Published in the Current
Helping town taxpayers and budding firefighters, the Scarborough Fire Department’s live-in student program is entering its 16th year this fall.
Started in 1986 by then-Fire Chief Robert Carson and firefighter Don Jackson, the program allows students in the fire science course at Southern Maine Technical College to live rent-free in the town’s fire stations, in exchange for going on fire and rescue calls and doing maintenance and cleaning work around the station.
When it began, there was one student at Pleasant Hill Fire Station. Now there are 14 students scattered around town, and Fire Chief Michael Thurlow wants to expand it as space allows. Two of the students are women, and several are involved in courses for paramedics or law enforcement, as follow-up studies to fire science.
Deputy Chief Glen Deering oversees the program. Most of the students, he said, start out at 18 years old, and it’s their first time away from home. “You have to work with them, but they’re a lot of fun,” Deering said.
Students whose homes are near SMTC can live at home, the assumption goes. So Scarborough offers its firehouse rooms to students from northern Maine, and even Massachusetts. Some students may not be able to afford both tuition and lodging, Deering said, meaning the live-in arrangement could be the deciding factor in whether a student even attends SMTC.
Others participate for the experience and the career boost. Students never respond alone to a call, allowing them to learn from others. Some come with significant firefighting experience, while others have next to none. But all are at SMTC, and in Scarborough, to learn.
They sign a contract, which includes a curfew and a requirement that they keep their grades up. In exchange for their work, they get a room and free cable TV and Internet access, which are already installed in the station houses anyway.
It is a quiet life. With a 10:30 p.m. curfew and a requirement to be out of bed by 7:30 a.m. on work days and 8 a.m. on school vacations and days off, the students don’t have a lot of time to participate in traditional college life.
But they sign up for it and say it’s not really a problem.
Josh Young, a 19-year-old from Bethel, has been a firefighter since he was 16. A son of a firefighter, he grew up around the fire service.
“It’s a good experience,” Young said. “We get to find out what it’s going to be like for the rest of our lives.” Living around a station house is a skill that must be learned, in addition to how to handle fire or medical emergencies.
In his time in the fire station at Black Point, Young has met a lot of Scarborough’s part-time or per-diem firefighters and paramedics. Many of them are full-time members of other departments in the area, working second jobs to make a bit more money.
“It’s a foot in the door,” Young said.
The students also spend a lot of time with each other. In some cases, they are in the same classes and can work on homework or group projects together.
They have a monthly student meeting at a firehouse, at which they cook supper and talk about how things are going.
On days off, the student firefighters often end up stopping by the other fire stations to visit their friends and relax.
“Every station has its benefits,” said Jon Rioux, a student living at Dunstan’s fire station. Black Point has single rooms, while the other stations require students to share double rooms. The configuration and layout of the stations differ, as do the type of calls. Some stations handle boat calls, while others deal more with vehicle extrication or calls to larger buildings.
“It gives you full-time experience,” Rioux said, which is a leg up in the competitive job market. Plus, he said, “you get to do all the chores.”
Once out of the program, students have job opportunities. The live-in program has a known reputation, and combined with SMTC’s associate’s degree in fire science technology, looking for a job gets easier.
“It looks really good on a resume,” Young said.
One recent hire in Scarborough is a graduate of the program. Andy Clark, now a paramedic based at Dunstan, entered the student live-in program in 1996. He lived in town fire stations for four years, while he studied fire science and became a paramedic.
Clark recommends it to others. “Sitting in a dorm, you’re not going to get any experience,” he said “Live in a fire station and get experience. You can’t beat that.”
Thursday, October 10, 2002
Breast cancer walks draw 1,000
Published in the Current
Over 1,000 people of all ages streamed into Fort Williams Park Oct. 7 to support breast cancer research and treatment. The annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk was in Cape for the fifth year, as well as numerous other locations around the state and across the country.
