Published in the Current
Cape Elizabeth School Board members are breathing a little easier now that they have some financial help from the Town Council. The town has agreed to pay $25,000 from this year’s budget to replace the high school’s walk-in freezer, which has been deemed a safety hazard.
That takes pressure off the School Board, which had included that item in next year’s already tight budget. Several councilors had questioned the need for a new freezer.
But in a joint letter to the town and the public, the finance committee chairs of the two bodies laid out a plan by which the freezer will be replaced and
school spending will be capped at 4.5 percent, rather than 4 percent as previously requested by the council.
The total school expenditure for next year under the new plan will be $14,918,677. The tax increase for residents, covering both the school and municipal budgets, will be 94 cents per thousand dollars of assessed property value.
The School Board’s original expenditures were to be $15,038,234, an increase of 5.34 percent. The council asked that amount be taken down to $14,846,677, an increase of 4 percent.
The board counter-proposed expenditures of $14,877,234 – a 4.2 percent increase, by making cuts in maintenance, field trip transportation expenses and the school’s portion of the freshman athletic program at the high school. A further $33,000 in savings was found in reductions of energy and telephone costs, without affecting school programs.
Some of the savings were also found by using $70,000 in surplus as additional revenue that would not impact the town’s tax rate.
The board feared it might be required to cut an additional $30,000 in spending, or perhaps even $100,000 if spending that surplus money was not approved by the council.
After the two finance chairs reviewed the budgets, they agreed that the board could use $70,000 in surplus money, and that the town would buy the freezer using money from the municipal general fund.
They also found $2,000 that the town had earmarked for the schools to support the computer network, which the School Board had not included as revenue.
After the $33,000 energy and phone savings, the board was left to cut $61,557, of which $58,000 had already been tentatively identified. At the School Board workshop meeting May 21, board Chairman George Entwistle said Superintendent Tom Forcella had been able to find $3,557 in additional cuts from the central office budget by reducing spending on custodial supplies, advertising, equipment, transportation and contracted services.
That left the board to review the $58,000 in cuts. The main issue the board discussed was how to restore some funding to freshman athletics.
The schools expected to pay $8,000 for coaches’ stipends. Briefly on the table were activity participation fees, discussed as a potentially better alternative than cutting programs, and the middle school’s outdoor education program trips to Kieve and Chewonki.
Entwistle also proposed expanding the degree to which parents pay for some of their children’s educational experiences, effectively moving some costs from taxpayers to the users of those services, he said.
“I suspect that we’re going to have to get more creative with that as we move through the next several years,” Entwistle said.
Board member Elaine Moloney pointed out that cutting freshman athletics funding put a greater burden on sports boosters at a time the School Board was trying to decrease the role of booster clubs in town.
In response to proposed reductions in funding for outdoor education, board member Jennifer DeSena defended the Kieve and Chewonki programs as important parts of the curriculum that the schools should fund more, not less.
The schools presently pay $2,500 in tuition costs for each program, with the remainder being picked up by parents of the students who go. They either pay from their own pockets or run fund-raisers to collect the money needed.
The board concluded its discussion by asking high school Principal Jeff Shedd, middle school Principal Nancy Hutton, Forcella and Athletic Administrator Keith Weatherbie to meet to find $8,000 in reductions, of which “the lion’s share” could come from freshman athletics, Entwistle said. The goal would be to restore some funding to that program and “share the pain,” he said.
The board agreed that the Kieve and Chewonki programs are exempted from that review and will not be cut. Entwistle also said he plans to write a letter to the Town Council expressing “something between acknowledgement and gratitude” for the council’s help in what he called “this difficult and challenging time.”
At the end of the meeting, Moloney encouraged members of the board to review the town’s budget. She admitted it was too late to do much this year, but said she would watch town spending carefully.
After looking through the proposed budget, she said, “I was really surprised by a lot of their line items. I can’t believe how much more we’re cutting and bleeding.”
The final amount of the school and municipal budgets will be set by the Town Council after a public hearing at 7:30 p.m., May 28, at the Town Council Chambers in Town Hall.
Thursday, May 23, 2002
Fire Canteen founder looks back 50 years
Published in the Current
In the early 1950s, Eleanor Lorfano, now 85, got tired of driving her own truck to fires and serving her husband and his fellow firefighters coffee and
doughnuts out of the back of the pickup. She wasn’t tired of getting up in the middle of the night. Instead, Lorfano wanted some help and some company.
She got together members of the seven fire company auxiliaries in town and proposed setting up a canteen truck that could take food and drinks to the town’s firefighters if a blaze went on for a while.
The group, all women, found a used truck and quickly raised the $3,000 necessary to buy it. That truck went to its first fire on Ross Road with a card table in the back, Lorfano remembered at a meeting of the Scarborough Fire Department Canteen May 20 at the Dunstan fire station.
Some volunteers built cupboards and installed a stove, water tank and a big countertop into the truck, which saw many fires, including big fires in Saco
and the old dance hall on Gorham Road, Lorfano said.
During the war, Lorfano and several other women had been the fire department while the men were in the military. She was certified to drive fire trucks and even put out fires. After the men returned, she and others
maintained their involvement in the department through the canteen.
She remembered taking coffee to men fighting fires at the town dump, affectionately called “the Scarborough Town Park” in the canteen’s logbook. When rats would sometimes escape from the fire and run over near the canteen truck, Lorfano remembered men and women racing around trying to chase them away.
As learned from the logbook, long thought lost but recently located in a drawer in the canteen truck, the routine then was not much different from today’s canteen.
One difference: the truck – the third used by the group – is now maintained by the town rather than the canteen volunteers.
If a fire sounded big over the radio, canteen members would get up and start boiling water to put in Thermos bottles before going to the station to pick up the truck. Women who lived closest to the station, Lorfano said, would have the biggest Thermoses.
One night, Lorfano remembered, she was wakened by a call from a canteen member, in the days before pagers and radios sent out the signal “21” to summon the canteen truck. “She said, ‘You want to go to the fire?’and I said, ‘Yeah, what time’s the fire?’” Lorfano said. The reply came: “‘Right now, if you want to go.’”
Big calls now are rarer, canteen members said, because of better fireproofing in buildings. Smoke detectors and sprinklers are also more commonly used, making fires easier to catch and faster to fight. Shorter fires don’t require coffee and doughnuts the way long-haul battles against blazes do.
The canteen’s last call was at the Grand Avenue fire in Old Orchard Beach earlier this year, though it has served food in other towns at large fires, as well as at funerals for firefighters killed in the line of duty.
Lorfano was also a school bus driver in town for 25 years, starting in 1953. She was paid her “greatest honor” at that job, she said, when she was the only female bus driver; the boys’ basketball team asked her to be their driver, when there were several male drivers they could have chosen.
In that job, she had only one accident, sliding off the Black Point Road bridge with a busload of kids on board. Nobody was hurt, as the bus landed right-side up just next to the river, she said.
In the early 1950s, Eleanor Lorfano, now 85, got tired of driving her own truck to fires and serving her husband and his fellow firefighters coffee and
doughnuts out of the back of the pickup. She wasn’t tired of getting up in the middle of the night. Instead, Lorfano wanted some help and some company.
She got together members of the seven fire company auxiliaries in town and proposed setting up a canteen truck that could take food and drinks to the town’s firefighters if a blaze went on for a while.
The group, all women, found a used truck and quickly raised the $3,000 necessary to buy it. That truck went to its first fire on Ross Road with a card table in the back, Lorfano remembered at a meeting of the Scarborough Fire Department Canteen May 20 at the Dunstan fire station.
Some volunteers built cupboards and installed a stove, water tank and a big countertop into the truck, which saw many fires, including big fires in Saco
and the old dance hall on Gorham Road, Lorfano said.
During the war, Lorfano and several other women had been the fire department while the men were in the military. She was certified to drive fire trucks and even put out fires. After the men returned, she and others
maintained their involvement in the department through the canteen.
She remembered taking coffee to men fighting fires at the town dump, affectionately called “the Scarborough Town Park” in the canteen’s logbook. When rats would sometimes escape from the fire and run over near the canteen truck, Lorfano remembered men and women racing around trying to chase them away.
As learned from the logbook, long thought lost but recently located in a drawer in the canteen truck, the routine then was not much different from today’s canteen.
One difference: the truck – the third used by the group – is now maintained by the town rather than the canteen volunteers.
If a fire sounded big over the radio, canteen members would get up and start boiling water to put in Thermos bottles before going to the station to pick up the truck. Women who lived closest to the station, Lorfano said, would have the biggest Thermoses.
One night, Lorfano remembered, she was wakened by a call from a canteen member, in the days before pagers and radios sent out the signal “21” to summon the canteen truck. “She said, ‘You want to go to the fire?’and I said, ‘Yeah, what time’s the fire?’” Lorfano said. The reply came: “‘Right now, if you want to go.’”
Big calls now are rarer, canteen members said, because of better fireproofing in buildings. Smoke detectors and sprinklers are also more commonly used, making fires easier to catch and faster to fight. Shorter fires don’t require coffee and doughnuts the way long-haul battles against blazes do.
The canteen’s last call was at the Grand Avenue fire in Old Orchard Beach earlier this year, though it has served food in other towns at large fires, as well as at funerals for firefighters killed in the line of duty.
Lorfano was also a school bus driver in town for 25 years, starting in 1953. She was paid her “greatest honor” at that job, she said, when she was the only female bus driver; the boys’ basketball team asked her to be their driver, when there were several male drivers they could have chosen.
In that job, she had only one accident, sliding off the Black Point Road bridge with a busload of kids on board. Nobody was hurt, as the bus landed right-side up just next to the river, she said.
Thursday, May 16, 2002
Cape Elizabeth teachers travel to learn
Published in the Current
Several Cape Elizabeth teachers, and one principal, will be taking short overseas trips over the summer or early next school year, to learn more about other cultures and educational systems. They expect it will benefit their students as well as their teaching.
High school world history and government teacher, Heather Sanborn, will depart first, leaving for China in early July for a 20-day trip through eight of that country’s major cities, including Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
The trip is run by the Five College Center for East Asian Studies, in Northampton, Mass., and Sanborn and 19 other New England teachers will have much of their way paid by the Freeman Foundation. The rest of her costs will be paid by the high school and other funds, including possibly the high school parents association, she said.
The trip is the culmination of several workshops Sanborn has attended, learning about Asian culture and politics. “I’ve actually done some stuff, but now I actually get to go and experience it,” she said.
In addition to her trip, which will include sightseeing, visits to schools, lectures and discussions on a wide range of issues, Sanborn will get books and other curricular material to enhance her students’classroom learning.
Sanborn said the trip also will benefit her by broadening her own personal experience. She spent eight weeks in the former East Germany shortly after reunification, and uses that first-hand knowledge to help her students.
“Non-European travel is something that’s really important for me to bring to the classroom,” Sanborn said, pointing out that much of world history covers non-European regions, cultures and religions.
She plans to expand her own and her students’ appreciation of Chinese art and literature. “I hope to also bring back a better understanding of Chinese language and writing styles,” Sanborn said.
But, she emphasized, the true value of her trip remains unknown. “The key is what you actually experience,” Sanborn said.
Middle school Spanish teacher, Lydia Schildt, is taking a longer journey. She will attend the Spanish School at the Middlebury Language Schools in Vermont for six weeks this summer, and will spend the next academic year living and studying in Madrid, Spain.
Her experience with the language and cultures she teaches has so far been in Spanish-speaking South America, rather than Spain itself. So she now teaches Mexican songs, or Guatemalan rhymes, to her students.
She plans to return with a new library of cultural material to share with the middle school students.
She plans to live with a family for a part of her time in Spain, to learn more about the culture, and also is uncertain of the specifics of what she will learn. “When I get back, I’ll tell you,” Schildt said.
Middle School French teacher, Suzanne Janelle, and Pond Cove School Principal Tom Eismeier will be traveling to Japan on separate trips—Janelle in October and Eismeier in November—through the Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program.
Each trip will involve about 200 people, who will be broken up into groups of 20 to visit schools around the country, meet with government officials and learn about local schools.
Japan has a centrally administered national education system, Eismeier said, which is very different from the American system of local control.
After a week in Tokyo, they will head to different areas of the country and spend a couple of days with a family and visit schools, meeting with administrators and teachers.
“You get to know that school and that district for a while,” Eismeier said. The groups will then return to Tokyo and report back to the rest of the participants on what they saw and learned.
Eismeier will look at Japanese examples of studying teaching methods. Pond Cove teachers have been using an adapted version of Japanese techniques, including intensive review, teaching observation and revision. Eismeier wants to see firsthand how Japanese teachers undertake the process.
Some differences between U.S. and Japanese schools Eismeier will explore include the longer school year (nearly 300 days in Japan and 175 in Maine), larger classes (35-40 Japanese students, compared to around 20 in Cape), and the high social status of teachers in Japan, as compared with status in America.
He also will gather questions from students, parents and teachers in Cape Elizabeth, and try to get as many of them answered as he can during the trip.
Janelle will explore foreign language education. “I’m very interested in languages and how we teach languages,” she said. She plans to observe language classes and compare assessment and teaching methods with her own practices.
Japanese students begin learning foreign languages earlier than U.S. students typically do, Janelle said. But Janelle will start late, and will take a Japanese class at USM this summer to help her prepare for the trip.
“It’s really good for me as a language teacher to place myself in a student role,” she said.
When she comes back, she expects to help put together a middle school event focusing on Japan, as well as conferring with teaching colleagues about what she saw.
“The most exciting part of this program is that we’ll actually go to the schools and be in the classroom,” Janelle said.
Several Cape Elizabeth teachers, and one principal, will be taking short overseas trips over the summer or early next school year, to learn more about other cultures and educational systems. They expect it will benefit their students as well as their teaching.
High school world history and government teacher, Heather Sanborn, will depart first, leaving for China in early July for a 20-day trip through eight of that country’s major cities, including Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
The trip is run by the Five College Center for East Asian Studies, in Northampton, Mass., and Sanborn and 19 other New England teachers will have much of their way paid by the Freeman Foundation. The rest of her costs will be paid by the high school and other funds, including possibly the high school parents association, she said.
The trip is the culmination of several workshops Sanborn has attended, learning about Asian culture and politics. “I’ve actually done some stuff, but now I actually get to go and experience it,” she said.
In addition to her trip, which will include sightseeing, visits to schools, lectures and discussions on a wide range of issues, Sanborn will get books and other curricular material to enhance her students’classroom learning.
Sanborn said the trip also will benefit her by broadening her own personal experience. She spent eight weeks in the former East Germany shortly after reunification, and uses that first-hand knowledge to help her students.
“Non-European travel is something that’s really important for me to bring to the classroom,” Sanborn said, pointing out that much of world history covers non-European regions, cultures and religions.
She plans to expand her own and her students’ appreciation of Chinese art and literature. “I hope to also bring back a better understanding of Chinese language and writing styles,” Sanborn said.
But, she emphasized, the true value of her trip remains unknown. “The key is what you actually experience,” Sanborn said.
Middle school Spanish teacher, Lydia Schildt, is taking a longer journey. She will attend the Spanish School at the Middlebury Language Schools in Vermont for six weeks this summer, and will spend the next academic year living and studying in Madrid, Spain.
Her experience with the language and cultures she teaches has so far been in Spanish-speaking South America, rather than Spain itself. So she now teaches Mexican songs, or Guatemalan rhymes, to her students.
She plans to return with a new library of cultural material to share with the middle school students.
She plans to live with a family for a part of her time in Spain, to learn more about the culture, and also is uncertain of the specifics of what she will learn. “When I get back, I’ll tell you,” Schildt said.
Middle School French teacher, Suzanne Janelle, and Pond Cove School Principal Tom Eismeier will be traveling to Japan on separate trips—Janelle in October and Eismeier in November—through the Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program.
Each trip will involve about 200 people, who will be broken up into groups of 20 to visit schools around the country, meet with government officials and learn about local schools.
Japan has a centrally administered national education system, Eismeier said, which is very different from the American system of local control.
After a week in Tokyo, they will head to different areas of the country and spend a couple of days with a family and visit schools, meeting with administrators and teachers.
“You get to know that school and that district for a while,” Eismeier said. The groups will then return to Tokyo and report back to the rest of the participants on what they saw and learned.
