinking because he found it affected his studies, but said easy access to alcohol makes it hard for young people to resist.
“The solution here is that you have to relate to (young people) on some level,” Welch told the group.
Kate Perkins, who does social work in western and midcoast Maine, said parents model bad behavior, by drinking and driving themselves – even with the kids in the car. Other problems, she said, include alcohol advertising and uneven enforcement of drinking laws.
“You can’t expect the schools to do it all,” Perkins said.
A teacher from the Belfast school asked the students at her location and in Cape what relationships they found most influential in their decisions about drug and alcohol use. A student at Belfast said friendships were most influential, especially those in middle school and elementary school, when kids are defining themselves. By high school age, he said, many kids are set in their ways and are hard to influence.
Sarah Groff, a junior at CEHS, talked about a class she is taking called “health forum,” with Andrea Cayer. The class, she said, has discussed mental illness, suicide prevention, drug and alcohol use and other topics. She said Cayer began the class by saying, “You can’t teach students not to drink. You can make them aware and see the consequences.”
Groff said students do need to be made more aware, and that statistics aren’t enough. Personal stories from fellow students are influential, she said.
She mentioned Cape Life, a new program begun by Cape teacher and coach Andy Strout, to provide alternative social activities for teenagers, as one possible way to handle the issue.
Scott Caras, also a Cape junior, said his classmates and friends are part of his decision-making process. “By far the most important relationship is with your friends and with your peers that you look up to,” Caras said.
He said it is important for young people to see their role models making good choices, something that is not always the case now.
Caras also said sports teams can play a strong role in keeping kids from drinking, but can also have the opposite effect.
“It’s hard when a couple of kids (on a team) choose not to use drugs and alcohol,” he said.
Caras said the coach’s role in decision-making should not be underestimated.
“The coach can tip the balance of kids on the fence,” he said, by recognizing efforts not to drink or do drugs.
Enforcement is difficult, Caras said, because so much of it depends on students themselves turning in their friends. If the students on a team don’t take the no-alcohol contract seriously, there will be no enforcement. Again, he said, the coach can make a difference there, but without student support, he said, a contract won’t be enforced.
The Maine Legislative Youth Advisory Council, a permanent committee of the Legislature, is working on ways to prevent substance abuse in young people throughout the state, and used the comments from the videoconference as part of their research.
Seven students from Cape Elizabeth High School participated in a videoconference with the Maine Legislative Youth Advisory Council Oct. 18 to give legislators some insight on why kids use drugs and alcohol.
Students from Belfast Area High School also participated in the event, which used Cape’s videoconferencing link from the old lecture hall room.
Also participating were members of the public, who used the opportunity to address legislators in Augusta. Sen. Lynn Bromley and Rep. Janet McLaughlin were on hand in Cape for the discussion as well.
Adam Welch, a senior at Belfast, said he had recently stopped drinking because he found it affected his studies, but said easy access to alcohol makes it hard for young people to resist.
“The solution here is that you have to relate to (young people) on some level,” Welch told the group.
Kate Perkins, who does social work in western and midcoast Maine, said parents model bad behavior, by drinking and driving themselves – even with the kids in the car. Other problems, she said, include alcohol advertising and uneven enforcement of drinking laws.
“You can’t expect the schools to do it all,” Perkins said.
A teacher from the Belfast school asked the students at her location and in Cape what relationships they found most influential in their decisions about drug and alcohol use. A student at Belfast said friendships were most influential, especially those in middle school and elementary school, when kids are defining themselves. By high school age, he said, many kids are set in their ways and are hard to influence.
Sarah Groff, a junior at CEHS, talked about a class she is taking called “health forum,” with Andrea Cayer. The class, she said, has discussed mental illness, suicide prevention, drug and alcohol use and other topics. She said Cayer began the class by saying, “You can’t teach students not to drink. You can make them aware and see the consequences.”
Groff said students do need to be made more aware, and that statistics aren’t enough. Personal stories from fellow students are influential, she said.
She mentioned Cape Life, a new program begun by Cape teacher and coach Andy Strout, to provide alternative social activities for teenagers, as one possible way to handle the issue.
Scott Caras, also a Cape junior, said his classmates and friends are part of his decision-making process. “By far the most important relationship is with your friends and with your peers that you look up to,” Caras said.
He said it is important for young people to see their role models making good choices, something that is not always the case now.
Caras also said sports teams can play a strong role in keeping kids from drinking, but can also have the opposite effect.
“It’s hard when a couple of kids (on a team) choose not to use drugs and alcohol,” he said.
Caras said the coach’s role in decision-making should not be underestimated.
“The coach can tip the balance of kids on the fence,” he said, by recognizing efforts not to drink or do drugs.
Enforcement is difficult, Caras said, because so much of it depends on students themselves turning in their friends. If the students on a team don’t take the no-alcohol contract seriously, there will be no enforcement. Again, he said, the coach can make a difference there, but without student support, he said, a contract won’t be enforced.