In Cape, dogs and kids in strollers were among the crowds of people who did two laps around the park to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The funds will support breast cancer research, advocacy, early detection outreach and awareness programs and patient support programs.
Laurel Jeffers of Scarborough is on the organizing committee and had a large support group for her team, named “I Love My Life.”
Jeffers, who is living with breast cancer, said she is trying to raise money to promote testing for women under 40. She was diagnosed two years ago, at age 31. “You really don’t have to have a family history,” Jeffers said.
She said mammograms and ultrasounds are not complete diagnostic tools the way a biopsy is. She was undiagnosed for two years because her doctors did not perform a biopsy.
“Mammograms just aren’t cutting it,” Jeffers said. The most important part, she said, is not medical technology. “You have to do your monthly breast exam,” she said.
Pam Foster of Scarborough said she is involved because her mother died of breast cancer in 1976. Her mother-in-law also died of breast cancer, making Foster concerned for her 12-year-old daughter ’s health in adulthood.
Several Scarborough High School students also participated. “It’s really good that they give us this opportunity” to combat breast cancer, said Leah Wallof. “It’s just so important that we need a cure,” said Kerry Jones.
Five years ago, the walk had nine teams and 90 people, according to organizer Terry Baker. This year they had over 50 teams and over 1,000 people. The event raised about $60,000, according to preliminary numbers.
Over 1,000 people of all ages streamed into Fort Williams Park Oct. 7 to support breast cancer research and treatment. The annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk was in Cape for the fifth year, as well as numerous other locations around the state and across the country.
In Cape, dogs and kids in strollers were among the crowds of people who did two laps around the park to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The funds will support breast cancer research, advocacy, early detection outreach and awareness programs and patient support programs.
Laurel Jeffers of Scarborough is on the organizing committee and had a large support group for her team, named “I Love My Life.”
Jeffers, who is living with breast cancer, said she is trying to raise money to promote testing for women under 40. She was diagnosed two years ago, at age 31. “You really don’t have to have a family history,” Jeffers said.
She said mammograms and ultrasounds are not complete diagnostic tools the way a biopsy is. She was undiagnosed for two years because her doctors did not perform a biopsy.
“Mammograms just aren’t cutting it,” Jeffers said. The most important part, she said, is not medical technology. “You have to do your monthly breast exam,” she said.
Pam Foster of Scarborough said she is involved because her mother died of breast cancer in 1976. Her mother-in-law also died of breast cancer, making Foster concerned for her 12-year-old daughter ’s health in adulthood.
Several Scarborough High School students also participated. “It’s really good that they give us this opportunity” to combat breast cancer, said Leah Wallof. “It’s just so important that we need a cure,” said Kerry Jones.
Five years ago, the walk had nine teams and 90 people, according to organizer Terry Baker. This year they had over 50 teams and over 1,000 people. The event raised about $60,000, according to preliminary numbers.
Parents worried about laptop insurance
Published in the Current
To a soundtrack of “If I Had A Million Dollars” by the Barenaked Ladies, Cape parents walked into the middle school cafetorium on three different
occasions last week to get their first real look at the seventh-grade laptop program.
While most of the parents were impressed, significant concerns remain, though not in the educational aspects of the computers.
Rather, parents are worried about increased liability if their children take the laptops home and damage them. The laptops are worth up to $1,300, with the monitor screen alone costing $1,000 to replace.
The meetings, required by the state before a school district can send laptops home with students, were well attended, according to middle school Principal Nancy Hutton. Cape was one of the first towns in the state to get the laptops to the students earlier this school year, and is one of the first to have parent meetings as well, Hutton said.
Yellow Light Breen, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Education, said a form of self-insurance is in place for the laptops. Apple Computer has supplied the state with a number of spare laptops that can be used to replace damaged machines.
Breen said school districts should contact their own insurance carriers to discuss the cost of insuring the laptops locally.