Eismeier will look at Japanese examples of studying teaching methods. Pond Cove teachers have been using an adapted version of Japanese techniques, including intensive review, teaching observation and revision. Eismeier wants to see firsthand how Japanese teachers undertake the process.
Some differences between U.S. and Japanese schools Eismeier will explore include the longer school year (nearly 300 days in Japan and 175 in Maine), larger classes (35-40 Japanese students, compared to around 20 in Cape), and the high social status of teachers in Japan, as compared with status in America.
He also will gather questions from students, parents and teachers in Cape Elizabeth, and try to get as many of them answered as he can during the trip.
Janelle will explore foreign language education. “I’m very interested in languages and how we teach languages,” she said. She plans to observe language classes and compare assessment and teaching methods with her own practices.
Japanese students begin learning foreign languages earlier than U.S. students typically do, Janelle said. But Janelle will start late, and will take a Japanese class at USM this summer to help her prepare for the trip.
“It’s really good for me as a language teacher to place myself in a student role,” she said.
When she comes back, she expects to help put together a middle school event focusing on Japan, as well as conferring with teaching colleagues about what she saw.
“The most exciting part of this program is that we’ll actually go to the schools and be in the classroom,” Janelle said.
Cape schools wait for word from council
Published in the Current
Cape schools may face a further $100,000 in cuts, including the loss of a fifth-grade teaching position and the volunteer coordinator position.
Or the situation may stay as it is, depending on the Town Council’s decision on the school budget.
The School Board has put its budget review on hold pending a reply from the Town Council addressing two issues: whether the $161,000 in cuts the board already has proposed will be enough to satisfy the council, and whether the board will be allowed to use $70,000 in surplus revenue as part of those cuts. The council had asked for $191,557 in cuts.
“The problem is that we have not had a response,” said School Board member and school Finance Committee Chairman Kevin Sweeney.
The board is hoping for an answer from the Town Council by May 21, when it will have a workshop session.
The council will vote on the budget May 28, following a public hearing.
If the council requires additional cuts, and denies the use of surplus revenue, the district could face a further $100,000 in budget reductions, including staff, who are contractually entitled to a 90-day notice of termination.
“Already on the block are programs, staff and more contributions from parents. That’s just the beginning,” said board Chairman George Entwistle.
And despite the councilors’ admissions that their role is not to decide on specific line items in the school budget, Entwistle said, “they actually do have in mind very specific items.”
The high school freezer has been one item of concern, with councilors debating the board’s contention that it needs to be replaced.
Sweeney inspected the freezer and found that its leak poses an imminent safety risk and needs to be remedied immediately. School officials may use a rubber mat like those around the town pool to prevent people from slipping on the water on the floor.
Sweeney proposed one way to handle the budget crisis. “The fiscal year is not over. The books are not closed,” he said. He noted that the surplus is just a projected figure at present.
“What if we decide that surplus is not going to exist at the end of this year?” he asked, proposing that the schools spend all available money.
Business manager Pauline Aportria explained that those projections help next year’s budget, rather than hurting it, and that spending the surplus would make things worse, not better.
Superintendent Tom Forcella has already frozen large expenditures this year, hoping to expand the surplus going forward.
“We’re already not getting things we’d anticipated getting this year, ” said board member Jennifer DeSena.
The board’s regular monthly meeting followed the Finance Committee meeting. At the regular session, the board approved new athletic policies tougher on drug and alcohol use, and increased restrictions on fund-raising by boosters.
In other business, the board:
– Commended Stephanie Reed and Daniel Gayer for their performance on the U.S. Physics Olympics exam, as two of 188 finalists nationwide.
– Heard a report from Pond Cove School principal-for-the-day, Jonathan Bass, a fourth-grader, about his experiences as principal, visiting classes and making rules such as increased recess and permission for students to chew bubble gum.
– Heard a report from high school Principal Jeff Shedd that incoming high school freshmen will have a day of orientation at the school in the fall, rather than the traditional spring “step-up day.” Shedd also reported on senior prank day, which included a release of mice in the cafeteria and the installation of a radio transmitter inside the public address system.
– Approved a Fulbright Teacher Exchange for next year, in which high school English teacher Hannah Jones will teach in a school in Ayrshire, Scotland, and a teacher from that school will come to Cape Elizabeth.
– Approved continuing contracts for all eligible teachers; approved second year probationary contracts for all eligible teachers except Sarah Gridley, who is resigning at the end of the year; approved an unpaid leave of absence and a third-grade job-sharing program; and hired a new guidance counselor for Pond Cove School.
– Commended several high school economics students for their efforts to raise money for Camp Sunshine, a camp on Sebago Lake for families of children with serious diseases.
– Heard a report from high school Spanish teacher Mark Pendarvis and two of his students about their trip to Costa Rica.
– Heard a report from high school economics teacher Ted Jordan about the trip he and his class took to the New York Stock Exchange.
Cape schools may face a further $100,000 in cuts, including the loss of a fifth-grade teaching position and the volunteer coordinator position.
Or the situation may stay as it is, depending on the Town Council’s decision on the school budget.
The School Board has put its budget review on hold pending a reply from the Town Council addressing two issues: whether the $161,000 in cuts the board already has proposed will be enough to satisfy the council, and whether the board will be allowed to use $70,000 in surplus revenue as part of those cuts. The council had asked for $191,557 in cuts.
“The problem is that we have not had a response,” said School Board member and school Finance Committee Chairman Kevin Sweeney.
The board is hoping for an answer from the Town Council by May 21, when it will have a workshop session.
The council will vote on the budget May 28, following a public hearing.
If the council requires additional cuts, and denies the use of surplus revenue, the district could face a further $100,000 in budget reductions, including staff, who are contractually entitled to a 90-day notice of termination.
“Already on the block are programs, staff and more contributions from parents. That’s just the beginning,” said board Chairman George Entwistle.
And despite the councilors’ admissions that their role is not to decide on specific line items in the school budget, Entwistle said, “they actually do have in mind very specific items.”
The high school freezer has been one item of concern, with councilors debating the board’s contention that it needs to be replaced.
Sweeney inspected the freezer and found that its leak poses an imminent safety risk and needs to be remedied immediately. School officials may use a rubber mat like those around the town pool to prevent people from slipping on the water on the floor.
Sweeney proposed one way to handle the budget crisis. “The fiscal year is not over. The books are not closed,” he said. He noted that the surplus is just a projected figure at present.
“What if we decide that surplus is not going to exist at the end of this year?” he asked, proposing that the schools spend all available money.
Business manager Pauline Aportria explained that those projections help next year’s budget, rather than hurting it, and that spending the surplus would make things worse, not better.
Superintendent Tom Forcella has already frozen large expenditures this year, hoping to expand the surplus going forward.
“We’re already not getting things we’d anticipated getting this year, ” said board member Jennifer DeSena.
The board’s regular monthly meeting followed the Finance Committee meeting. At the regular session, the board approved new athletic policies tougher on drug and alcohol use, and increased restrictions on fund-raising by boosters.
In other business, the board:
– Commended Stephanie Reed and Daniel Gayer for their performance on the U.S. Physics Olympics exam, as two of 188 finalists nationwide.
– Heard a report from Pond Cove School principal-for-the-day, Jonathan Bass, a fourth-grader, about his experiences as principal, visiting classes and making rules such as increased recess and permission for students to chew bubble gum.
– Heard a report from high school Principal Jeff Shedd that incoming high school freshmen will have a day of orientation at the school in the fall, rather than the traditional spring “step-up day.” Shedd also reported on senior prank day, which included a release of mice in the cafeteria and the installation of a radio transmitter inside the public address system.
– Approved a Fulbright Teacher Exchange for next year, in which high school English teacher Hannah Jones will teach in a school in Ayrshire, Scotland, and a teacher from that school will come to Cape Elizabeth.
– Approved continuing contracts for all eligible teachers; approved second year probationary contracts for all eligible teachers except Sarah Gridley, who is resigning at the end of the year; approved an unpaid leave of absence and a third-grade job-sharing program; and hired a new guidance counselor for Pond Cove School.
– Commended several high school economics students for their efforts to raise money for Camp Sunshine, a camp on Sebago Lake for families of children with serious diseases.
– Heard a report from high school Spanish teacher Mark Pendarvis and two of his students about their trip to Costa Rica.
– Heard a report from high school economics teacher Ted Jordan about the trip he and his class took to the New York Stock Exchange.
Boxer connects on camera
Published in the Current
Like many teenagers, Cape Elizabeth native Elisa Boxer once vowed never again to live in the town she grew up in. But now the Channel 8 news anchor
and her husband are building a house in the Cross Hill development and plan to stay.
Being near home, she said, took a little bit of adjustment.
“At first it was really bizarre,” Boxer said. “Now there’s nothing that appeals to me more.”
A 1989 CEHS graduate, Boxer went to Bowdoin College and then worked in newspapers in Massachusetts before going to Columbia University for graduate study in journalism.
She made the jump to video and documentary journalism and promptly won a student Emmy award for work documenting the lives of Bosnian refugees\ living in New York City.
“I like connecting with people,” Boxer said.
Television, she said, allows her to combine writing and pictures in a way that tells a story effectively. “I like putting all the elements together,” Boxer said.
But it’s reporting that really excites her.
“I really like pounding the pavement,” Boxer said.
She is particularly interested in the ways people respond to suffering. Some people, she said, are able to turn suffering into efforts to benefit others.
“People do it every day,” Boxer said.
One woman she met had lost her husband and a son within two weeks of each other. That woman was able to create a gathering place for people to grieve together and begin healing after the death of loved ones.
Boxer’s awards have been for her stories along those lines, including a recent Emmy for a piece on victims of abuse at Baxter School for the Deaf and two Edward R. Murrow awards for writing about a Holocaust survivor.
She credits the people in her stories more than herself, and says of the awards, “it’s because they told it to me.”
At WTMW for just over four years, Boxer is an anchor as well as a reporter. The two are different, she said, but she still tries to connect with her audience, rather than talking to cameras.
“I feel like these are people watching me,” Boxer said, gesturing to the studio’s cameras.
And sometimes they are indeed watching her. She talks to her parents, who still live in Cape Elizabeth, after every newscast. Now and again, Boxer runs into people she went to high school with. The irony, she said, is that when they find out what she does for a living, they have one response: “But you were always so shy!”
Like many teenagers, Cape Elizabeth native Elisa Boxer once vowed never again to live in the town she grew up in. But now the Channel 8 news anchor
and her husband are building a house in the Cross Hill development and plan to stay.
Being near home, she said, took a little bit of adjustment.
“At first it was really bizarre,” Boxer said. “Now there’s nothing that appeals to me more.”
A 1989 CEHS graduate, Boxer went to Bowdoin College and then worked in newspapers in Massachusetts before going to Columbia University for graduate study in journalism.
She made the jump to video and documentary journalism and promptly won a student Emmy award for work documenting the lives of Bosnian refugees\ living in New York City.
“I like connecting with people,” Boxer said.
Television, she said, allows her to combine writing and pictures in a way that tells a story effectively. “I like putting all the elements together,” Boxer said.
But it’s reporting that really excites her.
“I really like pounding the pavement,” Boxer said.
She is particularly interested in the ways people respond to suffering. Some people, she said, are able to turn suffering into efforts to benefit others.
“People do it every day,” Boxer said.
One woman she met had lost her husband and a son within two weeks of each other. That woman was able to create a gathering place for people to grieve together and begin healing after the death of loved ones.
Boxer’s awards have been for her stories along those lines, including a recent Emmy for a piece on victims of abuse at Baxter School for the Deaf and two Edward R. Murrow awards for writing about a Holocaust survivor.
She credits the people in her stories more than herself, and says of the awards, “it’s because they told it to me.”
At WTMW for just over four years, Boxer is an anchor as well as a reporter. The two are different, she said, but she still tries to connect with her audience, rather than talking to cameras.
“I feel like these are people watching me,” Boxer said, gesturing to the studio’s cameras.
And sometimes they are indeed watching her. She talks to her parents, who still live in Cape Elizabeth, after every newscast. Now and again, Boxer runs into people she went to high school with. The irony, she said, is that when they find out what she does for a living, they have one response: “But you were always so shy!”
Cape’s Bill Bruns left legacy of caring
Published in the Current
Bill Bruns, 63, died suddenly at his Scarborough home earlier this month, but the spirit and energy of the 30-year Cape teacher and USM professor live on in town and throughout the area.
“He was just a dear, sweet individual,” said his wife, Mary, who\ works for the Cape school district. “Losing him is like losing a part of myself.”
The couple met at USM in Gorham in their first year of college, when both were studying to become teachers. They dated throughout college and married after graduation, 41 years ago.
When they first finished school, Bill taught in Portland and Mary in Westbrook. After a year, he took a job in Cape and she took some time off to raise the couple’s daughters.
Bill was a eucharistic minister at St. Bartholomew’s Church and a member of the Knights of Columbus, as well as being a math teacher.
After the kids finished school, Bill and Mary moved to Windham, to a home on Pettengill Pond. “Bill always wanted to live on the water,” Mary said. In
1992, Bill retired with 30 years in the Cape schools, but continued teaching, increasing the load he taught part time at USM.
In 1998 the couple moved to Scarborough, and family was nearby. One of his daughters lives in Windham, and Bill had sisters in Gorham and Portland.
“He was always a family person,” Mary said. But he had a lot of friends, too. Mary estimates she has received over 200 cards since Bill’s death on May 2, including one day when she got 50 cards.
Among those friends are former students and colleagues, including Cape Police Chief Neil Williams.
“Bill was just a great teacher,” Williams said. “He would take the time (to help) when you were struggling.”
Williams remembered his former math teacher as even-tempered and kind. “He really knew how to get the best out of kids,” Williams said, admitting that while he wasn’t the best math student, Bill “made it interesting for me.”
Williams also remembered a man with a great sense of humor, which he directed at himself and at others. It was how Bill handled difficult kids. “I just had total respect for the gentleman,” Williams said. “He enjoyed teaching as much as the kids liked having him.”
John Casey was a former student of Bill’s, and is now the assistant principal at the middle school in Cape.
“He always started class with a joke,” Casey remembered. “He taught with a lot of energy,” Casey said, remembering that Bill was always willing to work a problem again, to make sure everyone understood the concepts involved.
Casey has taken some of his own teaching methods from Bill, as well. Though Casey doesn’t always wear a tie like Bill used to, Casey does try to connect with students on a personal level and be aware of what’s going on for them outside of school.
Ralph Bolduc worked alongside Bill for many years at Cape and at USM. He said USM faculty and students are still shocked and saddened at Bill’s death, and called him “irreplaceable.”
“Bill was always the person who volunteered to help someone in trouble,” Bolduc said. “He was an excellent math teacher and a wonderful friend.”
Casey pointed to Bill’s choice of retirement jobs as a testament to his dedication to teaching and learning.
“(Bill) retired after 30 years and he still teaches. That ought to say something,” Casey said.
Bill Bruns, 63, died suddenly at his Scarborough home earlier this month, but the spirit and energy of the 30-year Cape teacher and USM professor live on in town and throughout the area.
“He was just a dear, sweet individual,” said his wife, Mary, who\ works for the Cape school district. “Losing him is like losing a part of myself.”
The couple met at USM in Gorham in their first year of college, when both were studying to become teachers. They dated throughout college and married after graduation, 41 years ago.
When they first finished school, Bill taught in Portland and Mary in Westbrook. After a year, he took a job in Cape and she took some time off to raise the couple’s daughters.
Bill was a eucharistic minister at St. Bartholomew’s Church and a member of the Knights of Columbus, as well as being a math teacher.
After the kids finished school, Bill and Mary moved to Windham, to a home on Pettengill Pond. “Bill always wanted to live on the water,” Mary said. In
1992, Bill retired with 30 years in the Cape schools, but continued teaching, increasing the load he taught part time at USM.
In 1998 the couple moved to Scarborough, and family was nearby. One of his daughters lives in Windham, and Bill had sisters in Gorham and Portland.
“He was always a family person,” Mary said. But he had a lot of friends, too. Mary estimates she has received over 200 cards since Bill’s death on May 2, including one day when she got 50 cards.
Among those friends are former students and colleagues, including Cape Police Chief Neil Williams.
“Bill was just a great teacher,” Williams said. “He would take the time (to help) when you were struggling.”