The Maine Legislative Youth Advisory Council, a permanent committee of the Legislature, is working on ways to prevent substance abuse in young people throughout the state, and used the comments from the videoconference as part of their research.
Thursday, October 24, 2002
Web site filches Cape man’s furniture designs
Published in the Current
Douglas Green of Cape Elizabeth is learning the value of the Internet to his business, reaching customers nationwide. Unfortunately, he is also learning how others can hurt his business by using technology.
Green operates Green Design Furniture, with a store in Portland. Last Friday, one of his customers alerted him that a furniture-sales web site targeted at high-end computer users was purportedly selling Green’s own furniture.
When Green looked at the web site, MacTable.com, he was very surprised.
“The site had pulled images and copy from our catalog,” Green said.
Further, the site was advertising retail prices that were “basically double”
Green’s own prices, and then offering a discount from those inflated prices.
Green had never heard of the site, and nobody had contacted him to ask permission. Green and his employees are the only people authorized to sell his furniture.
Green called the site’s owner, Jack Campbell, of Hendersonville, Tenn., to complain. Green was furious at what he saw as infringement of his intellectual property rights. He gave Campbell an hour to remove the photos and text from the site, and told Campbell his lawyer would also call to make the point.
“It was beyond what I could comprehend,” Green said.
Campbell defended his action, saying he was setting up a trial run of a web-based business marketing “expensive, nice designer wares” to users of Macintosh computers. He is a marketing consultant and technology writer known in the Macintosh user community.
His demographic studies indicate, he said, that Macintosh owners are a good market for high-end goods.
He approached a number of vendors for possible materials. One person, he said, claimed that Green’s furniture was really his own. This person, Campbell said, sent over photos and descriptions, as well as pricing information to be used on Campbell’s web site. These were the materials Green said were his own.
The site opened Oct. 17. The following day, he heard from Green, and the material was off his web site less than 30 hours after it was posted.
“I tried to apologize to Douglas (Green),” Campbell said, but Green was upset and wouldn’t let him say much, Campbell said.
After the call, Campbell checked into all of his other prospective vendors, and he said they checked out as credible sellers of their products.
Green said he takes infringements seriously. “This is what I’ve spent the last 10 years on,” he said. “We have to be really rigorous in defending my ideas. What I own are my designs.”
Douglas Green of Cape Elizabeth is learning the value of the Internet to his business, reaching customers nationwide. Unfortunately, he is also learning how others can hurt his business by using technology.
Green operates Green Design Furniture, with a store in Portland. Last Friday, one of his customers alerted him that a furniture-sales web site targeted at high-end computer users was purportedly selling Green’s own furniture.
When Green looked at the web site, MacTable.com, he was very surprised.
“The site had pulled images and copy from our catalog,” Green said.
Further, the site was advertising retail prices that were “basically double”
Green’s own prices, and then offering a discount from those inflated prices.
Green had never heard of the site, and nobody had contacted him to ask permission. Green and his employees are the only people authorized to sell his furniture.
Green called the site’s owner, Jack Campbell, of Hendersonville, Tenn., to complain. Green was furious at what he saw as infringement of his intellectual property rights. He gave Campbell an hour to remove the photos and text from the site, and told Campbell his lawyer would also call to make the point.
“It was beyond what I could comprehend,” Green said.
Campbell defended his action, saying he was setting up a trial run of a web-based business marketing “expensive, nice designer wares” to users of Macintosh computers. He is a marketing consultant and technology writer known in the Macintosh user community.
His demographic studies indicate, he said, that Macintosh owners are a good market for high-end goods.
He approached a number of vendors for possible materials. One person, he said, claimed that Green’s furniture was really his own. This person, Campbell said, sent over photos and descriptions, as well as pricing information to be used on Campbell’s web site. These were the materials Green said were his own.
The site opened Oct. 17. The following day, he heard from Green, and the material was off his web site less than 30 hours after it was posted.
“I tried to apologize to Douglas (Green),” Campbell said, but Green was upset and wouldn’t let him say much, Campbell said.
After the call, Campbell checked into all of his other prospective vendors, and he said they checked out as credible sellers of their products.
Green said he takes infringements seriously. “This is what I’ve spent the last 10 years on,” he said. “We have to be really rigorous in defending my ideas. What I own are my designs.”
Blanche turns 101
Published in the Current
Smiling broadly after a serious game of Beano at the First Congregational Church on Black Point Road, Blanche Cook was treated to a birthday lunch Oct. 17, her 101st birthday.
“This is the best day ever,” she exclaimed to a group of assembled friends. “It seems as though I’ve had birthdays forever.”
Her secret is food. “I just eat. I’ve got a good appetite,” Cook said before sitting down to a cup of soup, a sandwich and birthday cake.
She grew up in North Pownal and then moved to South Portland and later Scarborough, said her daughter Lorraine Libby. For many years Cook hand-dipped chocolate for the Libby Candy Company. Her husband died in 1978.