He said other locations distributing laptops have used an insurance policy costing about $50 per machine. It is presently available to school districts in Maine, Breen said, but is not mandatory.
The policy, offered by a company called Safeware. The Insurance Agency, out of Columbus, Ohio, does not cover intentional damage and is presently available either individually or as a district-wide group policy.
The sales manager at Safeware, Brian Haase, said the group policy costs $49.50 per machine, while purchasing insurance individually could cost twice as much. “The best rates are under our group program,” which Haase said has a minimum group size of 10 participants.
Insurance is of particular concern to parents as the schools look at sending the laptops home as early as the end of this month.
“The School Board supports getting these home as quickly as possible,” said Technology Coordinator Gary Lanoie, but is concerned about the schools’potential liability if some computers are broken or damaged.
Some of Cape’s machines have already been dropped and damaged during in-school use, Lanoie said, blaming some of the incidents on the cases used to carry and store the computers.
They have several fastening devices that must all be secured, and the computers could be even more protected, Lanoie said, by installing adhesive Velcro straps to the computer and the inside of the carrying case.
At present, that is forbidden by the state’s policy of not allowing any stickers to be applied to the machines.
Use at home
Internet use during school is monitored by teachers and filtered through the school’s Internet connection. At home, however, those restrictions loosen. Hutton and Lanoie all made it clear that students are expected to use their laptops in public areas of their homes, and not lock themselves away from family members while typing.
Parents are entitled to know their children’s passwords and are allowed to supervise any activity their kids undertake on the laptops. Lanoie said students should not be allowed to install games on the laptops, saying that is what home computers are for.
“These are for educational purposes,” he said.
To make it easier to get on-line with the laptops at home, Lanoie has installed several pre-set configurations for local Internet services.
Parent Ken Alden is working to get together a group of parents to discuss parental issues with the laptops, but said Tuesday he has not gotten much interest so far. He believes parents are waiting until the laptops actually come home before getting involved.
Alden said he thinks the program is a good one, but is concerned about the raiding of the laptop fund by the state government to make up budget shortfalls.
Good opportunities
Lanoie and members of the seventh-grade iTeam – a group of students trained to help others with the laptops – showed parents several features of the software installed on the computers, including the entire World Book Encyclopedia, complete with video and audio, as well as the standard text and photos.
Also installed by the Cape schools is the latest version of Microsoft Office software, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Lanoie said that was to help prepare students for high school and later life, in which they would be expected to use Microsoft software, as well as to ease the process of e-mailing work between home and school computers.
Seventh-grade teacher and laptop project leader Beverly Bisbee said she has been pleased to see that girls are as involved as boys in the laptop effort, including the iTeam.
She is looking forward to seeing how the program progresses, with laptops expected for both seventh and eighth grades next year. But, she said, further out than that remains unclear. “What’s going to happen when they get to ninth grade? We don’t know yet,” Bisbee said.
First will come the challenge of taking the laptops home this year. Bisbee said teachers are working hard to make sure homework assignments are not dependent on laptop use. Parents are able to choose whether their children are allowed to take their laptops home on any given day, or ever.
After the seventh-graders return next week from their trip to Kieve, a week-long leadership experience in Nobleboro, teachers and students will begin to learn about using electronic mail on the laptops, through a statewide e-mail system for all seventh-grade students and staff.
Parents will be able to e-mail students during the school day, Lanoie said, but “we don’t want that to become the new way to pass notes in class.”
To a soundtrack of “If I Had A Million Dollars” by the Barenaked Ladies, Cape parents walked into the middle school cafetorium on three different
occasions last week to get their first real look at the seventh-grade laptop program.
While most of the parents were impressed, significant concerns remain, though not in the educational aspects of the computers.
Rather, parents are worried about increased liability if their children take the laptops home and damage them. The laptops are worth up to $1,300, with the monitor screen alone costing $1,000 to replace.