Williams remembered his former math teacher as even-tempered and kind. “He really knew how to get the best out of kids,” Williams said, admitting that while he wasn’t the best math student, Bill “made it interesting for me.”
Williams also remembered a man with a great sense of humor, which he directed at himself and at others. It was how Bill handled difficult kids. “I just had total respect for the gentleman,” Williams said. “He enjoyed teaching as much as the kids liked having him.”
John Casey was a former student of Bill’s, and is now the assistant principal at the middle school in Cape.
“He always started class with a joke,” Casey remembered. “He taught with a lot of energy,” Casey said, remembering that Bill was always willing to work a problem again, to make sure everyone understood the concepts involved.
Casey has taken some of his own teaching methods from Bill, as well. Though Casey doesn’t always wear a tie like Bill used to, Casey does try to connect with students on a personal level and be aware of what’s going on for them outside of school.
Ralph Bolduc worked alongside Bill for many years at Cape and at USM. He said USM faculty and students are still shocked and saddened at Bill’s death, and called him “irreplaceable.”
“Bill was always the person who volunteered to help someone in trouble,” Bolduc said. “He was an excellent math teacher and a wonderful friend.”
Casey pointed to Bill’s choice of retirement jobs as a testament to his dedication to teaching and learning.
“(Bill) retired after 30 years and he still teaches. That ought to say something,” Casey said.
Cape residents blast council on school cuts
Published in the Current
Over 40 residents turned out to give the Cape Town Council a piece of their minds this week about school funding cutbacks, blasting the group for approving expensive town buildings while cutting education funds. Two students were among the speakers.
Twenty-six of them spoke during public comments on the budget, including six School Board members and Superintendent Tom Forcella. All but two
defended the original school budget request, an increase of 5.34 percent, or a total of $15,038,234.
The council had requested the schools limit spending increases to 4 percent, asking for a total of $14,846,677. The School Board has responded with a revision, increasing spending 4.2 percent or $14,877,234.
Major issues at the council’s regular meeting held May 13 included budget priorities in town.
Superintendent Forcella and School Board Chairman George Entwistle also took issue with a numbers breakdown found in unsigned fliers distributed at the meeting.
Forcella presented a different picture of the budget, saying it is not the largest increase since 1995, but in fact the smallest increase in three or four years. He said the flier’s figures on average class size at the high school were wrong, and pointed out that high school teacher loads were increasing next year. Entwistle echoed those concerns, calling the numbers “misrepresented.”
“Putting together a budget in an uncertain economic climate is no fun,” said Jack Roberts, Town Council Finance Committee chair. The council also made an unpopular municipal cut, proposing the elimination of the town wide spring cleanup.
Several residents wondered what would be different next year, if anything, for the council, and whether the schools could expect more money or less in the future. Others said schools were important investments even in hard economic times, and recommended spending the money the schools requested.
Resident Frank Potenzo expressed concern that increasing taxes would drive senior citizens out of town. “I would think that the town would like to keep the retired people in their homes,” he said, arguing that seniors pay property taxes like everyone else, but don’t ask for many services.
Bonnie Steinroeder said disputes between town and school governing bodies were not helpful. “We are one community,” she said, adding that it is unproductive to set up budget disputes between “seniors in homes versus kids in schools.”
Gail Atkins spoke, criticizing recent town building projects to loud applause. “I think the money needs to go to the schools,” Atkins said.
School Board member Elaine Moloney said many of the town’s attractive features come at a price, including wetlands protection, little business, greenspace and new town buildings. “Is it to be at the expense of our schools?” Moloney asked.
Tyke MacColl, a student, complained that freshman athletics were being cut, and placed the $8,000 budget for them in contrast with the money for the “pile of rocks” outside the new police station. “Freshman sports are a lot more important,” MacColl said.
Student Grace McKenzie said she thought the police station was too big for a town that normally has two police officers on duty at any given time. “I don’t think we need that much,” she said.
Erin Grady Gallant said schools are why people move to Cape. “The schools are our most important resource besides our land and our children,” she said.
School Board member Jim Rowe had voted against the 5.34 percent budget to protest the state education funding formula, but now argued in support of the 4.2 percent revision.
“We will not be as good a school system under this budget as we are today,” he said, warning that “the state may not in fact be done with its rape of the Cape Elizabeth school system.”
Resident Ed McAleney spoke against cutting freshman sports. “If we cut programs for our children, then maybe we’ll have a real use for the police station for a change,” he said to laughter and applause. “We cannot turn our backs on our children because my parents never turned their backs on me,” he said.
Trish Brigham said she thought the original budget proposal cut too much, and said education spending is not a cost, but an “investment.”
“We’re investing in the quality of life that we have as a community, ” Brigham said.
Chris Kast said he is sad about the cuts and their impact on kids’ lives. “The investment we make in our school system and in our children is invaluable because it protects a precious asset,” he said.
Ed MacColl said many parents in Cape stress to their children how important education is. He said cutting the school budget in this way would send the wrong message to them, and tell them “bricks and mortar that look nice are more important than kids.”
Jim Barritt said he wanted school officials up late at night worrying about education, not money. Looking directly at a group of school staff in the audience, he said, “I think you guys should have every penny you think you need.”
Barritt also proposed a citizens’ committee be assembled to review the town and school finances, performing cost-benefit analyses and other studies to help town officials better understand what they were getting for their money.
School Board Chairman Entwistle said the council needs to regain the trust of the School Board. “It’s time to do what’s right,” he said. “And spending money on education, in my opinion, is always right.”
School Board Finance Committee Chairman Kevin Sweeney made the last comment of the public session, saying, “we can do no better at this point.” He said the community is a whole. “We will be judged by how we treat our youngest and our oldest, and keep in mind that we owe them both a fair shake,” Sweeney said.
Town Council Chairman Anne Swift-Kayatta had opened the comments session with a hope that cuts be made that not affect students. She ended the comments session by saying “this is a room full of people who support the schools,” but that the council has to “balance competing priorities” and decide how much of a spending increase to allow the schools in a year when enrollment is flat.
She said that the role of the School Board is to advocate for the schools, while the Town Council, she said, must look out for all citizens.
In other business, the council:
– Heard from Councilor Henry Berry that veterans may be eligible for low-cost prescriptions through the Veterans Administration.
– Approved a change to the town’s zoning ordinance intended to allow the Inn By The Sea to use parking at St. Bartholomew’s Church for special events.
– Decided to resurface the existing route of Fowler Road and use state money originally intended for widening and improving Fowler Road to continue repaving Route 77 near the Scarborough line.
– Authorized the town manager to apply for a sewer connection permit for 1226 Shore Road, the former community center, with the understanding that the new property owner would pay for the actual sewer connection.
– Doubled the rent of the Cape Courier’s office in Town Hall to $100 per month.
– Authorized a study of parking fees at Fort Williams. The study will be finished by Sept. 1, 2002.
The Town Council will hold a public hearing on all town and school budget issues at 7:30 p.m., May 28, in the Town Council chambers in Town Hall.
Over 40 residents turned out to give the Cape Town Council a piece of their minds this week about school funding cutbacks, blasting the group for approving expensive town buildings while cutting education funds. Two students were among the speakers.
Twenty-six of them spoke during public comments on the budget, including six School Board members and Superintendent Tom Forcella. All but two
defended the original school budget request, an increase of 5.34 percent, or a total of $15,038,234.
The council had requested the schools limit spending increases to 4 percent, asking for a total of $14,846,677. The School Board has responded with a revision, increasing spending 4.2 percent or $14,877,234.
Major issues at the council’s regular meeting held May 13 included budget priorities in town.
Superintendent Forcella and School Board Chairman George Entwistle also took issue with a numbers breakdown found in unsigned fliers distributed at the meeting.
Forcella presented a different picture of the budget, saying it is not the largest increase since 1995, but in fact the smallest increase in three or four years. He said the flier’s figures on average class size at the high school were wrong, and pointed out that high school teacher loads were increasing next year. Entwistle echoed those concerns, calling the numbers “misrepresented.”
“Putting together a budget in an uncertain economic climate is no fun,” said Jack Roberts, Town Council Finance Committee chair. The council also made an unpopular municipal cut, proposing the elimination of the town wide spring cleanup.
Several residents wondered what would be different next year, if anything, for the council, and whether the schools could expect more money or less in the future. Others said schools were important investments even in hard economic times, and recommended spending the money the schools requested.
Resident Frank Potenzo expressed concern that increasing taxes would drive senior citizens out of town. “I would think that the town would like to keep the retired people in their homes,” he said, arguing that seniors pay property taxes like everyone else, but don’t ask for many services.
Bonnie Steinroeder said disputes between town and school governing bodies were not helpful. “We are one community,” she said, adding that it is unproductive to set up budget disputes between “seniors in homes versus kids in schools.”
Gail Atkins spoke, criticizing recent town building projects to loud applause. “I think the money needs to go to the schools,” Atkins said.
School Board member Elaine Moloney said many of the town’s attractive features come at a price, including wetlands protection, little business, greenspace and new town buildings. “Is it to be at the expense of our schools?” Moloney asked.
Tyke MacColl, a student, complained that freshman athletics were being cut, and placed the $8,000 budget for them in contrast with the money for the “pile of rocks” outside the new police station. “Freshman sports are a lot more important,” MacColl said.
Student Grace McKenzie said she thought the police station was too big for a town that normally has two police officers on duty at any given time. “I don’t think we need that much,” she said.
Erin Grady Gallant said schools are why people move to Cape. “The schools are our most important resource besides our land and our children,” she said.
School Board member Jim Rowe had voted against the 5.34 percent budget to protest the state education funding formula, but now argued in support of the 4.2 percent revision.
“We will not be as good a school system under this budget as we are today,” he said, warning that “the state may not in fact be done with its rape of the Cape Elizabeth school system.”
Resident Ed McAleney spoke against cutting freshman sports. “If we cut programs for our children, then maybe we’ll have a real use for the police station for a change,” he said to laughter and applause. “We cannot turn our backs on our children because my parents never turned their backs on me,” he said.
Trish Brigham said she thought the original budget proposal cut too much, and said education spending is not a cost, but an “investment.”
“We’re investing in the quality of life that we have as a community, ” Brigham said.
Chris Kast said he is sad about the cuts and their impact on kids’ lives. “The investment we make in our school system and in our children is invaluable because it protects a precious asset,” he said.
Ed MacColl said many parents in Cape stress to their children how important education is. He said cutting the school budget in this way would send the wrong message to them, and tell them “bricks and mortar that look nice are more important than kids.”
Jim Barritt said he wanted school officials up late at night worrying about education, not money. Looking directly at a group of school staff in the audience, he said, “I think you guys should have every penny you think you need.”
Barritt also proposed a citizens’ committee be assembled to review the town and school finances, performing cost-benefit analyses and other studies to help town officials better understand what they were getting for their money.
School Board Chairman Entwistle said the council needs to regain the trust of the School Board. “It’s time to do what’s right,” he said. “And spending money on education, in my opinion, is always right.”
School Board Finance Committee Chairman Kevin Sweeney made the last comment of the public session, saying, “we can do no better at this point.” He said the community is a whole. “We will be judged by how we treat our youngest and our oldest, and keep in mind that we owe them both a fair shake,” Sweeney said.
Town Council Chairman Anne Swift-Kayatta had opened the comments session with a hope that cuts be made that not affect students. She ended the comments session by saying “this is a room full of people who support the schools,” but that the council has to “balance competing priorities” and decide how much of a spending increase to allow the schools in a year when enrollment is flat.
She said that the role of the School Board is to advocate for the schools, while the Town Council, she said, must look out for all citizens.
In other business, the council:
– Heard from Councilor Henry Berry that veterans may be eligible for low-cost prescriptions through the Veterans Administration.
– Approved a change to the town’s zoning ordinance intended to allow the Inn By The Sea to use parking at St. Bartholomew’s Church for special events.
– Decided to resurface the existing route of Fowler Road and use state money originally intended for widening and improving Fowler Road to continue repaving Route 77 near the Scarborough line.
– Authorized the town manager to apply for a sewer connection permit for 1226 Shore Road, the former community center, with the understanding that the new property owner would pay for the actual sewer connection.
– Doubled the rent of the Cape Courier’s office in Town Hall to $100 per month.
– Authorized a study of parking fees at Fort Williams. The study will be finished by Sept. 1, 2002.
The Town Council will hold a public hearing on all town and school budget issues at 7:30 p.m., May 28, in the Town Council chambers in Town Hall.
Thursday, May 9, 2002
Cape schools cut another $161,000
Published in the Current
The Cape School Board has cut an additional $161,000 from the 2002-2003 school budget, and will ask the Town Council to forgo an additional $30,557 in cuts it had originally requested.
The new cuts include $8,000 in district funding for freshman athletics; $10,000 in transportation costs for field trips; $40,000 in maintenance by not filling an open maintenance position and cutting back on some projects; and a $70,000 reduction in the budget surplus.
A further $27,000 will be saved by having lower fuel costs than originally
projected, and the district may also see $6,000 in savings with a new phone system.
The board will keep $70,000 in discretionary reserves it can spend without consulting the council. The amount had concerned several councilors when the board presented the budget.
Boosters fund most of the cost of freshman athletics now, said Superintendent Tom Forcella, and will have to bear all the cost next year or those programs will be reduced. The cut in funding for field trips means parents will be asked to pay a dollar or two more.
“Instead of $4 to see a play it might be $5 or $6,” Forcella said.
The cuts take the budget increase to 4.2 percent, 0.2 percent higher than the council had requested, but it is “the exact amount our budget is increasing for existing salary and benefits,” Forcella said.
An increase of $124,000 in special education costs, as well as other new expenses, will be funded by cutting other areas of the budget, Forcella said.
Kevin Sweeney, chair of the School Board’s Finance Committee, and School Board Chairman George Entwistle will write to the Town ouncil requesting it consider this proposal and approve an amount slightly larger than the council had originally recommended.
Sweeney is uncertain of the possible outcome. “I’m not going to speculate on the council,” he said.
He expressed concern about the availability of sports to high school freshman, who are too old for Little League or Casco Bay Hockey, but are now too young to participate in school-sponsored athletics.
Sweeney is not optimistic going forward. “I don’t think it looks any better next year,” he said. He said he expects cuts in the future to be like the cuts this year, small in size and affecting a wide range of school functions.
Town Council Finance Committee Chair Jack Roberts said he was “disappointed” to hear that the schools wanted additional money. He said he was aware the council would be receiving a letter from the School Board, but said he had neither received the letter nor spoken to any of his fellow councilors about their reaction.
The total expenditure in the budget is officially still $15,038,234 until the Town Council takes action, according to school Business Manager Pauline Aportria, but the proposed cuts would take the amount down to $14,947,234.
To cover the school’s original request would mean an increase of 91 cents per thousand on the tax rate. With the additional cuts requested by the council, it would be 86 cents.
At the budget meeting between the council and the School Board April 29, Roberts had pointed out the overall tax rate increase was projected to be 94 cents, and asked councilors if they wanted to permit an additional five cents for school funding, which would still keep the increase under $1 per thousand. Roberts found no takers then.
The Cape School Board has cut an additional $161,000 from the 2002-2003 school budget, and will ask the Town Council to forgo an additional $30,557 in cuts it had originally requested.
The new cuts include $8,000 in district funding for freshman athletics; $10,000 in transportation costs for field trips; $40,000 in maintenance by not filling an open maintenance position and cutting back on some projects; and a $70,000 reduction in the budget surplus.
A further $27,000 will be saved by having lower fuel costs than originally
projected, and the district may also see $6,000 in savings with a new phone system.
The board will keep $70,000 in discretionary reserves it can spend without consulting the council. The amount had concerned several councilors when the board presented the budget.
Boosters fund most of the cost of freshman athletics now, said Superintendent Tom Forcella, and will have to bear all the cost next year or those programs will be reduced. The cut in funding for field trips means parents will be asked to pay a dollar or two more.
“Instead of $4 to see a play it might be $5 or $6,” Forcella said.
The cuts take the budget increase to 4.2 percent, 0.2 percent higher than the council had requested, but it is “the exact amount our budget is increasing for existing salary and benefits,” Forcella said.
An increase of $124,000 in special education costs, as well as other new expenses, will be funded by cutting other areas of the budget, Forcella said.