She said she has had a good life and has seen a lot. “Everything has been invented since I was born,” Cook said.
She walks a mile in the Maine Mall each morning and plays Beano often. The week before her birthday, she won several games. Her friends didn’t let the birthday girl win on her special day, though they did surprise her with the party.
Cook, a spry woman who moves as if she were far younger, still travels alone. She will shortly go to Florida to visit her brothers, who are 95 and 98 years old.
“We’re all a hardy bunch,” Cook said with a laugh.
Smiling broadly after a serious game of Beano at the First Congregational Church on Black Point Road, Blanche Cook was treated to a birthday lunch Oct. 17, her 101st birthday.
“This is the best day ever,” she exclaimed to a group of assembled friends. “It seems as though I’ve had birthdays forever.”
Her secret is food. “I just eat. I’ve got a good appetite,” Cook said before sitting down to a cup of soup, a sandwich and birthday cake.
She grew up in North Pownal and then moved to South Portland and later Scarborough, said her daughter Lorraine Libby. For many years Cook hand-dipped chocolate for the Libby Candy Company. Her husband died in 1978.
She said she has had a good life and has seen a lot. “Everything has been invented since I was born,” Cook said.
She walks a mile in the Maine Mall each morning and plays Beano often. The week before her birthday, she won several games. Her friends didn’t let the birthday girl win on her special day, though they did surprise her with the party.
Cook, a spry woman who moves as if she were far younger, still travels alone. She will shortly go to Florida to visit her brothers, who are 95 and 98 years old.
“We’re all a hardy bunch,” Cook said with a laugh.
Cape board worried about non-graduates
Published in the Current
At a School Board workshop Tuesday, concerns were high about state-mandated local assessment standards for high school graduation, which will be developed by the end of this school year and will be applied to this year’s eighth-graders before they can get high school diplomas.
“We can tell already that we’re not going to be there” without additional help, said Superintendent Tom Forcella. “Otherwise we’re going to have a significant number of kids not graduating,” said high school Principal Jeff Shedd.
Students who do not have high school diplomas are allowed to enroll in school until July 1 of the year in which they turn 20, according to state law.
Board member Kevin Sweeney said that could prove costly. “We could potentially be looking at having them in school full time for (an additional) one, two or three years,” Sweeney said.
The board discussed with Shedd the study skills class offered to non-special education students. Shedd said the class serves 13 students, whom he described as “high-risk non-special ed students.” The class teaches them organizational skills to help them perform better in class.
School Board Chairwoman Marie Prager said she felt as if there were three large groups in the school, the average students, special ed students and the ones in between, which she called “marginal.” Serving the needs of the three groups, she said, puts a large strain on the school department’s resources.
“We’re building three schools within our one school,” Prager said. “That’s what I think is scary in terms of dollars.”
Board member Kevin Sweeney said there was a broader spectrum than just those three groups, including honors and advanced placement students, as well as special education students with very large needs (such as one-on-one assistance), and special education students with fewer needs.
Claire LaBrie, director of special education, said students in special education often take college placement and honors classes in some disciplines while needing assistance with other subjects.
Middle school Principal Nancy Hutton said the schools will need to change some of their efforts to reach all students, using more people, equipment and time. “There’s going to be a price to pay for all of that,” she said.
“We’re going to do the best we can for all the kids,” Hutton said, not just “most of them.”
Forcella said the schools had to be careful not to create “a new special ed for non-special ed students.”
Shedd agreed that there were ways to be cost-effective, but said, “a part of the solution is inevitably going to take time, and time costs money.”
At a School Board workshop Tuesday, concerns were high about state-mandated local assessment standards for high school graduation, which will be developed by the end of this school year and will be applied to this year’s eighth-graders before they can get high school diplomas.
“We can tell already that we’re not going to be there” without additional help, said Superintendent Tom Forcella. “Otherwise we’re going to have a significant number of kids not graduating,” said high school Principal Jeff Shedd.
Students who do not have high school diplomas are allowed to enroll in school until July 1 of the year in which they turn 20, according to state law.
Board member Kevin Sweeney said that could prove costly. “We could potentially be looking at having them in school full time for (an additional) one, two or three years,” Sweeney said.
The board discussed with Shedd the study skills class offered to non-special education students. Shedd said the class serves 13 students, whom he described as “high-risk non-special ed students.” The class teaches them organizational skills to help them perform better in class.
School Board Chairwoman Marie Prager said she felt as if there were three large groups in the school, the average students, special ed students and the ones in between, which she called “marginal.” Serving the needs of the three groups, she said, puts a large strain on the school department’s resources.
“We’re building three schools within our one school,” Prager said. “That’s what I think is scary in terms of dollars.”
Board member Kevin Sweeney said there was a broader spectrum than just those three groups, including honors and advanced placement students, as well as special education students with very large needs (such as one-on-one assistance), and special education students with fewer needs.