The meetings, required by the state before a school district can send laptops home with students, were well attended, according to middle school Principal Nancy Hutton. Cape was one of the first towns in the state to get the laptops to the students earlier this school year, and is one of the first to have parent meetings as well, Hutton said.
Yellow Light Breen, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Education, said a form of self-insurance is in place for the laptops. Apple Computer has supplied the state with a number of spare laptops that can be used to replace damaged machines.
Breen said school districts should contact their own insurance carriers to discuss the cost of insuring the laptops locally.
He said other locations distributing laptops have used an insurance policy costing about $50 per machine. It is presently available to school districts in Maine, Breen said, but is not mandatory.
The policy, offered by a company called Safeware. The Insurance Agency, out of Columbus, Ohio, does not cover intentional damage and is presently available either individually or as a district-wide group policy.
The sales manager at Safeware, Brian Haase, said the group policy costs $49.50 per machine, while purchasing insurance individually could cost twice as much. “The best rates are under our group program,” which Haase said has a minimum group size of 10 participants.
Insurance is of particular concern to parents as the schools look at sending the laptops home as early as the end of this month.
“The School Board supports getting these home as quickly as possible,” said Technology Coordinator Gary Lanoie, but is concerned about the schools’potential liability if some computers are broken or damaged.
Some of Cape’s machines have already been dropped and damaged during in-school use, Lanoie said, blaming some of the incidents on the cases used to carry and store the computers.
They have several fastening devices that must all be secured, and the computers could be even more protected, Lanoie said, by installing adhesive Velcro straps to the computer and the inside of the carrying case.
At present, that is forbidden by the state’s policy of not allowing any stickers to be applied to the machines.
Use at home
Internet use during school is monitored by teachers and filtered through the school’s Internet connection. At home, however, those restrictions loosen. Hutton and Lanoie all made it clear that students are expected to use their laptops in public areas of their homes, and not lock themselves away from family members while typing.
Parents are entitled to know their children’s passwords and are allowed to supervise any activity their kids undertake on the laptops. Lanoie said students should not be allowed to install games on the laptops, saying that is what home computers are for.
“These are for educational purposes,” he said.
To make it easier to get on-line with the laptops at home, Lanoie has installed several pre-set configurations for local Internet services.
Parent Ken Alden is working to get together a group of parents to discuss parental issues with the laptops, but said Tuesday he has not gotten much interest so far. He believes parents are waiting until the laptops actually come home before getting involved.
Alden said he thinks the program is a good one, but is concerned about the raiding of the laptop fund by the state government to make up budget shortfalls.
Good opportunities
Lanoie and members of the seventh-grade iTeam – a group of students trained to help others with the laptops – showed parents several features of the software installed on the computers, including the entire World Book Encyclopedia, complete with video and audio, as well as the standard text and photos.
Also installed by the Cape schools is the latest version of Microsoft Office software, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Lanoie said that was to help prepare students for high school and later life, in which they would be expected to use Microsoft software, as well as to ease the process of e-mailing work between home and school computers.
Seventh-grade teacher and laptop project leader Beverly Bisbee said she has been pleased to see that girls are as involved as boys in the laptop effort, including the iTeam.
She is looking forward to seeing how the program progresses, with laptops expected for both seventh and eighth grades next year. But, she said, further out than that remains unclear. “What’s going to happen when they get to ninth grade? We don’t know yet,” Bisbee said.
First will come the challenge of taking the laptops home this year. Bisbee said teachers are working hard to make sure homework assignments are not dependent on laptop use. Parents are able to choose whether their children are allowed to take their laptops home on any given day, or ever.
After the seventh-graders return next week from their trip to Kieve, a week-long leadership experience in Nobleboro, teachers and students will begin to learn about using electronic mail on the laptops, through a statewide e-mail system for all seventh-grade students and staff.
Parents will be able to e-mail students during the school day, Lanoie said, but “we don’t want that to become the new way to pass notes in class.”