Kevin Sweeney, chair of the School Board’s Finance Committee, and School Board Chairman George Entwistle will write to the Town ouncil requesting it consider this proposal and approve an amount slightly larger than the council had originally recommended.
Sweeney is uncertain of the possible outcome. “I’m not going to speculate on the council,” he said.
He expressed concern about the availability of sports to high school freshman, who are too old for Little League or Casco Bay Hockey, but are now too young to participate in school-sponsored athletics.
Sweeney is not optimistic going forward. “I don’t think it looks any better next year,” he said. He said he expects cuts in the future to be like the cuts this year, small in size and affecting a wide range of school functions.
Town Council Finance Committee Chair Jack Roberts said he was “disappointed” to hear that the schools wanted additional money. He said he was aware the council would be receiving a letter from the School Board, but said he had neither received the letter nor spoken to any of his fellow councilors about their reaction.
The total expenditure in the budget is officially still $15,038,234 until the Town Council takes action, according to school Business Manager Pauline Aportria, but the proposed cuts would take the amount down to $14,947,234.
To cover the school’s original request would mean an increase of 91 cents per thousand on the tax rate. With the additional cuts requested by the council, it would be 86 cents.
At the budget meeting between the council and the School Board April 29, Roberts had pointed out the overall tax rate increase was projected to be 94 cents, and asked councilors if they wanted to permit an additional five cents for school funding, which would still keep the increase under $1 per thousand. Roberts found no takers then.
Grilling their way to the top
Published in the Current
The Cape Elizabeth Barbecue Team is in what one captain calls “a rebuilding year.” Started last year by two seniors, the torch of leadership has now passed to three senior captains, and the brother of one of the team’s founders.
The team performed well at the Special Olympics track meet, held at CEHS May 3, grilling up hot dogs and hamburgers for hungry fans and athletes. It was the first foray into spring sports for the team. “So far it’s only been a fall sport,” said captain Kevin Scesa, describing outstanding performances on the sidelines of Cape football games.
“It’s our first barbecue in a while. We’re a little rusty,” said Brett Cary, brother of team founder Chris, as he warmed up the grill for the event.
In an adventurous foray, the team not only heated meat products over three charcoal grills, but branched out. “We’ve never toasted buns before,” Cary said. It wasn’t a big success, with the first few bread products blackening in the heat.
The team is still forming itself, with mostly seniors on the team now. “We need some more underclassmen to step up,” Scesa said.
With more participation, he said, he expects the team to do well, including offering refreshment at lacrosse games this spring.
The team is itching for a real challenge, Scesa said. “We haven’t gotten to a competition,” he said, and he doesn’t have one on the calendar yet.
The team is attracting more than just customers. They got $250 in donations from Hannaford, as well as some help from Sam’s Club, to provide food at the Special Olympics. The money they make by selling dogs and burgers for a dollar or two goes right back into the team’s operating budget, which so far only provides for meat, cheese and charcoal.
They don’t even have uniforms, but prefer to spend their cash on steak and chicken when they can, but “no marshmallows,” the team choruses.
Leadership and advancement are all real possibilities for the team, and first-time customer Travis Wigham had but one thing to say about his barbecued hot dog: “It’s awesome.”
The Cape Elizabeth Barbecue Team is in what one captain calls “a rebuilding year.” Started last year by two seniors, the torch of leadership has now passed to three senior captains, and the brother of one of the team’s founders.
The team performed well at the Special Olympics track meet, held at CEHS May 3, grilling up hot dogs and hamburgers for hungry fans and athletes. It was the first foray into spring sports for the team. “So far it’s only been a fall sport,” said captain Kevin Scesa, describing outstanding performances on the sidelines of Cape football games.
“It’s our first barbecue in a while. We’re a little rusty,” said Brett Cary, brother of team founder Chris, as he warmed up the grill for the event.
In an adventurous foray, the team not only heated meat products over three charcoal grills, but branched out. “We’ve never toasted buns before,” Cary said. It wasn’t a big success, with the first few bread products blackening in the heat.
The team is still forming itself, with mostly seniors on the team now. “We need some more underclassmen to step up,” Scesa said.
With more participation, he said, he expects the team to do well, including offering refreshment at lacrosse games this spring.
The team is itching for a real challenge, Scesa said. “We haven’t gotten to a competition,” he said, and he doesn’t have one on the calendar yet.
The team is attracting more than just customers. They got $250 in donations from Hannaford, as well as some help from Sam’s Club, to provide food at the Special Olympics. The money they make by selling dogs and burgers for a dollar or two goes right back into the team’s operating budget, which so far only provides for meat, cheese and charcoal.
They don’t even have uniforms, but prefer to spend their cash on steak and chicken when they can, but “no marshmallows,” the team choruses.
Leadership and advancement are all real possibilities for the team, and first-time customer Travis Wigham had but one thing to say about his barbecued hot dog: “It’s awesome.”
What parents can do to stop teen drinking
Published in the Current
A group of about 30 students and parents came together Tuesday night to discuss the role parents play in enabling underage drinking, and to hear firsthand the warnings of a Cape father who lost his son to drunk driving.
They left the meeting, sponsored by the Cape Coalition, with a new respect for their instincts and a few ideas for making a teen center happen in Cape.
John Brady, father of Kevin Brady, a CEHS student who died in a drunk-driving accident nearly two years ago, spoke near the end of the meeting. “It’s been almost two years, but it could be last night,” he said, his voice breaking in the silence of the Town Council Chambers.
He related his last conversation with his son, in which, he said, he just felt something wasn’t right, but didn’t say anything.
“His last words to me were, ‘Don’t worry, dad. I won’t do anything foolish. I love you,’” Brady said. “And then we got the phone call.”
His son’s car had gone off Old Ocean House Road. Police said Kevin had a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit for people over 21, and was driving too fast.
Kevin died, and the passenger in the car was injured.
Brady advised parents to pay attention to their gut instincts about their kids’activities. “Follow your intuition,” he said. “If it doesn’t seem right, it’s not.”
A panel of students and adults addressed issues of teen drinking and parental involvement, as well as ways parents and the community can provide other
activities for teens who say there is “nothing to do” in Cape Elizabeth.
Alex Weaver, a junior at CEHS and student co-chair of the Cape Coalition, said it is not enough for parents to stay at the opposite end of the house when their children’s friends are visiting. And some parents do more to help their kids drink than to stop them. “It even goes so far as the parents supplying the alcohol to the teens to have the party in their house,” Weaver said.
Parent Bob Flynn exhorted parents to be less indifferent. “We’ve got to be a little more responsible. We’ve got to get more involved,” he said.
Some of the problem, he said, may be because parents are too nice.
“Do you want to be a parent or do you want to be a friend to your kid?” Flynn asked. “They want you to be their parent.”
The problem is not going away, Flynn said. “Kids are drinking in Cape Elizabeth in seventh grade. It’s not just high school kids.”
Norm Boucher of Day One told the group that for every underage drinker there are 15 to 25 people around that person who make it possible for the person to drink, from teachers and coaches who look the other way to friends who do homework for their drunk friends. “Parents are the chief enablers,” Boucher said.
Panelists said there were two major misconceptions about drinking in Cape. “It’s not an issue of peer pressure,” Flynn said. “There are a lot of kids who choose not to drink,” Weaver said.
Students and parents alike credited their open relationships as decreasing the likelihood of teen drinking.
Frank, a graduate of a residential substance abuse program sponsored by Day One, said he did not have a good relationship with his parents until they noticed he had a problem with drugs and alcohol.
Cape Elizabeth Community Policing Officer Paul Gaspar explained some aspects of the legality of drinking, including the fact that homeowners are liable for events at a party and for people who leave a party drunk, whether or not the homeowners were in fact present. Liability, Gaspar said, can be as much as $250,000.
Parents, the panel said, need to mean what they say in terms of disciplining children. But parents in the audience were uncertain about what to tell their kids about calling for a ride home.
“You’re one of the enablers if you’re driving that person home,” Boucher said. But other parents wondered if they weren’t just trying to keep their kids safe.
They agreed they needed to be more in touch with each other, to call and check whether what their kids said was happening, was in fact taking place.
CEHS junior Derek Roy said his mother had gotten calls from other parents making sure kids were meeting at Roy’s home after the prom. Roy’s mother said no such event was taking place and it was news to Derek.
Parents also agreed that if they were at an event and taking their child out of the situation, they would also look out for their kids’ friends and fellow students.
“We need to value all the youth of the community, not just ‘my kid,’” said Terry Johnson, adult co-chair of the coalition.
CEHS senior Cara Jordan said she knew of five parties that would happen over the weekend. Flynn pointed out it was only Tuesday night, and already several parties were being planned.
The alcohol policy for school activities came under fire from one parent, who was unclear how it should be enforced, and whether it was enforced uniformly. The School Board will discuss a revised alcohol policy at its May 14 meeting.
Liz Weaver, mother of Alex, told of a story she had heard from former high school Principal Pete Dawson about another school where he worked.
Word got around the community that there was going to be a big party on the weekend. Parents asked him what he was going to do about it. He replied that he had done what he was supposed to do: He had told his daughter she couldn’t go. Dawson, Weaver said, suggested all the parents do the same.
Jordan said the town could use a teen center where alcohol-free activities could happen, but said the funds had been cut from the community center renovation budget. “We need a teen center,” Jordan said, saying she felt kids were not a priority in town.
Flynn said he would arrange a meeting with leaders of the local Rotary Club to try to get funds to build a teen space in the new community center.
The turnout was less than organizers had expected, and one mother of middle school students said, “I would have liked to see more parents here.”
Several area teens, including some from Cape Elizabeth, will be on TV Sunday night, on Channel 13 at 8 p.m., discussing parental roles in underage drinking.
A group of about 30 students and parents came together Tuesday night to discuss the role parents play in enabling underage drinking, and to hear firsthand the warnings of a Cape father who lost his son to drunk driving.
They left the meeting, sponsored by the Cape Coalition, with a new respect for their instincts and a few ideas for making a teen center happen in Cape.
John Brady, father of Kevin Brady, a CEHS student who died in a drunk-driving accident nearly two years ago, spoke near the end of the meeting. “It’s been almost two years, but it could be last night,” he said, his voice breaking in the silence of the Town Council Chambers.
He related his last conversation with his son, in which, he said, he just felt something wasn’t right, but didn’t say anything.
“His last words to me were, ‘Don’t worry, dad. I won’t do anything foolish. I love you,’” Brady said. “And then we got the phone call.”
His son’s car had gone off Old Ocean House Road. Police said Kevin had a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit for people over 21, and was driving too fast.
Kevin died, and the passenger in the car was injured.
Brady advised parents to pay attention to their gut instincts about their kids’activities. “Follow your intuition,” he said. “If it doesn’t seem right, it’s not.”
A panel of students and adults addressed issues of teen drinking and parental involvement, as well as ways parents and the community can provide other
activities for teens who say there is “nothing to do” in Cape Elizabeth.
Alex Weaver, a junior at CEHS and student co-chair of the Cape Coalition, said it is not enough for parents to stay at the opposite end of the house when their children’s friends are visiting. And some parents do more to help their kids drink than to stop them. “It even goes so far as the parents supplying the alcohol to the teens to have the party in their house,” Weaver said.
Parent Bob Flynn exhorted parents to be less indifferent. “We’ve got to be a little more responsible. We’ve got to get more involved,” he said.
Some of the problem, he said, may be because parents are too nice.
“Do you want to be a parent or do you want to be a friend to your kid?” Flynn asked. “They want you to be their parent.”
The problem is not going away, Flynn said. “Kids are drinking in Cape Elizabeth in seventh grade. It’s not just high school kids.”
Norm Boucher of Day One told the group that for every underage drinker there are 15 to 25 people around that person who make it possible for the person to drink, from teachers and coaches who look the other way to friends who do homework for their drunk friends. “Parents are the chief enablers,” Boucher said.
Panelists said there were two major misconceptions about drinking in Cape. “It’s not an issue of peer pressure,” Flynn said. “There are a lot of kids who choose not to drink,” Weaver said.
Students and parents alike credited their open relationships as decreasing the likelihood of teen drinking.
Frank, a graduate of a residential substance abuse program sponsored by Day One, said he did not have a good relationship with his parents until they noticed he had a problem with drugs and alcohol.
Cape Elizabeth Community Policing Officer Paul Gaspar explained some aspects of the legality of drinking, including the fact that homeowners are liable for events at a party and for people who leave a party drunk, whether or not the homeowners were in fact present. Liability, Gaspar said, can be as much as $250,000.
Parents, the panel said, need to mean what they say in terms of disciplining children. But parents in the audience were uncertain about what to tell their kids about calling for a ride home.
“You’re one of the enablers if you’re driving that person home,” Boucher said. But other parents wondered if they weren’t just trying to keep their kids safe.
They agreed they needed to be more in touch with each other, to call and check whether what their kids said was happening, was in fact taking place.
CEHS junior Derek Roy said his mother had gotten calls from other parents making sure kids were meeting at Roy’s home after the prom. Roy’s mother said no such event was taking place and it was news to Derek.
Parents also agreed that if they were at an event and taking their child out of the situation, they would also look out for their kids’ friends and fellow students.
“We need to value all the youth of the community, not just ‘my kid,’” said Terry Johnson, adult co-chair of the coalition.
CEHS senior Cara Jordan said she knew of five parties that would happen over the weekend. Flynn pointed out it was only Tuesday night, and already several parties were being planned.
The alcohol policy for school activities came under fire from one parent, who was unclear how it should be enforced, and whether it was enforced uniformly. The School Board will discuss a revised alcohol policy at its May 14 meeting.
Liz Weaver, mother of Alex, told of a story she had heard from former high school Principal Pete Dawson about another school where he worked.
Word got around the community that there was going to be a big party on the weekend. Parents asked him what he was going to do about it. He replied that he had done what he was supposed to do: He had told his daughter she couldn’t go. Dawson, Weaver said, suggested all the parents do the same.
Jordan said the town could use a teen center where alcohol-free activities could happen, but said the funds had been cut from the community center renovation budget. “We need a teen center,” Jordan said, saying she felt kids were not a priority in town.
Flynn said he would arrange a meeting with leaders of the local Rotary Club to try to get funds to build a teen space in the new community center.
The turnout was less than organizers had expected, and one mother of middle school students said, “I would have liked to see more parents here.”
Several area teens, including some from Cape Elizabeth, will be on TV Sunday night, on Channel 13 at 8 p.m., discussing parental roles in underage drinking.
Thursday, May 2, 2002
More cuts coming for Cape schools
Published in the Current
The Cape Town Council has asked the schools to cut an additional $191,557 from the 2002-2003 budget, leading School Board Chairman George Entwistle to predict staff cuts.
“We would begin to let people go,” Entwistle told the council April 29.
The Town Council, meeting as the Finance Committee, recommended in a 6-1 vote that the school district be allowed an increase of only 4 percent, less than the School Board’s requested 5.43 percent increase. (Councilor Henry Berry was the single no vote.) Councilor John McGinty, who first brought up the 4 percent figure, said when asked that it was an “arbitrary” figure.
Councilors admit the resulting tax increase is the main issue.
“I’m concerned that we not get our taxes so high,” said Councilor Carol Fritz.
The school portion of the property tax increase would have been 93 cents per thousand under the School Board’s proposal. The 4 percent cap means the schools will be 67 cents in an overall increase of 94 cents, or $188 for the owner of a $200,000 home.
“We are also pricing young families right out of this town,” said Town Council Chairman Anne Swift-Kayatta. “This is all about balancing competing needs.”
But she expressed reservations about making deep cuts, saying that a budget increase in a time of flat enrollment can provide opportunity for improvements.
“What we’re doing is gutting the future of the school system,” Swift-Kayatta said.
School Board members stressed that the budget is not actually being increased. Salary and benefits costs are rising 4.2 percent, said Superintendent Tom Forcella. Add in legally mandated special education requirements, he said, and the rest of the budget must go down.
The morning after the four-hour meeting, Forcella, after little sleep, was still surprised. “I expected the Town Council to decrease our budget but not to the extent that they did,” he said. “I didn’t expect anything near $191,000.”
He said program and staff cuts are definitely under discussion, though he said no decisions had been made. He said providing tax relief can be done two ways: increasing revenue or cutting costs. But the schools have limited revenue options, he said.
“The only way to do anything about our budget is to cut expenses,” Forcella said.