Claire LaBrie, director of special education, said students in special education often take college placement and honors classes in some disciplines while needing assistance with other subjects.
Middle school Principal Nancy Hutton said the schools will need to change some of their efforts to reach all students, using more people, equipment and time. “There’s going to be a price to pay for all of that,” she said.
“We’re going to do the best we can for all the kids,” Hutton said, not just “most of them.”
Forcella said the schools had to be careful not to create “a new special ed for non-special ed students.”
Shedd agreed that there were ways to be cost-effective, but said, “a part of the solution is inevitably going to take time, and time costs money.”
Little damage in Black Point Inn fire
Published in the Current
A small fire started in a light fixture in a corner of the laundry at the Black Point Inn, sending guests out the door and firefighters racing down to Prouts Neck just after 6 p.m. Tuesday evening.
The historic inn, which had a new sprinkler and alarm system installed throughout the building during a renovation four years ago, had about 45 guests, as well as 65 staff members, all of whom had to be evacuated, according to Scarborough Fire Chief Michael Thurlow.
Firefighters hooked up their hoses to feed the inn’s sprinkler system, which took care of most of the fire. Fire crews took care of the rest quickly.
Firefighters spent several hours on the scene after the fire was out, cleaning out burned areas to make sure the fire was completely extinguished, and clearing smoke from the building.
“It’s a big building and it takes a while to get the smoke out,” Thurlow said.
Guests and staff were kept out of the inn’s main building for a while, but were able to keep warm in some of the inn’s cottages and outbuildings, according to innkeeper Dick Schwalbenberg.
No one was in the laundry at the time of the fire, and no one was hurt in the evacuation or in fighting the fire. Damage to the building was not extensive, and Schwalbenberg said he expected the laundry to be back in service by the end of the day Wednesday.
The small size of the fire was a relief to Schwalbenberg and Thurlow.
“It’s the kind of building you worry about,” Thurlow said, referring to the
inn’s wood-frame structure.
A small fire started in a light fixture in a corner of the laundry at the Black Point Inn, sending guests out the door and firefighters racing down to Prouts Neck just after 6 p.m. Tuesday evening.
The historic inn, which had a new sprinkler and alarm system installed throughout the building during a renovation four years ago, had about 45 guests, as well as 65 staff members, all of whom had to be evacuated, according to Scarborough Fire Chief Michael Thurlow.
Firefighters hooked up their hoses to feed the inn’s sprinkler system, which took care of most of the fire. Fire crews took care of the rest quickly.
Firefighters spent several hours on the scene after the fire was out, cleaning out burned areas to make sure the fire was completely extinguished, and clearing smoke from the building.
“It’s a big building and it takes a while to get the smoke out,” Thurlow said.
Guests and staff were kept out of the inn’s main building for a while, but were able to keep warm in some of the inn’s cottages and outbuildings, according to innkeeper Dick Schwalbenberg.
No one was in the laundry at the time of the fire, and no one was hurt in the evacuation or in fighting the fire. Damage to the building was not extensive, and Schwalbenberg said he expected the laundry to be back in service by the end of the day Wednesday.
The small size of the fire was a relief to Schwalbenberg and Thurlow.
“It’s the kind of building you worry about,” Thurlow said, referring to the
inn’s wood-frame structure.
Local students above state MEA averages
Published in the Current; co-written with Kate Irish Collins and Josh Williamson
Local students beat state averages on the Maine Educational Assessment tests, but still many are not meeting the standards set by the state.
The scores, released last week, have changed little from last year’s results. Since then, student scores in grades four, eight and 11 have held steady, landing predominantly in the “partially meets” standard in each of the
seven testing areas: reading, writing, math, science, social studies, health, and visual and performing arts.
Locally, Cape Elizabeth 11th-grade students led the way in every area of testing, with Scarborough and South Portland landing within just a few points, in most areas.
Students in all three communities scored at or above the state averages in every category except math, in which South Portland was one point off the state average.
One statewide trend shows that the gender gap in math and science has disappeared, with girls scoring just as well as boys.
However, boys have not caught up with girls in reading and writing, traditional strong areas for the girls.
“Clearly, we need more students to begin to show progress from ‘does not meet’ to partial mastery, and from ‘partially meets’ to meeting the standards,” said J. Duke Albanese, Maine’s commissioner of education.
The stronger than average showing in Cape Elizabeth did not surprise Superintendent Tom Forcella.
“As a whole, they were what we expected,” Forcella said.
The teaching staff in each Cape school will look at how students did in individual areas of each test, to pinpoint where students need to bone up.
Forcella said overall scores can disguise specific subtopics that either need work, or in which students already excel.
Forcella stressed that the long-term view of MEA scores is the important aspect of the test, allowing school officials to see how students do over the years. Further, he said, the MEAs are only part of a larger local assessment system now being worked on extensively in the district. “I think we’re using the results well,” Forcella said.