Cape student suspended for coming to dance drunk
Published in the Current
One Cape Elizabeth High School student has been suspended after coming to the school’s Homecoming Dance drunk and getting sick, according to Principal Jeff Shedd. The administration is also looking into the possibility that the student was not alone.
“There are unconfirmed reports of others,” Shedd said.
Junior Hillary Weimont and senior Aaron McKenney expressed concern about the incident and the administration’s reaction at the regular School
Board meeting Tuesday, where the two are representatives of the high school student body.
McKenney said he was worried that disciplinary action would be too sweeping. “I don’t think we should all suffer because of some kids,” he told the board.
McKenney said the school was looking at having more chaperones at future dances, including possibly coaches, who might be expected to be more aware of members of their teams.
Shedd told the board they had enough chaperones by “old standards,” but the events at the dance showed “we need to have even more.”
In the past, he said, six chaperones for a dance were believed to be enough, but now he is looking at doubling that number, he told the Current.
He said he was considering asking coaches to chaperone dances “because they know the kids in a different way.” Partly because of the coach-athlete relationship and partly because of school policies of athletic suspension for intoxication, Shedd said, “it would be a very strong deterrent.”
Shedd said other schools have problems with alcohol use, too, but in Cape the problem is student efforts to hide their drinking. “The degree of brazenness and the degree of sophistication that our kids bring to disguising their drinking is startling,” Shedd told the board.
He told the Current that he was at the door much of the night, checking students for signs of drunkenness when they arrived. “There was a strong smell of breath mint and gum” when some students entered, he said, but none of those students showed signs of intoxication.
“I was at the door … and I couldn’t tell,” he said.
The student, who was found out when he got sick, was suspended for two days, in keeping with the district’s policy on first offenses for intoxication on school grounds. Subsequent offenses bring longer suspensions.
Board members did not make comments following either report, with the exception of Elaine Moloney, who thanked Shedd for his efforts to involve parents and teachers in Homecoming activities.
Superintendent Tom Forcella said the students were disciplined in keeping with the policies in the student handbook, which include suspension from school and from athletic teams.
The student in question was not a member of any athletic team, Shedd said.
Shedd said he is concerned for the safety of all students. He also said he will take what action is necessary to prevent this from recurring. “The result will be a tightening up,” he said.
One Cape Elizabeth High School student has been suspended after coming to the school’s Homecoming Dance drunk and getting sick, according to Principal Jeff Shedd. The administration is also looking into the possibility that the student was not alone.
“There are unconfirmed reports of others,” Shedd said.
Junior Hillary Weimont and senior Aaron McKenney expressed concern about the incident and the administration’s reaction at the regular School
Board meeting Tuesday, where the two are representatives of the high school student body.
McKenney said he was worried that disciplinary action would be too sweeping. “I don’t think we should all suffer because of some kids,” he told the board.
McKenney said the school was looking at having more chaperones at future dances, including possibly coaches, who might be expected to be more aware of members of their teams.
Shedd told the board they had enough chaperones by “old standards,” but the events at the dance showed “we need to have even more.”
In the past, he said, six chaperones for a dance were believed to be enough, but now he is looking at doubling that number, he told the Current.
He said he was considering asking coaches to chaperone dances “because they know the kids in a different way.” Partly because of the coach-athlete relationship and partly because of school policies of athletic suspension for intoxication, Shedd said, “it would be a very strong deterrent.”
Shedd said other schools have problems with alcohol use, too, but in Cape the problem is student efforts to hide their drinking. “The degree of brazenness and the degree of sophistication that our kids bring to disguising their drinking is startling,” Shedd told the board.
He told the Current that he was at the door much of the night, checking students for signs of drunkenness when they arrived. “There was a strong smell of breath mint and gum” when some students entered, he said, but none of those students showed signs of intoxication.
“I was at the door … and I couldn’t tell,” he said.