The 4 percent budget increase is more than the council had originally indicated it would allow the schools. In a letter March 1, Finance Committee chair and Councilor Jack Roberts had requested the schools, as well as other municipal departments, keep spending hikes to 3 percent.
Town Manager Mike McGovern said a major concern for the council was a projected $600,000 decrease in state funds for the town’s schools.
The final amount of the decrease turned out to be $445,714 – funding which now must be picked up on the tax rate.
“It’s the largest loss we’ve ever experienced,” said Councilor Mary Ann Lynch, adding that this is the largest requested increase in the school budget since 1995.
“I think that might have influenced some of the councilors,” McGovern said.
Councilors said they had made additional cuts in the municipal budget, which is projected to grow by 2.42 percent, to be able to provide more funds to the schools.
School Finance Committee Chairman Kevin Sweeney and School Board Chairman Entwistle made the case for the district’s budget, focusing on contractually obligated salary and benefits increases, increased need for special education services, enrollment pressure on class sizes and the need for a new bus.
Building maintenance and planning for the high school renovation and an addition to Pond Cove School also figure into the budget increase.
About $27,000 in savings is already projected, due to lower-than-expected heating oil costs. A new telephone system may add $6,000 in additional savings, according to school Business Manager Pauline Aportria.
Councilors looked carefully at this year’s $225,000 budget surplus, which would normally be carried over for next year.
That money could be used to pay for unexpected costs, such as an out-of-district placement of a student with special needs, Sweeney said.
Special Education Director Claire LaBrie said the cost for a single out-of-district placement could be between $50,000 and $220,000, depending on the student’s needs and transportation requirements.
Spending that surplus money, while it is included in the budget, would require Town Council approval. An additional $70,000 is designated as “reserve” in the budget, for spending by the School Board without council review, to handle smaller contingencies.
Sweeney said accountants recommend a 2 percent surplus in the budget. Entwistle said the surplus is already below that level and should not be eliminated.
“We are merely following appropriate and recommended accounting principles,” Entwistle said. He warned that without a surplus, any new expenses would require council approval.
“You are tying the hands of the board,” Entwistle said.
Board members reminded councilors that the Town Council’s role is to approve a budget amount, not specific lines in the budget. But Entwistle, frustrated at the size of the cuts, did attempt to get councilors to say what they wanted cut.
Councilor Fritz was disappointed in the rejection of activities or user fees, she said, adding that she wanted to see cuts in administrative or other areas. “I’d like to see it not affecting actual classrooms and kids,” she said.
Fritz also asked if there were any state mandates that could be cut, to protest the state funding cuts.
“There is nothing that we’re being mandated to do that isn’t the right thing to do,” Entwistle said.
Referring to a proposal at the high school that would hire two educational technicians to supervise study halls, giving teachers more time for collaboration, Councilor Lynch said, “this is not the year to eliminate the high school teachers proctoring the study hall.”
“I think there are some savings in there. I just don’t know where,” Councilor Penny Carson said.
School Board member Susan Steinman warned that things cut this year would be back next year. She said she is worried about losing ground this year that would then have to be made up in the future.
“I picture this year as treading water,” Steinman said. “I don’t want to cut it out now and have to beg for it next year.”
School Board member Jennifer DeSena suggested the town make more increases to municipal fees, to give more money to the schools.
Councilor McGinty was for that, and Carson said that if the county budget were lower, “that would definitely go to the schools.”
Councilor Roberts asked if there was any move to raise the total tax increase – municipal plus school spending — back from 94 cents to 99, to provide more funds to the schools, but found no takers. The council had originally set a goal of raising the rate less than a dollar this year.
But the School Board was not happy. “I just feel like there’s not a lot of trust. I’m disappointed,” said board member Elaine Moloney, adding that the council often seems to cut 2 percent off whatever amount the School Board comes up with.
“No one enjoys where we are tonight,” Lynch said, as the four-hour meeting came to a close.
The public will have a chance to comment May 13 as part of the regular Town Council meeting, which will be in the Town Council Chambers at 7:30 p.m. The budget will be formally approved in a special council meeting May 28, also in the Council Chambers at 7:30 p.m.
In other business, the Finance Committee recommended a 2.42 percent spending increase in the municipal budget, by a vote of 6 to 1, with Councilor McGinty opposed.
It also recommended that the county budget not be approved, by a vote of 7-0. Town Manager McGovern said the town is legally obligated to pay the county assessment, which is rising 21.4 percent, or $134,950.
The Cape Town Council has asked the schools to cut an additional $191,557 from the 2002-2003 budget, leading School Board Chairman George Entwistle to predict staff cuts.
“We would begin to let people go,” Entwistle told the council April 29.
The Town Council, meeting as the Finance Committee, recommended in a 6-1 vote that the school district be allowed an increase of only 4 percent, less than the School Board’s requested 5.43 percent increase. (Councilor Henry Berry was the single no vote.) Councilor John McGinty, who first brought up the 4 percent figure, said when asked that it was an “arbitrary” figure.
Councilors admit the resulting tax increase is the main issue.
“I’m concerned that we not get our taxes so high,” said Councilor Carol Fritz.
The school portion of the property tax increase would have been 93 cents per thousand under the School Board’s proposal. The 4 percent cap means the schools will be 67 cents in an overall increase of 94 cents, or $188 for the owner of a $200,000 home.
“We are also pricing young families right out of this town,” said Town Council Chairman Anne Swift-Kayatta. “This is all about balancing competing needs.”
But she expressed reservations about making deep cuts, saying that a budget increase in a time of flat enrollment can provide opportunity for improvements.
“What we’re doing is gutting the future of the school system,” Swift-Kayatta said.
School Board members stressed that the budget is not actually being increased. Salary and benefits costs are rising 4.2 percent, said Superintendent Tom Forcella. Add in legally mandated special education requirements, he said, and the rest of the budget must go down.
The morning after the four-hour meeting, Forcella, after little sleep, was still surprised. “I expected the Town Council to decrease our budget but not to the extent that they did,” he said. “I didn’t expect anything near $191,000.”
He said program and staff cuts are definitely under discussion, though he said no decisions had been made. He said providing tax relief can be done two ways: increasing revenue or cutting costs. But the schools have limited revenue options, he said.
“The only way to do anything about our budget is to cut expenses,” Forcella said.
The 4 percent budget increase is more than the council had originally indicated it would allow the schools. In a letter March 1, Finance Committee chair and Councilor Jack Roberts had requested the schools, as well as other municipal departments, keep spending hikes to 3 percent.
Town Manager Mike McGovern said a major concern for the council was a projected $600,000 decrease in state funds for the town’s schools.
The final amount of the decrease turned out to be $445,714 – funding which now must be picked up on the tax rate.
“It’s the largest loss we’ve ever experienced,” said Councilor Mary Ann Lynch, adding that this is the largest requested increase in the school budget since 1995.
“I think that might have influenced some of the councilors,” McGovern said.
Councilors said they had made additional cuts in the municipal budget, which is projected to grow by 2.42 percent, to be able to provide more funds to the schools.
School Finance Committee Chairman Kevin Sweeney and School Board Chairman Entwistle made the case for the district’s budget, focusing on contractually obligated salary and benefits increases, increased need for special education services, enrollment pressure on class sizes and the need for a new bus.
Building maintenance and planning for the high school renovation and an addition to Pond Cove School also figure into the budget increase.
About $27,000 in savings is already projected, due to lower-than-expected heating oil costs. A new telephone system may add $6,000 in additional savings, according to school Business Manager Pauline Aportria.
Councilors looked carefully at this year’s $225,000 budget surplus, which would normally be carried over for next year.
That money could be used to pay for unexpected costs, such as an out-of-district placement of a student with special needs, Sweeney said.
Special Education Director Claire LaBrie said the cost for a single out-of-district placement could be between $50,000 and $220,000, depending on the student’s needs and transportation requirements.
Spending that surplus money, while it is included in the budget, would require Town Council approval. An additional $70,000 is designated as “reserve” in the budget, for spending by the School Board without council review, to handle smaller contingencies.
Sweeney said accountants recommend a 2 percent surplus in the budget. Entwistle said the surplus is already below that level and should not be eliminated.
“We are merely following appropriate and recommended accounting principles,” Entwistle said. He warned that without a surplus, any new expenses would require council approval.
“You are tying the hands of the board,” Entwistle said.
Board members reminded councilors that the Town Council’s role is to approve a budget amount, not specific lines in the budget. But Entwistle, frustrated at the size of the cuts, did attempt to get councilors to say what they wanted cut.
Councilor Fritz was disappointed in the rejection of activities or user fees, she said, adding that she wanted to see cuts in administrative or other areas. “I’d like to see it not affecting actual classrooms and kids,” she said.
Fritz also asked if there were any state mandates that could be cut, to protest the state funding cuts.
“There is nothing that we’re being mandated to do that isn’t the right thing to do,” Entwistle said.
Referring to a proposal at the high school that would hire two educational technicians to supervise study halls, giving teachers more time for collaboration, Councilor Lynch said, “this is not the year to eliminate the high school teachers proctoring the study hall.”
“I think there are some savings in there. I just don’t know where,” Councilor Penny Carson said.
School Board member Susan Steinman warned that things cut this year would be back next year. She said she is worried about losing ground this year that would then have to be made up in the future.
“I picture this year as treading water,” Steinman said. “I don’t want to cut it out now and have to beg for it next year.”
School Board member Jennifer DeSena suggested the town make more increases to municipal fees, to give more money to the schools.
Councilor McGinty was for that, and Carson said that if the county budget were lower, “that would definitely go to the schools.”
Councilor Roberts asked if there was any move to raise the total tax increase – municipal plus school spending — back from 94 cents to 99, to provide more funds to the schools, but found no takers. The council had originally set a goal of raising the rate less than a dollar this year.
But the School Board was not happy. “I just feel like there’s not a lot of trust. I’m disappointed,” said board member Elaine Moloney, adding that the council often seems to cut 2 percent off whatever amount the School Board comes up with.
“No one enjoys where we are tonight,” Lynch said, as the four-hour meeting came to a close.
The public will have a chance to comment May 13 as part of the regular Town Council meeting, which will be in the Town Council Chambers at 7:30 p.m. The budget will be formally approved in a special council meeting May 28, also in the Council Chambers at 7:30 p.m.
In other business, the Finance Committee recommended a 2.42 percent spending increase in the municipal budget, by a vote of 6 to 1, with Councilor McGinty opposed.
It also recommended that the county budget not be approved, by a vote of 7-0. Town Manager McGovern said the town is legally obligated to pay the county assessment, which is rising 21.4 percent, or $134,950.
Thursday, April 25, 2002
Cape parent opposes class rank
Published in the Current
Tim Youmans, a parent of a student at Cape Elizabeth High School, wants to abolish the school’s practice of effectively listing class rank on transcripts sent with college applications, and the School Board agrees that it should be discussed.
A group will be formed at the beginning of the next academic year to explore the issue, including possibly surveying colleges to which Cape students tend to apply.
Youmans said reporting class rank can hurt some students’ chances of getting into the college of their choice, but leaving it off will not hurt the chances of top students.
Four years ago, the district discussed the issue and ended up at a point where specific class rank was not indicated on transcripts, but a student’s grade point average (GPA) was reported, along with the GPA range of the class as a whole.
From that information, Youmans argued before the board at its April 23 workshop meeting, a brief look can tell college admissions officers roughly what an applicant’s class rank is, and certainly whether a student is in the top 10 or 20 percent of the class.
In the discussions four years ago, Youmans said, much was made of a 1993 National Association of Secondary School Principals study, in which, Youmans said, the words support reporting of class rank, but the numbers do not.
“Colleges and high schools really do agree that class rank isn’t that important in college admissions,” Youmans said.
Youmans said he has discussed the issue with high school Principal Jeff Shedd, school district Superintendent Tom Forcella and high school guidance counselor, Sharon Merrill. But in those discussions, he said, he saw a need for further discussion.
Shedd said he has asked for comment from parents. He said that while he was not at the high school in 1998 when the topic was last discussed, he understood that the decision at that time was “not only based on the survey but also the experience and feelings of students, parents and teachers.”
Shedd said one concern Merrill—who was not present at the meeting— has voiced to him is that if class rank is eliminated, colleges will place additional emphasis on other statistics, including standardized test results.
That would help some kids and hurt others, Shedd said.
“The elimination of class rank would not only benefit the bottom 80 percent, but—contrary to my assumption—it would have no effect on our top kids,” Youmans said.
“Our kids are competing with kids from other schools to get into college,” Youmans said. “They’re not competing with each other to get into college.”
Forcella said some colleges use class rank as a means by which to make a first cut, summarily eliminating students below a certain rank in their classes. He said leaving class rank off could force schools to actually look at a student’s application.
Board member Kevin Sweeney reminded the board that the district’s mission statement does not talk about admission to college, but instead talks about creating good citizens. He said he is in favor of “anything that gives kids the maximum number of options on graduation day. ”
Tim Youmans, a parent of a student at Cape Elizabeth High School, wants to abolish the school’s practice of effectively listing class rank on transcripts sent with college applications, and the School Board agrees that it should be discussed.
A group will be formed at the beginning of the next academic year to explore the issue, including possibly surveying colleges to which Cape students tend to apply.
Youmans said reporting class rank can hurt some students’ chances of getting into the college of their choice, but leaving it off will not hurt the chances of top students.
Four years ago, the district discussed the issue and ended up at a point where specific class rank was not indicated on transcripts, but a student’s grade point average (GPA) was reported, along with the GPA range of the class as a whole.
From that information, Youmans argued before the board at its April 23 workshop meeting, a brief look can tell college admissions officers roughly what an applicant’s class rank is, and certainly whether a student is in the top 10 or 20 percent of the class.
In the discussions four years ago, Youmans said, much was made of a 1993 National Association of Secondary School Principals study, in which, Youmans said, the words support reporting of class rank, but the numbers do not.
“Colleges and high schools really do agree that class rank isn’t that important in college admissions,” Youmans said.
Youmans said he has discussed the issue with high school Principal Jeff Shedd, school district Superintendent Tom Forcella and high school guidance counselor, Sharon Merrill. But in those discussions, he said, he saw a need for further discussion.
Shedd said he has asked for comment from parents. He said that while he was not at the high school in 1998 when the topic was last discussed, he understood that the decision at that time was “not only based on the survey but also the experience and feelings of students, parents and teachers.”
Shedd said one concern Merrill—who was not present at the meeting— has voiced to him is that if class rank is eliminated, colleges will place additional emphasis on other statistics, including standardized test results.
That would help some kids and hurt others, Shedd said.
“The elimination of class rank would not only benefit the bottom 80 percent, but—contrary to my assumption—it would have no effect on our top kids,” Youmans said.
“Our kids are competing with kids from other schools to get into college,” Youmans said. “They’re not competing with each other to get into college.”
Forcella said some colleges use class rank as a means by which to make a first cut, summarily eliminating students below a certain rank in their classes. He said leaving class rank off could force schools to actually look at a student’s application.
Board member Kevin Sweeney reminded the board that the district’s mission statement does not talk about admission to college, but instead talks about creating good citizens. He said he is in favor of “anything that gives kids the maximum number of options on graduation day. ”
Cape prepares budget presentation
Published in the Current
A bit of last-minute budget relief may have arrived for the Cape Elizabeth School Board, though not from the source, or of the magnitude, that a state education funding increase could have provided.
The district last week locked in the price of heating oil at 80 cents per gallon, according to district Business Manager Pauline Aportria.
When approved, the budget included projected costs of $1 per gallon. The reduced cost will provide a savings of $27,000.
The School Board did not decide what to do with the money, which could be rolled over into the budget for the 2003-2004 school year or used to reduce the amount of the tax increase.
If applied to tax reduction, it would lower the projected tax increase by four cents, to 94 cents per thousand, or an increase of $188 for a home valued at
$200,000. That is just for the school portion of the budget.
The board will make a formal presentation of the budget to the council and the public Monday evening, at 7:30 p.m., in the Town Council Chambers.
At the School Board’s monthly workshop April 23, board member and Finance Committee Chairman Kevin Sweeney outlined his plans for the meeting. He said he will make two major points: the board trusts the administration and “it’s the kids,” Sweeney said.
A further major point, he said, is that it is wrong to think there were no cuts in this budget. “We have, in fact, reduced the budget—the operating budget—by $162,000,” Sweeney said.