He expects to have a framework for a K-12 assessment system in place by the end of this year, as well as the specifics of a high school local assessment program, as required by state law.
In Scarborough, scores held steady within one or two points of the scores from last year.
Scarborough students are consistently meeting the standards in reading and writing and are also steadily climbing towards meeting the standards in social studies. However, in the last two years, students in Scarborough have only partially met the standards in math and science.
Fourth-graders did better in the five basic content areas last year than this year, while the eighth-graders did better this year. The 11th-graders also did
somewhat better last year.
Monique Culbertson, Scarborough’s director of curriculum and assessment, said that it is statistically impossible to match up reading scores with math scores because the standards are very different in each content area. What she likes to do instead is to conduct an individualized item analysis of each content area, looking at the questions that were asked and how the students responded.
“We are better able to look for trends and possible gaps in instruction by conducting such a detailed analysis,” Culbertson said. “We really are trying to stay away from the comparison that our students did better in reading than in math.”
Culbertson also said that it is sometimes difficult to know whether the fourth-graders, for instance, truly did do better on the test in previous years because of what they have been taught or whether fluctuations like that are based more on the individual class profile.
She said Scarborough schools are currently working on a comprehensive assessment model that should give the district a better understanding of the system’s strengths and weaknesses instead of relying solely on the MEA test scores.
Culbertson also said the MEA test scores are just a snapshot of where students are as a group and does not necessarily reflect individual achievement and learning.
Wendy Houlihan, assistant superintendent of South Portland schools, said that when the Learning Results standards were incorporated into the revised MEA test, they were intentionally set high.
The consistent scores of Maine students over the past three years could indicate that the test standards are not appropriate to the actual curriculum for students, Houlihan said. If this were the case, she said, it still wouldn’t pose a real problem.
“With these high standards, partially meeting the goal is pretty good,” Houlihan said.
Unlike states such as Massachusetts, which demand minimum scores in order for students to graduate, Maine does not place this emphasis on the MEA results.
“If this was something that could hurt a student’s future, then we might want to think about looking at the standards again,” Houlihan said. “But the MEA tests are just one of the tools we use to provide an assessment of student learning, and it doesn’t hurt us to keep that target high.”
At the same time, Houlihan thinks that Maine students could improve their scores and meet the higher demands of Learning Results.
“We always want the students to be improving from year to year,” Houlihan said.
Local students beat state averages on the Maine Educational Assessment tests, but still many are not meeting the standards set by the state.
The scores, released last week, have changed little from last year’s results. Since then, student scores in grades four, eight and 11 have held steady, landing predominantly in the “partially meets” standard in each of the
seven testing areas: reading, writing, math, science, social studies, health, and visual and performing arts.
Locally, Cape Elizabeth 11th-grade students led the way in every area of testing, with Scarborough and South Portland landing within just a few points, in most areas.
Students in all three communities scored at or above the state averages in every category except math, in which South Portland was one point off the state average.
One statewide trend shows that the gender gap in math and science has disappeared, with girls scoring just as well as boys.
However, boys have not caught up with girls in reading and writing, traditional strong areas for the girls.
“Clearly, we need more students to begin to show progress from ‘does not meet’ to partial mastery, and from ‘partially meets’ to meeting the standards,” said J. Duke Albanese, Maine’s commissioner of education.
The stronger than average showing in Cape Elizabeth did not surprise Superintendent Tom Forcella.
“As a whole, they were what we expected,” Forcella said.
The teaching staff in each Cape school will look at how students did in individual areas of each test, to pinpoint where students need to bone up.
Forcella said overall scores can disguise specific subtopics that either need work, or in which students already excel.
Forcella stressed that the long-term view of MEA scores is the important aspect of the test, allowing school officials to see how students do over the years. Further, he said, the MEAs are only part of a larger local assessment system now being worked on extensively in the district. “I think we’re using the results well,” Forcella said.
He expects to have a framework for a K-12 assessment system in place by the end of this year, as well as the specifics of a high school local assessment program, as required by state law.
In Scarborough, scores held steady within one or two points of the scores from last year.
Scarborough students are consistently meeting the standards in reading and writing and are also steadily climbing towards meeting the standards in social studies. However, in the last two years, students in Scarborough have only partially met the standards in math and science.
Fourth-graders did better in the five basic content areas last year than this year, while the eighth-graders did better this year. The 11th-graders also did
somewhat better last year.
Monique Culbertson, Scarborough’s director of curriculum and assessment, said that it is statistically impossible to match up reading scores with math scores because the standards are very different in each content area. What she likes to do instead is to conduct an individualized item analysis of each content area, looking at the questions that were asked and how the students responded.
“We are better able to look for trends and possible gaps in instruction by conducting such a detailed analysis,” Culbertson said. “We really are trying to stay away from the comparison that our students did better in reading than in math.”