The student, who was found out when he got sick, was suspended for two days, in keeping with the district’s policy on first offenses for intoxication on school grounds. Subsequent offenses bring longer suspensions.
Board members did not make comments following either report, with the exception of Elaine Moloney, who thanked Shedd for his efforts to involve parents and teachers in Homecoming activities.
Superintendent Tom Forcella said the students were disciplined in keeping with the policies in the student handbook, which include suspension from school and from athletic teams.
The student in question was not a member of any athletic team, Shedd said.
Shedd said he is concerned for the safety of all students. He also said he will take what action is necessary to prevent this from recurring. “The result will be a tightening up,” he said.
Students suspended for drugs at SHS
Published in the Current; co-written with Kate Irish Collins
Three students have been suspended from Scarborough High School after two of them were caught under the influence of a prescription drug stolen by the third from her mother.
On Sept. 27, two male students came to school “impaired,” according to Detective Sgt. Rick Rouse. They had taken medication belonging to the mother of a female friend of theirs, who had stolen it.
All of the students are aged 14 or 15, Rouse said, and were charged with possession of illegal drugs. One of the male students was on probation for a
prior offense and was taken to Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland. The other male was charged with “another drug offense,” Rouse said. He was not able to determine what that charge was.
Police later identified the drug as clonazepam, which is sold under the brand name Klonopin. Principal Andrew Dolloff said the drug is used to quell anxiety and is also an anti-seizure medication.
Dolloff said the students came to the attention of a staff member, who reported that they appeared to be high on something.
Dolloff said the procedure, when it is suspected that a student is under the influence, is to call them into the main office and access their condition.
He also said a search was conducted, but school officials did not find the drug in the possession of the students.
Dolloff said discussions are still ongoing about further consequences, including possible expulsion for the student who supplied the drug in the first place. He said that this type of incident at school during school hours is fairly rare, but this incident has raised his level of concern.
Dolloff is planning to hold a forum for parents in the near future to talk about what kids in Scarborough are doing after school, including getting
involved in using drugs and alcohol and engaging in sexual activity.
Dolloff said one thing the school can do is to take a strong stance when students are caught on school grounds, which includes the automatic suspensions.
This week freshmen are participating in preventative awareness programs that focus on issues facing teenagers, including social pressure and participating in illegal activities.
Three students have been suspended from Scarborough High School after two of them were caught under the influence of a prescription drug stolen by the third from her mother.
On Sept. 27, two male students came to school “impaired,” according to Detective Sgt. Rick Rouse. They had taken medication belonging to the mother of a female friend of theirs, who had stolen it.
All of the students are aged 14 or 15, Rouse said, and were charged with possession of illegal drugs. One of the male students was on probation for a
prior offense and was taken to Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland. The other male was charged with “another drug offense,” Rouse said. He was not able to determine what that charge was.
Police later identified the drug as clonazepam, which is sold under the brand name Klonopin. Principal Andrew Dolloff said the drug is used to quell anxiety and is also an anti-seizure medication.
Dolloff said the students came to the attention of a staff member, who reported that they appeared to be high on something.
Dolloff said the procedure, when it is suspected that a student is under the influence, is to call them into the main office and access their condition.
He also said a search was conducted, but school officials did not find the drug in the possession of the students.
Dolloff said discussions are still ongoing about further consequences, including possible expulsion for the student who supplied the drug in the first place. He said that this type of incident at school during school hours is fairly rare, but this incident has raised his level of concern.
Dolloff is planning to hold a forum for parents in the near future to talk about what kids in Scarborough are doing after school, including getting
involved in using drugs and alcohol and engaging in sexual activity.
Dolloff said one thing the school can do is to take a strong stance when students are caught on school grounds, which includes the automatic suspensions.
This week freshmen are participating in preventative awareness programs that focus on issues facing teenagers, including social pressure and participating in illegal activities.
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