The budget presentation summarizes the issues facing the district: contractually obligated pay and benefits expenses, legally required special education costs, enrollment issues, and the already-delayed purchase of an additional bus.
It will end with a comparison of Cape Elizabeth’s spending increase this year, and its per-pupil operating costs, with those in nearby districts including Scarborough, South Portland and Gorham.
The per-pupil spending chart, said board member Marie Prager, “doesn’t show us at the top, and it doesn’t show us at the bottom.”
Sweeney said that in the area of expenditure, “the basic thrust that we’ve adopted is to be in the middle.”
Prager emphasized, “this is in terms of cost, not student achievement.”
Board chair George Entwistle said the numbers show “we have created a quality program and we have been able to do that more efficiently and cost-effectively than these other towns.”
Sweeney will lead the board’s presentation, and will point out items that never made the budget, as well as programs and services that were cut.
The board’s five-year plan is one of the casualties of state funding cuts, and Prager, who helped devise the plan, said it is “shot to hell.”
Enrollment issues and class size are expected to be subjects of discussion by the Town Council and the board. Enrollment is projected to decrease by five students across the district, but the number of second-graders and a 50-student rise at the high school will require additional staff.
Superintendent Tom Forcella has prepared a packet of information for the councilors, to help explain class size and teacher load issues in Cape and how they could affect educational quality.
Forcella noted that total teacher load, especially at the high school level, is the determining factor in educational quality, not class size.
“It’s how many papers you have to correct,” he said, adding that the research he has seen shows that about 80 students is a good load without a negative impact on students.
Some high school teachers next year will have student loads over 100, according to Principal Jeff Shedd.
Town Council Finance Committee Chair Jack Roberts said the council has been occupied with other aspects of the municipal budget, and he would not know much about the councilors’ opinions on the school budget until the
two boards had met.
A bit of last-minute budget relief may have arrived for the Cape Elizabeth School Board, though not from the source, or of the magnitude, that a state education funding increase could have provided.
The district last week locked in the price of heating oil at 80 cents per gallon, according to district Business Manager Pauline Aportria.
When approved, the budget included projected costs of $1 per gallon. The reduced cost will provide a savings of $27,000.
The School Board did not decide what to do with the money, which could be rolled over into the budget for the 2003-2004 school year or used to reduce the amount of the tax increase.
If applied to tax reduction, it would lower the projected tax increase by four cents, to 94 cents per thousand, or an increase of $188 for a home valued at
$200,000. That is just for the school portion of the budget.
The board will make a formal presentation of the budget to the council and the public Monday evening, at 7:30 p.m., in the Town Council Chambers.
At the School Board’s monthly workshop April 23, board member and Finance Committee Chairman Kevin Sweeney outlined his plans for the meeting. He said he will make two major points: the board trusts the administration and “it’s the kids,” Sweeney said.
A further major point, he said, is that it is wrong to think there were no cuts in this budget. “We have, in fact, reduced the budget—the operating budget—by $162,000,” Sweeney said.
The budget presentation summarizes the issues facing the district: contractually obligated pay and benefits expenses, legally required special education costs, enrollment issues, and the already-delayed purchase of an additional bus.
It will end with a comparison of Cape Elizabeth’s spending increase this year, and its per-pupil operating costs, with those in nearby districts including Scarborough, South Portland and Gorham.
The per-pupil spending chart, said board member Marie Prager, “doesn’t show us at the top, and it doesn’t show us at the bottom.”
Sweeney said that in the area of expenditure, “the basic thrust that we’ve adopted is to be in the middle.”
Prager emphasized, “this is in terms of cost, not student achievement.”
Board chair George Entwistle said the numbers show “we have created a quality program and we have been able to do that more efficiently and cost-effectively than these other towns.”
Sweeney will lead the board’s presentation, and will point out items that never made the budget, as well as programs and services that were cut.
The board’s five-year plan is one of the casualties of state funding cuts, and Prager, who helped devise the plan, said it is “shot to hell.”
Enrollment issues and class size are expected to be subjects of discussion by the Town Council and the board. Enrollment is projected to decrease by five students across the district, but the number of second-graders and a 50-student rise at the high school will require additional staff.
Superintendent Tom Forcella has prepared a packet of information for the councilors, to help explain class size and teacher load issues in Cape and how they could affect educational quality.
Forcella noted that total teacher load, especially at the high school level, is the determining factor in educational quality, not class size.
“It’s how many papers you have to correct,” he said, adding that the research he has seen shows that about 80 students is a good load without a negative impact on students.
Some high school teachers next year will have student loads over 100, according to Principal Jeff Shedd.
Town Council Finance Committee Chair Jack Roberts said the council has been occupied with other aspects of the municipal budget, and he would not know much about the councilors’ opinions on the school budget until the
two boards had met.
Cape considers all-day kindergarten
Published in the Current
The Cape Elizabeth School Board will consider going to all-day kindergarten to help plan for a building project that would expand Pond Cove to house kindergarten classes.
The board plans to use old research from a few years ago, when the town first considered going to all-day kindergarten, and gather new information from other districts that have already switched to all-day kindergarten.
A committee recommended implementing all-day kindergarten a few years ago, but the district did not have enough space for it at the time, according to School Board member Elaine Moloney.
Moloney was part of the group that discussed the issue in the late 1990s and now will lead the effort to summarize those findings and report to the board.
The issue has come up again as a result of the planning phase of the building project. If Cape wants all-day kindergarten in the future, building space for it now would be most cost-effective, according to School Board member and Building Committee Chairman Marie Prager.
There is evidence that all-day kindergarten can provide an academic benefit to kids in an urban environment, many of whom have not attended preschool, according to Prager and Superintendent Tom Forcella. They do not have information about its effectiveness in an environment like Cape Elizabeth.
Prager said other benefits of all-day kindergarten can include increased socialization of children, and reduced pressure on kids and teachers alike to pack as much as possible into a two-and-a-half hour kindergarten session.
As part of her reporting, Moloney will follow up on nearby schools that have implemented all-day kindergarten to see what they have experienced. She said one option could be extending the length of kindergarten sessions beyond their current schedule but still less than a full day.
She said some other districts offer a free half-day kindergarten and have made it possible for parents to pay for an extended kindergarten session, but she did not know the details or legalities concerned with such an idea.
Moloney expects to have a report back to the board later in the spring or early summer, to fit in with the planning of the Pond Cove expansion.
Forcella has said that all-day kindergarten will not necessarily begin as soon as construction is complete and that he expects it to be phased in over a period of time.
The Cape Elizabeth School Board will consider going to all-day kindergarten to help plan for a building project that would expand Pond Cove to house kindergarten classes.
The board plans to use old research from a few years ago, when the town first considered going to all-day kindergarten, and gather new information from other districts that have already switched to all-day kindergarten.
A committee recommended implementing all-day kindergarten a few years ago, but the district did not have enough space for it at the time, according to School Board member Elaine Moloney.
Moloney was part of the group that discussed the issue in the late 1990s and now will lead the effort to summarize those findings and report to the board.
The issue has come up again as a result of the planning phase of the building project. If Cape wants all-day kindergarten in the future, building space for it now would be most cost-effective, according to School Board member and Building Committee Chairman Marie Prager.
There is evidence that all-day kindergarten can provide an academic benefit to kids in an urban environment, many of whom have not attended preschool, according to Prager and Superintendent Tom Forcella. They do not have information about its effectiveness in an environment like Cape Elizabeth.
Prager said other benefits of all-day kindergarten can include increased socialization of children, and reduced pressure on kids and teachers alike to pack as much as possible into a two-and-a-half hour kindergarten session.
As part of her reporting, Moloney will follow up on nearby schools that have implemented all-day kindergarten to see what they have experienced. She said one option could be extending the length of kindergarten sessions beyond their current schedule but still less than a full day.
She said some other districts offer a free half-day kindergarten and have made it possible for parents to pay for an extended kindergarten session, but she did not know the details or legalities concerned with such an idea.
Moloney expects to have a report back to the board later in the spring or early summer, to fit in with the planning of the Pond Cove expansion.
Forcella has said that all-day kindergarten will not necessarily begin as soon as construction is complete and that he expects it to be phased in over a period of time.
Racing around the world
Published in the Current
Peter Pendleton, formerly of Cape Elizabeth, can truthfully call the sea his home. At 30, he is a professional sailor racing around the world in the Volvo Ocean Race.
Pendleton went to middle school and high school in Cape. “I grew up sailing at the Portland Yacht Club in Falmouth,” he said. He started in the sailing and racing program for little kids, and eventually dropped out of college after a couple of years to be on the water.
“I started to sail professionally more than I was actually in the classroom,” Pendleton said.
He started on the pro sailing circuit in Europe, with non-stop work. “It was regatta-regatta-regatta-regatta,” he said.
He has captained several racing boats, and has managed to become part of a team of sailors. “You hook up with a bunch of guys,” he said, and get approached by the owner of a racing boat who wants you to sail it.
“I hooked myself up with a bunch of guys from New Zealand,” he said, and was part of the crew of Young America, which broke in half trying to win back the America’s Cup from the New Zealand team in Auckland in 1999.
Prior to the Volvo Ocean Race, Pendleton was in charge of building the boats for two Nautor Challenge teams competing in the race. “We built two boats in six months,” he said, the fastest Whitbread-class boat construction ever.
The Volvo race began in September from Southampton, England, with a 28-day first leg to Cape Town, South Africa. Pendleton’s boat, Amer Sports One, took second place in that leg, but only managed fifth place of eight teams on the next leg, a 24-day sail to Sydney, Australia.
“We had a guy that actually became very ill on the boat,” Pendleton said. The Australian Navy delivered medical supplies to the boat at sea, and then the boat came in toward land near Perth, in western Australia, to get the sick man to medical care.
“We were a man down for about 2,000 miles,” Pendleton said.
The third leg, a nine-day trip to Auckland, New Zealand, via Hobart, Tasmania, brought Amer Sports One in second place, but there was a lot of strange weather.
Large forest fires were raging outside Sydney at the time, Pendleton said, which meant there was smoke and a lot of hot air in the area. “We started the race and came offshore and got hit by a tornado,” he said.
The fourth leg was to Rio de Janeiro. The boat was in second place until 30 miles from the finish, when “we put ourselves into a nice no-wind hole and watched the whole fleet sail by.”
But for most of the trip, things were going very well. “The best sailing that I’ve ever done in my life was our leg four,” he said. The route took him below 60 degrees South latitude, into the Antarctic Convergence, with temperatures in the single digits and the wind at 30 to 40 knots.
“When we were going downwind, we were going really fast,” Pendleton said. “That was the most exhilarating sailing I’ve ever done.”
It helped that there were giant icebergs to be avoided amid the darkness and in heavy weather. “This is the most scared I’ve ever been but this is great,” Pendleton remembered feeling.
The race will go through Miami, Baltimore, La Rochelle, France, and Goteborg, Sweden, and will finish with a 24-hour race to Kiel, Germany. Pendleton said he expects to finish June 19, and he’s not sure what he’ll do then.
“It’s been really tough on my wife,” he said. She is at home in Annapolis, Md., with a 10-month-old boy and a four-year-old daughter.
In the last 10 years, he said, he hasn’t been home much. Often it’s three weeks away for every week at home. And in the past year, he has spent 30 days at home.
“That’s what sailing does. It’s really hard for me, especially with the kids growing up,” he said.
Peter Pendleton, formerly of Cape Elizabeth, can truthfully call the sea his home. At 30, he is a professional sailor racing around the world in the Volvo Ocean Race.
Pendleton went to middle school and high school in Cape. “I grew up sailing at the Portland Yacht Club in Falmouth,” he said. He started in the sailing and racing program for little kids, and eventually dropped out of college after a couple of years to be on the water.
“I started to sail professionally more than I was actually in the classroom,” Pendleton said.
He started on the pro sailing circuit in Europe, with non-stop work. “It was regatta-regatta-regatta-regatta,” he said.
He has captained several racing boats, and has managed to become part of a team of sailors. “You hook up with a bunch of guys,” he said, and get approached by the owner of a racing boat who wants you to sail it.
“I hooked myself up with a bunch of guys from New Zealand,” he said, and was part of the crew of Young America, which broke in half trying to win back the America’s Cup from the New Zealand team in Auckland in 1999.
Prior to the Volvo Ocean Race, Pendleton was in charge of building the boats for two Nautor Challenge teams competing in the race. “We built two boats in six months,” he said, the fastest Whitbread-class boat construction ever.
The Volvo race began in September from Southampton, England, with a 28-day first leg to Cape Town, South Africa. Pendleton’s boat, Amer Sports One, took second place in that leg, but only managed fifth place of eight teams on the next leg, a 24-day sail to Sydney, Australia.
“We had a guy that actually became very ill on the boat,” Pendleton said. The Australian Navy delivered medical supplies to the boat at sea, and then the boat came in toward land near Perth, in western Australia, to get the sick man to medical care.
“We were a man down for about 2,000 miles,” Pendleton said.
The third leg, a nine-day trip to Auckland, New Zealand, via Hobart, Tasmania, brought Amer Sports One in second place, but there was a lot of strange weather.
Large forest fires were raging outside Sydney at the time, Pendleton said, which meant there was smoke and a lot of hot air in the area. “We started the race and came offshore and got hit by a tornado,” he said.
The fourth leg was to Rio de Janeiro. The boat was in second place until 30 miles from the finish, when “we put ourselves into a nice no-wind hole and watched the whole fleet sail by.”
But for most of the trip, things were going very well. “The best sailing that I’ve ever done in my life was our leg four,” he said. The route took him below 60 degrees South latitude, into the Antarctic Convergence, with temperatures in the single digits and the wind at 30 to 40 knots.
“When we were going downwind, we were going really fast,” Pendleton said. “That was the most exhilarating sailing I’ve ever done.”
It helped that there were giant icebergs to be avoided amid the darkness and in heavy weather. “This is the most scared I’ve ever been but this is great,” Pendleton remembered feeling.
The race will go through Miami, Baltimore, La Rochelle, France, and Goteborg, Sweden, and will finish with a 24-hour race to Kiel, Germany. Pendleton said he expects to finish June 19, and he’s not sure what he’ll do then.
“It’s been really tough on my wife,” he said. She is at home in Annapolis, Md., with a 10-month-old boy and a four-year-old daughter.
In the last 10 years, he said, he hasn’t been home much. Often it’s three weeks away for every week at home. And in the past year, he has spent 30 days at home.
“That’s what sailing does. It’s really hard for me, especially with the kids growing up,” he said.
House near school billed as sex club
Published in the Current; co-written with Brendan Moran
A house next to the Blue Point Elementary School on Pine Point Road in Scarborough was advertising itself on the Web as a swingers club known as Club Vision until February, when the owners of the home and police found out about it.
Once the club closed, it began using its web site to encourage patrons to use other clubs in the area, including another home-based club called Wildflower’s in Scarborough and a commercial lounge in Lewiston.
The owners of the home at 170 Pine Point Road, Philip and Kathleen McKay, have filed eviction proceedings against the former tenants, identified as Adam Goodwin and Jen Kole, who have moved out. According to court documents, no one appeared on behalf of the tenants to contest the eviction. The Current was unable to find phone numbers for Goodwin and Kole, who have apparently moved out of Scarborough. A toll-free number listed on the web site was disconnected. An e-mail to an address on the site didn’t get a reply.
Police began investigating activity at the home after the McKays reported it to them. They later dropped the investigation after the tenants moved out.
Police Chief Robert Moulton said his department would only be interested in possible criminal activity, such as the illegal sale of liquor or prostitution, and none was found. “We haven’t had any information come forward that there was any big violations,” he said.
Activity occurred at night, and the principal of the Blue Point School, Susan Helms, said she didn’t know anything about the house next door and hadn’t heard any complaints from parents.
The police and owners were unaware of a web site devoted to the club, www.clubvisionmaine.com, and another swingers club in Scarborough that the site refers to. Swinging is commonly known as partner swapping.
The site, which is registered to Goodwin, says the club is closed and looking for a new location to expand. It says the club plans to re-open in late spring. While the club was closed, the site recommended patrons go to another club in Scarborough known as Wildflower’s and a club in Lewiston.
E-mails on an Internet group for swingers indicated Wildflower’s was located at an address on Broadturn Road. But a woman who answered the door at the residence denied the home was being used as a swingers club.