Culbertson also said that it is sometimes difficult to know whether the fourth-graders, for instance, truly did do better on the test in previous years because of what they have been taught or whether fluctuations like that are based more on the individual class profile.
She said Scarborough schools are currently working on a comprehensive assessment model that should give the district a better understanding of the system’s strengths and weaknesses instead of relying solely on the MEA test scores.
Culbertson also said the MEA test scores are just a snapshot of where students are as a group and does not necessarily reflect individual achievement and learning.
Wendy Houlihan, assistant superintendent of South Portland schools, said that when the Learning Results standards were incorporated into the revised MEA test, they were intentionally set high.
The consistent scores of Maine students over the past three years could indicate that the test standards are not appropriate to the actual curriculum for students, Houlihan said. If this were the case, she said, it still wouldn’t pose a real problem.
“With these high standards, partially meeting the goal is pretty good,” Houlihan said.
Unlike states such as Massachusetts, which demand minimum scores in order for students to graduate, Maine does not place this emphasis on the MEA results.
“If this was something that could hurt a student’s future, then we might want to think about looking at the standards again,” Houlihan said. “But the MEA tests are just one of the tools we use to provide an assessment of student learning, and it doesn’t hurt us to keep that target high.”
At the same time, Houlihan thinks that Maine students could improve their scores and meet the higher demands of Learning Results.
“We always want the students to be improving from year to year,” Houlihan said.
Thursday, October 17, 2002
Substance-free program targets student athletes
Published in the Current
Over 30 high school freshmen athletes will see the benefit of funding from the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation and other local organizations this year, in the form of a new program designed to make it “cool” to not use alcohol and drugs in Cape Elizabeth.
That’s in contrast to the present situation, according to organizer Andy Strout.
Strout, a physical education teacher at the middle school and a coach of the boys varsity soccer and tennis teams, said the social climate at the high school has a simple summary: “It’s cool to drink.” He said there are students who would prefer not to drink, but have no non-alcoholic alternatives in town. “Right now, you don’t have a choice,” he said.
Cape Athletics for a Positive Environment and Lifestyle, “Cape Life” for short, is his plan. He wants to make it acceptable for kids not to drink, by providing a range of activities and learning sessions for students who pledge to remain substance-free for the year.
The sessions will be led by a professional facilitator, Michael Brennan, who leads similar groups at Deering High School and actively involves the students in learning and experiencing important lessons on topics important for student athletes, Strout said.
Brennan will host workshops on leadership, role modeling, positive self-talk, visualization and nutrition for athletes. Strout said they will be active and fun activities, “not like class.” Brennan’s stipend will be paid by the Education Foundation’s $1,500 grant, enabling the program to begin without needing to raise significant initial funding, Strout said.
A parallel set of fun activities will be scheduled throughout the year, he said, including outings to local athletic events, pizza parties at the Community Center and other activities designed to bring students together to have fun in a safe, substance-free way.
There has been a good reception from new freshmen, Strout said. “There are some that can’t wait.” He also has a number of juniors and seniors, who will be participating as leaders in the group.
This is the latest in a series of efforts in Cape to provide alternative recreation for teens. Two years ago, Strout and other coaches had what was called the Captain’s Club, in which they met with all the captains of the athletic teams and encouraged them to use their leadership role to discourage drinking.
It wasn’t very successful, for one reason: “We were targeting the wrong people,” he said.
The captains had already made their social choices, and as seniors already had a pattern of behavior that was hard to change. Cape Life targets freshmen, before they set up their patterns of social behavior in high school.
The Cape Community Coalition also focuses on the issues of teen drinking and drug abuse, and will be involved in the Cape Life effort as well, Strout said.
Cape Life will extend to coaches as well as players, he said, to try to create a more positive atmosphere for student-athletes who make good choices.
After failed efforts to get a special segment of the town Community Center set aside for teens, in which Strout played a strong role, he has decided they can make do with what the center already has: a pool table, a foosball table and ping-pong. He said those activities on their own are a big draw for teens, and plans to use them as added attractions for Cape Life activities.
Money from the Soccer Boosters has already come in to assist with pizza and other activities, and Strout is hoping for additional funds from other booster groups throughout the year.
He will spend more effort looking for funds in January, when he begins a sabbatical.
He will be researching leadership issues in student athletics, including coaching, captaincy and peer interactions.
He expects to have time to meet with a number of groups around the area to solicit additional support, as well as spend time incorporating some of what he learns into the Cape Life program.
And though the ultimate success of the program depends on the level of involvement from students, Strout is optimistic. “I’m really excited,” he said.
Over 30 high school freshmen athletes will see the benefit of funding from the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation and other local organizations this year, in the form of a new program designed to make it “cool” to not use alcohol and drugs in Cape Elizabeth.
That’s in contrast to the present situation, according to organizer Andy Strout.