The club in Lewiston and the two clubs in Scarborough are the only clubs in Southern Maine, according to e-mails on Internet groups for swingers.
According to its website, “Club Vision is Maine’s premier couples club, located near Portland.”
The web site reads, “We are a full on premises club that is very discreet and professional. We are a BYOB club, so you don’t have to worry about expensive drink prices. There will be a hot and cold buffet served,
non-alcoholic drinks will be provided.”
It also cautions guests to be courteous and understand they have the right to say “no” at any time. “Do not allow yourself to become sexually involved with anybody that you are not interested in. You are in the lifestyle to enjoy yourself, so only do what you want, when you want and with whom you want.” The site goes on to advertise a hot tub, pool table, private rooms and a lounge area.
The McKays, who live in New Hampshire, confirmed that they found out about the swingers club from a neighbor and alerted police.
But they declined to comment because of their ongoing eviction suit, which was filed on Feb. 20.
The suit alleges Goodwin and Kole, who moved into the house in October, broke the rental agreement by making unauthorized alterations to the house and running a business in the home.
According to court documents, Goodwin and Kole allegedly installed a gas heating system, new flooring and a hot tub in the garage.
In the McKays’ complaint they allege, “Defendants have breached Maine law and local ordinance by construction of alterations to the premises and the conduct of a business in the premises…Defendants are operating a nightclub/singles bar and facility in the home,” the suit read.
A neighbor who asked not to be identified said he had heard the neighbors working in the garage late at night and saw them bringing furniture in and out of the house. He never met Goodwin or Kole and said he assumed they had made arrangements with the landlord to renovate the house.
During the fall and winter, he said the tenants were throwing parties four or five nights a week. He would often hear music coming from the home until late at night. One night during the winter, he looked out the window and saw two women in negligees carrying what looked like two bottles of wine walking from the garage to the house. “They weren’t going to bake cookies. That was for sure,” he said.
The Current first learned of neighborhood concerns when a woman who identified herself as the mother of a Blue Point Elementary School student called to say there was a swingers club being operated next to the school.
Robert McGinley, the founder of the National Swing Club Association, estimated there are 400 active swing clubs and many more private homes that have swinging parties nationally. He also estimated there are 10,000 swinging couples in the U.S. The association defines swinging as sexual contact with someone other than a person’s partner or spouse, with that partner’s consent.
“The lifestyle is a rapidly emerging economic powerhouse,” said McGinley, with events like the July 2001 Annual Lifestyles Convention in Las Vegas, which was sponsored by major resorts and airlines.
“It attracts couples that really have it together as a relationship,” said McGinley, who also has a degree in the psychology of human sexuality.
Partners who swing are typically open and honest with each other, which is “not typical of a so-called traditional marriage.”
“Swinging is not just sex. It’s the freedom to be with people you enjoy,” he added.
A house next to the Blue Point Elementary School on Pine Point Road in Scarborough was advertising itself on the Web as a swingers club known as Club Vision until February, when the owners of the home and police found out about it.
Once the club closed, it began using its web site to encourage patrons to use other clubs in the area, including another home-based club called Wildflower’s in Scarborough and a commercial lounge in Lewiston.
The owners of the home at 170 Pine Point Road, Philip and Kathleen McKay, have filed eviction proceedings against the former tenants, identified as Adam Goodwin and Jen Kole, who have moved out. According to court documents, no one appeared on behalf of the tenants to contest the eviction. The Current was unable to find phone numbers for Goodwin and Kole, who have apparently moved out of Scarborough. A toll-free number listed on the web site was disconnected. An e-mail to an address on the site didn’t get a reply.
Police began investigating activity at the home after the McKays reported it to them. They later dropped the investigation after the tenants moved out.
Police Chief Robert Moulton said his department would only be interested in possible criminal activity, such as the illegal sale of liquor or prostitution, and none was found. “We haven’t had any information come forward that there was any big violations,” he said.
Activity occurred at night, and the principal of the Blue Point School, Susan Helms, said she didn’t know anything about the house next door and hadn’t heard any complaints from parents.
The police and owners were unaware of a web site devoted to the club, www.clubvisionmaine.com, and another swingers club in Scarborough that the site refers to. Swinging is commonly known as partner swapping.
The site, which is registered to Goodwin, says the club is closed and looking for a new location to expand. It says the club plans to re-open in late spring. While the club was closed, the site recommended patrons go to another club in Scarborough known as Wildflower’s and a club in Lewiston.
E-mails on an Internet group for swingers indicated Wildflower’s was located at an address on Broadturn Road. But a woman who answered the door at the residence denied the home was being used as a swingers club.
The club in Lewiston and the two clubs in Scarborough are the only clubs in Southern Maine, according to e-mails on Internet groups for swingers.
According to its website, “Club Vision is Maine’s premier couples club, located near Portland.”
The web site reads, “We are a full on premises club that is very discreet and professional. We are a BYOB club, so you don’t have to worry about expensive drink prices. There will be a hot and cold buffet served,
non-alcoholic drinks will be provided.”
It also cautions guests to be courteous and understand they have the right to say “no” at any time. “Do not allow yourself to become sexually involved with anybody that you are not interested in. You are in the lifestyle to enjoy yourself, so only do what you want, when you want and with whom you want.” The site goes on to advertise a hot tub, pool table, private rooms and a lounge area.
The McKays, who live in New Hampshire, confirmed that they found out about the swingers club from a neighbor and alerted police.
But they declined to comment because of their ongoing eviction suit, which was filed on Feb. 20.
The suit alleges Goodwin and Kole, who moved into the house in October, broke the rental agreement by making unauthorized alterations to the house and running a business in the home.
According to court documents, Goodwin and Kole allegedly installed a gas heating system, new flooring and a hot tub in the garage.
In the McKays’ complaint they allege, “Defendants have breached Maine law and local ordinance by construction of alterations to the premises and the conduct of a business in the premises…Defendants are operating a nightclub/singles bar and facility in the home,” the suit read.
A neighbor who asked not to be identified said he had heard the neighbors working in the garage late at night and saw them bringing furniture in and out of the house. He never met Goodwin or Kole and said he assumed they had made arrangements with the landlord to renovate the house.
During the fall and winter, he said the tenants were throwing parties four or five nights a week. He would often hear music coming from the home until late at night. One night during the winter, he looked out the window and saw two women in negligees carrying what looked like two bottles of wine walking from the garage to the house. “They weren’t going to bake cookies. That was for sure,” he said.
The Current first learned of neighborhood concerns when a woman who identified herself as the mother of a Blue Point Elementary School student called to say there was a swingers club being operated next to the school.
Robert McGinley, the founder of the National Swing Club Association, estimated there are 400 active swing clubs and many more private homes that have swinging parties nationally. He also estimated there are 10,000 swinging couples in the U.S. The association defines swinging as sexual contact with someone other than a person’s partner or spouse, with that partner’s consent.
“The lifestyle is a rapidly emerging economic powerhouse,” said McGinley, with events like the July 2001 Annual Lifestyles Convention in Las Vegas, which was sponsored by major resorts and airlines.
“It attracts couples that really have it together as a relationship,” said McGinley, who also has a degree in the psychology of human sexuality.
Partners who swing are typically open and honest with each other, which is “not typical of a so-called traditional marriage.”
“Swinging is not just sex. It’s the freedom to be with people you enjoy,” he added.
Thursday, April 18, 2002
Cancer survivor says diet saved her life
Published in the Current
When asked how she has managed to remain alive, Meg Wolff just smiles. In 1990, she lost a leg to cancer, and in 1997 she underwent surgery for aggressive breast cancer that doctors told her would return within a year.
But the cancer has not returned, and Wolff, who lives on the ocean in Cape Elizabeth, thinks she may have come up with a cure for cancer: macrobiotic eating.
“I really believe you can cure cancer with diet,” Wolff said.
The National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, is doing a study on alternative ways of dealing with cancer, and is exploring macrobiotic eating too.
“So much of modern food (production) is about promoting growth,” Wolff said. And, she said, cancer is really just a group of cells that grow too quickly.
Now 44, Wolff has studied at the Kushi Institute in Massachusetts, and teaches macrobiotic cooking at the Cancer Community Center in South Portland.
She also teaches classes at several locations in the Bethel area, where she lives during the school year to be able to cook for her children, who went to Cape schools until they decided to pursue skiing more seriously.
Her son is now a sophomore at Gould Academy and her daughter is in sixth grade at Hebron Academy.
“I’m committed to cooking for my kids as long as they are in high school,” she said.
“I try to offer them healthy choices at home,” she said. “I think hopefully they’ll make good choices when they go elsewhere.”
When she was sick a few years ago, she read a book by a doctor who had cured himself of an incurable form of cancer with macrobiotic eating, and began to look into it.
“I was just thinking diet for health,” Wolff said.
Her first challenge was to find out what macrobiotics really is. Rather than a specific set of dishes, macrobiotics prescribes diet as a ratio of ingredients.
According to macrobiotics rules, 50 to 60 percent of the food should be whole grains, including brown rice, barley, millet and quinoa; 25 to 35 percent should be vegetables. Five to 10 percent should be beans and bean products, including tofu and tempeh.
Five percent should be nuts and seeds and other “supplementals,” Wolff said, and 5 percent should be soups.
“They suggest that you eat foods that are grown in your climate,” Wolff said. “Organic is what’s really stressed.”
She suggests buying local at places like farm stands and the farmer’s markets in Portland.
It’s not quick and easy. Making meals can be time-consuming, she said, and can require work.
“It just takes motivation and patience,” she said. And a rearrangement of priorities. “Now different things are important to me,” she said.
Part of the success of the diet, she said, is that it’s “food like our ancestors ate,” grown naturally and unprocessed.
“If you’re eating all this stuff that’s filled with life, then they’re going to give you life,” Wolff said. It’s a big contrast to modern diet. “Nutrition-wise we’re pretty poverty-stricken,” she said.
“It’s lifestyle too,” Wolff said. “I really think that diet is a foundation for good health.”
So why don’t more people eat this way?
“I think people just don’t believe that food can make them feel that way,” Wolff said, adding that more people are starting to eat better food, but still want meals that are quick and easy to prepare. “I think people want a magic bullet or pill,” Wolff said.
Despite her diet and her dedication to eating well, she is easygoing on others.
“I try not to be the food police,” Wolff said. “It’s not an all-or-nothing thing.” She encourages people to eat even one macrobiotic meal each week, to begin adapting their diets.
She says it can help, and talks about her own experience.
Her doctors didn’t know what to do with her breast cancer, fearing it could return at any moment.
“I felt like every doctor looked at me with a really sad face,” Wolff said. They recommended a bone-marrow transplant, but she had a gut feeling it would kill her.
“Kind of a light bulb went off in my head,” Wolff said. “I needed to play all my cards.”
So she learned about macrobiotics and made the change, initially cooking macrobiotic meals for herself and other meals for the rest of her family. But she phased them into it, giving them small side dishes of what she was eating.
Eventually the whole family started eating macrobiotics. It keeps her healthy, and her kids as well. “When everything’s going around, they never get sick,” Wolff said.
Her advice for introducing healthy cooking into family life sounds a lot like her approach to cancer. “Don’t be overwhelmed by it,” Wolff said.
When asked how she has managed to remain alive, Meg Wolff just smiles. In 1990, she lost a leg to cancer, and in 1997 she underwent surgery for aggressive breast cancer that doctors told her would return within a year.
But the cancer has not returned, and Wolff, who lives on the ocean in Cape Elizabeth, thinks she may have come up with a cure for cancer: macrobiotic eating.
“I really believe you can cure cancer with diet,” Wolff said.
The National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, is doing a study on alternative ways of dealing with cancer, and is exploring macrobiotic eating too.
“So much of modern food (production) is about promoting growth,” Wolff said. And, she said, cancer is really just a group of cells that grow too quickly.
Now 44, Wolff has studied at the Kushi Institute in Massachusetts, and teaches macrobiotic cooking at the Cancer Community Center in South Portland.
She also teaches classes at several locations in the Bethel area, where she lives during the school year to be able to cook for her children, who went to Cape schools until they decided to pursue skiing more seriously.
Her son is now a sophomore at Gould Academy and her daughter is in sixth grade at Hebron Academy.
“I’m committed to cooking for my kids as long as they are in high school,” she said.
“I try to offer them healthy choices at home,” she said. “I think hopefully they’ll make good choices when they go elsewhere.”
When she was sick a few years ago, she read a book by a doctor who had cured himself of an incurable form of cancer with macrobiotic eating, and began to look into it.
“I was just thinking diet for health,” Wolff said.
Her first challenge was to find out what macrobiotics really is. Rather than a specific set of dishes, macrobiotics prescribes diet as a ratio of ingredients.
According to macrobiotics rules, 50 to 60 percent of the food should be whole grains, including brown rice, barley, millet and quinoa; 25 to 35 percent should be vegetables. Five to 10 percent should be beans and bean products, including tofu and tempeh.
Five percent should be nuts and seeds and other “supplementals,” Wolff said, and 5 percent should be soups.
“They suggest that you eat foods that are grown in your climate,” Wolff said. “Organic is what’s really stressed.”
She suggests buying local at places like farm stands and the farmer’s markets in Portland.
It’s not quick and easy. Making meals can be time-consuming, she said, and can require work.
“It just takes motivation and patience,” she said. And a rearrangement of priorities. “Now different things are important to me,” she said.
Part of the success of the diet, she said, is that it’s “food like our ancestors ate,” grown naturally and unprocessed.
“If you’re eating all this stuff that’s filled with life, then they’re going to give you life,” Wolff said. It’s a big contrast to modern diet. “Nutrition-wise we’re pretty poverty-stricken,” she said.
“It’s lifestyle too,” Wolff said. “I really think that diet is a foundation for good health.”
So why don’t more people eat this way?
“I think people just don’t believe that food can make them feel that way,” Wolff said, adding that more people are starting to eat better food, but still want meals that are quick and easy to prepare. “I think people want a magic bullet or pill,” Wolff said.
Despite her diet and her dedication to eating well, she is easygoing on others.
“I try not to be the food police,” Wolff said. “It’s not an all-or-nothing thing.” She encourages people to eat even one macrobiotic meal each week, to begin adapting their diets.
She says it can help, and talks about her own experience.
Her doctors didn’t know what to do with her breast cancer, fearing it could return at any moment.
“I felt like every doctor looked at me with a really sad face,” Wolff said. They recommended a bone-marrow transplant, but she had a gut feeling it would kill her.
“Kind of a light bulb went off in my head,” Wolff said. “I needed to play all my cards.”
So she learned about macrobiotics and made the change, initially cooking macrobiotic meals for herself and other meals for the rest of her family. But she phased them into it, giving them small side dishes of what she was eating.
Eventually the whole family started eating macrobiotics. It keeps her healthy, and her kids as well. “When everything’s going around, they never get sick,” Wolff said.
Her advice for introducing healthy cooking into family life sounds a lot like her approach to cancer. “Don’t be overwhelmed by it,” Wolff said.
Denial adds to drug problem in Cape Elizabeth
Published in the Current
While anecdotal evidence and a two-year-old survey confirm that Cape teens are keeping up with national statistics when it comes to drug and alcohol abuse, local police, counselors and educators says it’s tough to get parents concerned about the problem.
“The kids like to party, just like they do in other communities,” said police Detective Paul Fenton. He has no hard data, but senses that half of the students at the high school have used marijuana or alcohol.
He gets his numbers from anecdotes and interviews of teens he catches with drugs or alcohol. But kids don’t talk much. “They don’t want to rat their friends out,” Fenton said.
He said marijuana is used more than alcohol, because it is easier to get. And, he said, in the past six months the town has seen a “huge influx” of other drugs, including OxyContin, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and abuse of
Ritalin.
“Heroin is in Cape Elizabeth. It’s a fact,” Fenton said.
There are teens who are doing heroin in town, and it’s not just school drop-outs. It’s kids who are doing well, Fenton said.
All the kids in town have a lot of pressure, to work hard in school and do well in athletics, Fenton said. When they go out, they want to escape. So drug users are not just kids you might stereotypically expect to be on drugs, he said.
“There are the kids that are, quote-unquote, the perfect kid,” Fenton said.