Strout, a physical education teacher at the middle school and a coach of the boys varsity soccer and tennis teams, said the social climate at the high school has a simple summary: “It’s cool to drink.” He said there are students who would prefer not to drink, but have no non-alcoholic alternatives in town. “Right now, you don’t have a choice,” he said.
Cape Athletics for a Positive Environment and Lifestyle, “Cape Life” for short, is his plan. He wants to make it acceptable for kids not to drink, by providing a range of activities and learning sessions for students who pledge to remain substance-free for the year.
The sessions will be led by a professional facilitator, Michael Brennan, who leads similar groups at Deering High School and actively involves the students in learning and experiencing important lessons on topics important for student athletes, Strout said.
Brennan will host workshops on leadership, role modeling, positive self-talk, visualization and nutrition for athletes. Strout said they will be active and fun activities, “not like class.” Brennan’s stipend will be paid by the Education Foundation’s $1,500 grant, enabling the program to begin without needing to raise significant initial funding, Strout said.
A parallel set of fun activities will be scheduled throughout the year, he said, including outings to local athletic events, pizza parties at the Community Center and other activities designed to bring students together to have fun in a safe, substance-free way.
There has been a good reception from new freshmen, Strout said. “There are some that can’t wait.” He also has a number of juniors and seniors, who will be participating as leaders in the group.
This is the latest in a series of efforts in Cape to provide alternative recreation for teens. Two years ago, Strout and other coaches had what was called the Captain’s Club, in which they met with all the captains of the athletic teams and encouraged them to use their leadership role to discourage drinking.
It wasn’t very successful, for one reason: “We were targeting the wrong people,” he said.
The captains had already made their social choices, and as seniors already had a pattern of behavior that was hard to change. Cape Life targets freshmen, before they set up their patterns of social behavior in high school.
The Cape Community Coalition also focuses on the issues of teen drinking and drug abuse, and will be involved in the Cape Life effort as well, Strout said.
Cape Life will extend to coaches as well as players, he said, to try to create a more positive atmosphere for student-athletes who make good choices.
After failed efforts to get a special segment of the town Community Center set aside for teens, in which Strout played a strong role, he has decided they can make do with what the center already has: a pool table, a foosball table and ping-pong. He said those activities on their own are a big draw for teens, and plans to use them as added attractions for Cape Life activities.
Money from the Soccer Boosters has already come in to assist with pizza and other activities, and Strout is hoping for additional funds from other booster groups throughout the year.
He will spend more effort looking for funds in January, when he begins a sabbatical.
He will be researching leadership issues in student athletics, including coaching, captaincy and peer interactions.
He expects to have time to meet with a number of groups around the area to solicit additional support, as well as spend time incorporating some of what he learns into the Cape Life program.
And though the ultimate success of the program depends on the level of involvement from students, Strout is optimistic. “I’m really excited,” he said.
On Active Duty: Pfc. Justin Wesley
Published in the Current
Private First Class Justin Wesley is serving in the U.S. Army in Korea as a rocket launch specialist. A recent graduate of Cape Elizabeth High School, Wesley studied engineering at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania for two years before enlisting in the Army, originally with the intent of studying foreign languages, according to his parents, Maurice and Sylvia Wesley.
In January, 2001, he signed up with the Army and went to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and then advanced infantry training at Fort Sill, Okla., where he decided to enter the artillery, despite having aptitude test scores good enough to get into the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif.
After Fort Sill, Wesley went to Korea, where he has been since. Life has changed since Sept. 11, his parents said. Where previously soldiers were out in the field for three or four days at a time and then back at their bases for a week or more, now they are out in tents for 10 or more days at a stretch, followed by less time at the base before more field time.
That field time can be very difficult, his parents said, because of the cold weather in Korea. “They had snow before we did,” Sylvia said.
She said his letters home indicate that he’s not entirely happy with what he’s doing, but is growing up and having opportunities he might not otherwise have.
“The military takes you places you never would get to go,” Maurice said. It also leads to experience and leadership opportunities that can help open doors after the military, he said. Maurice said he hopes his son will decide to pursue higher education again when he returns.
Wesley is nearing the end of his tour and will shortly be on his way back home on leave. He will stop in San Francisco to visit his sister, and then will stop at Lehigh to see friends before coming back to Cape Elizabeth for a visit before heading back to Fort Sill for his next assignment.
He has three more years to go and may change his specialty and stay in, but his parents aren’t sure what will happen. They look forward to seeing him soon, as well as the deluge of friends that come over anytime he is home.
Private First Class Justin Wesley is serving in the U.S. Army in Korea as a rocket launch specialist. A recent graduate of Cape Elizabeth High School, Wesley studied engineering at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania for two years before enlisting in the Army, originally with the intent of studying foreign languages, according to his parents, Maurice and Sylvia Wesley.
In January, 2001, he signed up with the Army and went to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and then advanced infantry training at Fort Sill, Okla., where he decided to enter the artillery, despite having aptitude test scores good enough to get into the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif.
After Fort Sill, Wesley went to Korea, where he has been since. Life has changed since Sept. 11, his parents said. Where previously soldiers were out in the field for three or four days at a time and then back at their bases for a week or more, now they are out in tents for 10 or more days at a stretch, followed by less time at the base before more field time.
That field time can be very difficult, his parents said, because of the cold weather in Korea. “They had snow before we did,” Sylvia said.
She said his letters home indicate that he’s not entirely happy with what he’s doing, but is growing up and having opportunities he might not otherwise have.
“The military takes you places you never would get to go,” Maurice said. It also leads to experience and leadership opportunities that can help open doors after the military, he said. Maurice said he hopes his son will decide to pursue higher education again when he returns.
Wesley is nearing the end of his tour and will shortly be on his way back home on leave. He will stop in San Francisco to visit his sister, and then will stop at Lehigh to see friends before coming back to Cape Elizabeth for a visit before heading back to Fort Sill for his next assignment.
He has three more years to go and may change his specialty and stay in, but his parents aren’t sure what will happen. They look forward to seeing him soon, as well as the deluge of friends that come over anytime he is home.
Plenty of oil but price uncertain
Published in the Current
Local oil dealers say fear about a war with Iraq may drive oil prices up a bit in the short term, but there is plenty of oil to go around and prices will stabilize.
Jeff Quirk of Quirk Oil Company in Scarborough said prices may be going up slightly right now, but are generally stable.
Last year, people thought oil prices would climb after Sept. 11, but they did not. Quirk expects similar psychological factors this year to contribute to oil price uncertainty.
Kevin Frederick of Frederick Brothers Oil in Scarborough said, “nobody knows for certain what it’s going to do.”
He said military action in Iraq could cause prices to rise initially, but that would be because of public concern and not any real issue with the oil supply.
Those price hikes may be artificial to some degree, reflecting refineries’ desire to make a profit from public concern rather than decreased oil supply, dealers said.
Buyers may not have a wide range of prices to choose from.
“Most all of us buy from the same supplier or suppliers,” Quirk said.
Local dealers don’t hike their prices “unless they have to,” Frederick said. And when they do raise prices, they don’t always pass on the full increase to customers.
Small dealers, he said, will often handle a five-cent supplier-price increase by raising their own prices two or three cents and absorbing the rest as a reduction in profit.
Bill Fielding Jr. of Fielding’s Oil Company in Scarborough said his customers are also worried, and prices have climbed slowly for the past two months. He has had some calls from people who want to pre-buy oil to lock in a price, even if they might not normally do so.
Fielding cautioned that those people are taking a risk: If oil prices go down, they might have spent more money than they would need to.
Michael Constantine of Champion Fuel Company in Cape Elizabeth said his customers are worried about what war might mean for oil prices, but there is plenty of oil in reserve. Homeowners may have a lot of oil already in their
tanks, because of warm temperatures last year, while oil companies have thousands of gallons in their tanks already because they sold so little oil last winter.
“I don’t see that there’s going to be a problem for anybody,” Constantine said.
Local oil dealers say fear about a war with Iraq may drive oil prices up a bit in the short term, but there is plenty of oil to go around and prices will stabilize.
Jeff Quirk of Quirk Oil Company in Scarborough said prices may be going up slightly right now, but are generally stable.
Last year, people thought oil prices would climb after Sept. 11, but they did not. Quirk expects similar psychological factors this year to contribute to oil price uncertainty.
Kevin Frederick of Frederick Brothers Oil in Scarborough said, “nobody knows for certain what it’s going to do.”
He said military action in Iraq could cause prices to rise initially, but that would be because of public concern and not any real issue with the oil supply.
Those price hikes may be artificial to some degree, reflecting refineries’ desire to make a profit from public concern rather than decreased oil supply, dealers said.
Buyers may not have a wide range of prices to choose from.
“Most all of us buy from the same supplier or suppliers,” Quirk said.
Local dealers don’t hike their prices “unless they have to,” Frederick said. And when they do raise prices, they don’t always pass on the full increase to customers.
Small dealers, he said, will often handle a five-cent supplier-price increase by raising their own prices two or three cents and absorbing the rest as a reduction in profit.
Bill Fielding Jr. of Fielding’s Oil Company in Scarborough said his customers are also worried, and prices have climbed slowly for the past two months. He has had some calls from people who want to pre-buy oil to lock in a price, even if they might not normally do so.
Fielding cautioned that those people are taking a risk: If oil prices go down, they might have spent more money than they would need to.
Michael Constantine of Champion Fuel Company in Cape Elizabeth said his customers are worried about what war might mean for oil prices, but there is plenty of oil in reserve. Homeowners may have a lot of oil already in their
tanks, because of warm temperatures last year, while oil companies have thousands of gallons in their tanks already because they sold so little oil last winter.
“I don’t see that there’s going to be a problem for anybody,” Constantine said.
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