As a result of the drug problem, crime has increased a bit, including a Jan. 6 spree of vehicle, garage and shed break-ins in the Scott Dyer Road and Brentwood area. There is even some small-scale drug dealing in town, Fenton said. Some kids come to Cape to buy drugs, while others from Cape go elsewhere, like Portland.
If parents want to find out if their kids may be drinking, Fenton suggested a quick look at their kids’ wallets. Many kids in town, he said, carry fake IDs right next to their own real IDs.
A survey of sophomores done two years ago – the most recent numbers available – back up what Fenton says.
According to the “Monitoring the Future” survey, done by the University of Michigan, nearly 80 percent of the respondents had taken at least one drink in the previous 12 months, and one-third had consumed alcoholic beverages 10 or more times.
Further, nearly 37 percent of the respondents had been “drunk or very high from drinking alcoholic beverages during the last 30 days.”
Ninety-three percent of students felt alcohol was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get.
And while 59 percent of the students had not used marijuana or hashish in the 12 months preceding the survey, 19 percent had used the drug 10 or more times in that period, and 24.8 percent had used marijuana in their lifetimes, with 85.8 percent of the students thinking marijuana was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get.
As for other drugs, 27.7 percent had used at least one illicit drug other than marijuana. And 39.6 percent of students said someone had offered to sell or give them an illegal drug while at school, in the previous 12 months.
But surveys can be a challenge to undertake and when the results come back.
“There’s this denial of any issues,” said Terry Johnson, co-chair of the Cape Community Coalition, which works to help teens feel more connected to the community, through group discussions and student-tostudent mentoring programs.
“Doing these surveys can be very problematic for the schools,” he said, pointing to schools in other states that have been sued for doing a survey.
“Fear drives people to not do these things,” Johnson said. “Nobody wants to admit there’s a problem.”
But sticking the town’s collective head in the sand, he said, is not a good idea.
“That whole denial piece is really contributing to the problem,” Johnson said. That’s true not just in Cape Elizabeth, but throughout Maine and the nation.
Parents often know
Parents play a big role in enabling teen drinking, according to both kids and police. This poses problems with the law, responsibility and behavior modeling.
Some parents prefer that their children drink at home, presuming that their houses are safer than other places kids would find to drink. But police say parents sometimes come home to find several thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry or other possessions missing.
And even if parents are away when a party occurs, liability for accidents—including car crashes after people leave the party—rests with the homeowner.
“You are responsible, even though you’re not present,” said Officer Paul Gaspar.
If parents leave kids at home, they should come to the police station and sign a form giving police permission to enter their homes if there is anything suspicious going on.
Without that authorization, police who get turned away at the door to a house by a partying teen-ager can’t break up the party.
Parties in the woods can be hard to track down without help from the neighbors who call to report them. When police do find and break up a party, parental cooperation is necessary but sometimes hard to get.
When the police call and say their kid has been caught with alcohol, parents will try to get a summons dropped, saying they teach their kid to “drink responsibly,” Fenton said.
But when the same kid gets a speeding ticket, he said, parents don’t try to get their kid out of trouble by saying they teach their kids to “drive responsibly.”
It’s a double standard that is dangerous for parents and for kids, he said.
When cops tell parents what the kids are doing, parents don’t believe it. But, Fenton said, they should. “I have no reason to lie,” he said.
When he warns parents, he’s helping them catch a problem before it becomes big, not criticizing them for being bad parents, he said.
And parents who fight back against drug and alcohol use among kids become a minority. “There seems to be some social stigma with doing the right thing,” Gaspar said.
They get in bickering matches about who actually brought the bottle of booze the kids were caught with. That misses the point, Gaspar said. “They don’t say, ‘One of our kids had booze and they both hang out together.’”
Parents not stepping up to the plate can be a big problem, he said. They don’t always ask questions or call other parents to verify their kids’ plans.
“It doesn’t mean you don’t trust your kid,” Gaspar said.
And, he pointed out, kids do lie. They follow the example adults set for them. When they see their parents lie, or encounter some parents who use drugs and alcohol with kids, the ethical picture becomes cloudy.
The bigger picture, Gaspar said, is that there is a cultural desensitization to teen-age drinking. Adults set an example, he said. They drink at the office Christmas party and then drive home.
Wanting kids to have friends and be part of the “in crowd” can also take its toll, especially if parents reinforce cliquish behavior. “Even the parents will buy into that,” Fenton said.
Cape teens, according to Johnson of the Cape Coalition, have problems feeling valued if they’re not in sports or on the honor roll, but Johnson said it’s easy to help. “Know the kids in your neighborhood. Say ‘hi’ to them on the street,” he said.
And develop a support structure for parents who will report incidents to police.
“You need to develop accepted codes of conduct for parents,” Johnson said. Parents are sometimes nervous to create tension between neighbors or friends by calling the police.
“A parent doesn’t want to take action because of how other kids will treat their kids at school,” Johnson said.
School efforts
Adults in the schools also struggle with drug and alcohol use. It is less obvious in Cape schools than in other communities, but no less a concern.
At other high schools where Principal Jeff Shedd has worked, he would walk down the hall and now and again smell marijuana on a student. That hasn’t happened so far to him in Cape, he said.
“It’s less overt here,” Shedd said.
But with a high-pressure school environment and expectations that this is to be “the best times of their lives,” he said, drugs and alcohol can be a way to escape.
“Some kids can use alcohol or marijuana and seem to be able to function,” Shedd said.
Though some of the kids are good at hiding their use when at school, if students are caught red-handed, parents tend to cooperate with the schools, Shedd said.
Even then, the law is not very clear. The legal consequences for smoking a cigarette on school grounds are “more certain and severe” than with marijuana, Shedd said. And the consequences for having paraphernalia are greater than for having a drug itself, or for being under the influence of the drug.
One of the causes of drug and alcohol use can be the stress students are under, including pressure to be involved with a lot of activities. Health teacher Andrea Cayer said involvement in extracurricular activities is one way to help kids stay off drugs, but too many activities, with a lot of pressure to succeed, can end up doing more harm than good.
“Our culture doesn’t support a lifestyle of moderation,” she said, suggesting students and parents alike be kept busy but not over-committed.
Many colleges, she said, are more interested in an applicant doing a few activities well for a long period of time, a change from the mid-1980s when colleges rewarded students who were involved in many different activities.
Whatever the cause, Cayer said, the problem of abuse has to be addressed at home.
“I don’t know how much more school can do,” she said, laying responsibility at the door of parents, whom she said don’t always listen before reacting to drug and alcohol use.
Adolescents are in the process of figuring out who they are, separate from their parents. That means they will challenge values, rules and boundaries, Cayer said. They need risk and adrenaline highs, but in safe environments.
“Kids want to be listened to without judgment,” Cayer said. She suggests parents keep communication lines open, so kids don’t have to hide. That can be hard, especially if parents disagree strongly with what kids are saying.
Cayer noted that family can also be a source of stress from which students seek to escape with drugs and alcohol.
Parents, she said, should resist the urge to solve problems for their kids, opting instead to keep them safe while they figure out things on their own.
Cayer reminds parents that good kids can do bad things. “Separate behavior from who the person is,” she said. “Our children aren’t perfect.”
“Kids want to be able to make it through their teen years in a safe environment,” she said. The burden is on parents, teachers and others to provide that.
One of those efforts is the Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education, or DARE, program. It is a regular feature in Cape’s elementary and middle school classrooms. But its effectiveness is limited.
Officer Gaspar, who coordinates the DARE program in Cape schools, said it’s a matter of expectation. With 50 minutes one day a week, he said, “what do you hope to achieve?”
He compared that to the hours of television and movies and music that kids have access to, and in which they hear and see messages indicating that drugs and alcohol are acceptable, if not desirable.
That message even makes it into the schools: Gaspar has heard references to drug use in popular music played at high school and middle school events.
DARE also addresses the consequences of individual actions. People make bad choices and make mistakes, he said. “It’s how you deal with that.”
Adults play into the dynamic of avoiding consequences, Gaspar said, protecting their kids by paying fines for them or otherwise deflecting blame from the kids.
“Everybody shares a part in it,” Detective Fenton said. Neighbors who don’t report the destruction of mailboxes or gardens are a part of the problem, he said, because they allow people to get away with misbehaving.
Cayer suggested people take the focus off kids who make bad decisions and instead ask, “what does it take to be a healthy adolescent?”
Community-minded adults
Some adults in town are working on the problem, but they say it is hard to get parents interested.
Norm Boucher, a prevention educator at Day One, a Fort Williamsbased statewide organization helping young people between the ages of 16 and 24 deal with drug and alcohol use, said the biggest weapon in the fight is information.
Boucher makes awareness and education presentations in schools and communities around the state, but getting the word out isn’t easy.
“It’s a tough battle,” he said. “Very few people show up to awareness nights. Parents don’t show.”
Parental support is important when dealing with teens, he said. The law is black and white, but, Boucher said, “the community doesn’t back (the laws).”
“The grown-ups aren’t encouraging (drinking) but they’re certainly not discouraging (it),” Boucher said. “The biggest enablers are the parents,” he said. “The kids don’t use (drugs) in a vacuum.”
“If parents really meant their threats, it could work,” Boucher said. And parents must back up the police when they get involved.
“Most of the affluent communities want to believe that the problem is in Portland,” Boucher said. But he pointed to the recent deaths of three Portland teenagers on Tukey’s Bridge. They were northbound on I-295 and heading out of the city.
“The Portland kids who want to party go to the affluent communities because that’s where the best drugs are and the best parties and the best booze,” Boucher said.
While Day One is a statewide organization, the Cape Community Coalition focuses on teen issues in town.
Co-chair Johnson agrees that keeping the interest of parents is a sizeable challenge.
“After a crisis you’ll get lots of people. That’ll last a couple of weeks,” he said.
But now, the turnout is small and usually involves one or two new people, and the regular folks who show up at all the coalition events.
“If we get 15 people, we consider it a success,” Johnson said.
The focus, Johnson said, is working on developmental assets that relate to kids’ success and good choices in behavior.
In addition to community conversations, in which a larger audience splits into small discussion groups to address certain issues, the coalition has two student-to-student mentoring programs, one for high school students to help middle schoolers, and the other for middle school students to work with students at Pond Cove.
The coalition also sponsored the climbing wall at the high school, as an activity that challenges kids and allows them to take risks in a safe environment, Johnson said.
The focus is on high school and middle school students. Getting the attention of middle school and elementary school parents has been “a lot harder than we thought,” Johnson said.
What teens think
Teens also think parents have a hard time with the issue of drugs and alcohol, but admit students can have an even harder time dealing with use among their peers.
“I see a lot of risky behavior and I see a lot of naïve parents,” said Cara Jordan, a senior at CEHS who joined the Cape Coalition as a freshman.
Alex Weaver, a senior and the coalition’s co-chair, said he sometimes feels “helpless” when facing drinking and drug use among his peers.
He said adults are often in attendance at coalition meetings, but students are rarer.
“It’s the kind of thing that a lot of kids know about,” Weaver said, but their schedules don’t always allow them to attend. “I don’t think they look at the meetings and don’t want to go,” Weaver said.
Though attendance is small, the programs work. “I think definitely the people who come have been affected,” Weaver said. Parents who attend, he said, go home and talk to their kids about the issues raised at coalition meetings.
Parents do want to get involved and help. “Parents just don’t know what to do,” Jordan said. She offers a suggestion, one the coalition is already doing: “Get kids and adults together and start talking about drinking.”
Parents can find themselves in a strange position, Jordan said. Knowing that kids are pretty likely to drink, should they let their kids drink at home, where the environment may be safer?
Another problem, Jordan said, is “they know what kids do but they don’t want to believe it’s their kids doing it.”
Some adults are especially concerned, she said. “A lot of parents of younger children want to hear what the high school students have to say so they can be prepared,” Jordan said.
Weaver said, “A lot of kids do (drugs or alcohol) because they don’t have anything else to do.”
Others find activities to keep them busy, and the users and the nonusers tend not to mix, he said. “The kids who do (drugs or alcohol) don’t tend to associate with the kids who don’t do it,” Weaver said.
The coalition will hold a community dialogue in early May about parents and drug and alcohol abuse in teen-agers, asking, “What are the things that we do that help create the problem?” Johnson said.
While anecdotal evidence and a two-year-old survey confirm that Cape teens are keeping up with national statistics when it comes to drug and alcohol abuse, local police, counselors and educators says it’s tough to get parents concerned about the problem.
“The kids like to party, just like they do in other communities,” said police Detective Paul Fenton. He has no hard data, but senses that half of the students at the high school have used marijuana or alcohol.
He gets his numbers from anecdotes and interviews of teens he catches with drugs or alcohol. But kids don’t talk much. “They don’t want to rat their friends out,” Fenton said.
He said marijuana is used more than alcohol, because it is easier to get. And, he said, in the past six months the town has seen a “huge influx” of other drugs, including OxyContin, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and abuse of
Ritalin.
“Heroin is in Cape Elizabeth. It’s a fact,” Fenton said.
There are teens who are doing heroin in town, and it’s not just school drop-outs. It’s kids who are doing well, Fenton said.
All the kids in town have a lot of pressure, to work hard in school and do well in athletics, Fenton said. When they go out, they want to escape. So drug users are not just kids you might stereotypically expect to be on drugs, he said.
“There are the kids that are, quote-unquote, the perfect kid,” Fenton said.
As a result of the drug problem, crime has increased a bit, including a Jan. 6 spree of vehicle, garage and shed break-ins in the Scott Dyer Road and Brentwood area. There is even some small-scale drug dealing in town, Fenton said. Some kids come to Cape to buy drugs, while others from Cape go elsewhere, like Portland.
If parents want to find out if their kids may be drinking, Fenton suggested a quick look at their kids’ wallets. Many kids in town, he said, carry fake IDs right next to their own real IDs.
A survey of sophomores done two years ago – the most recent numbers available – back up what Fenton says.
According to the “Monitoring the Future” survey, done by the University of Michigan, nearly 80 percent of the respondents had taken at least one drink in the previous 12 months, and one-third had consumed alcoholic beverages 10 or more times.
Further, nearly 37 percent of the respondents had been “drunk or very high from drinking alcoholic beverages during the last 30 days.”
Ninety-three percent of students felt alcohol was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get.
And while 59 percent of the students had not used marijuana or hashish in the 12 months preceding the survey, 19 percent had used the drug 10 or more times in that period, and 24.8 percent had used marijuana in their lifetimes, with 85.8 percent of the students thinking marijuana was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get.
As for other drugs, 27.7 percent had used at least one illicit drug other than marijuana. And 39.6 percent of students said someone had offered to sell or give them an illegal drug while at school, in the previous 12 months.
But surveys can be a challenge to undertake and when the results come back.
“There’s this denial of any issues,” said Terry Johnson, co-chair of the Cape Community Coalition, which works to help teens feel more connected to the community, through group discussions and student-tostudent mentoring programs.
“Doing these surveys can be very problematic for the schools,” he said, pointing to schools in other states that have been sued for doing a survey.
“Fear drives people to not do these things,” Johnson said. “Nobody wants to admit there’s a problem.”
But sticking the town’s collective head in the sand, he said, is not a good idea.
“That whole denial piece is really contributing to the problem,” Johnson said. That’s true not just in Cape Elizabeth, but throughout Maine and the nation.
Parents often know
Parents play a big role in enabling teen drinking, according to both kids and police. This poses problems with the law, responsibility and behavior modeling.
Some parents prefer that their children drink at home, presuming that their houses are safer than other places kids would find to drink. But police say parents sometimes come home to find several thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry or other possessions missing.
And even if parents are away when a party occurs, liability for accidents—including car crashes after people leave the party—rests with the homeowner.
“You are responsible, even though you’re not present,” said Officer Paul Gaspar.
If parents leave kids at home, they should come to the police station and sign a form giving police permission to enter their homes if there is anything suspicious going on.
Without that authorization, police who get turned away at the door to a house by a partying teen-ager can’t break up the party.
Parties in the woods can be hard to track down without help from the neighbors who call to report them. When police do find and break up a party, parental cooperation is necessary but sometimes hard to get.
When the police call and say their kid has been caught with alcohol, parents will try to get a summons dropped, saying they teach their kid to “drink responsibly,” Fenton said.
But when the same kid gets a speeding ticket, he said, parents don’t try to get their kid out of trouble by saying they teach their kids to “drive responsibly.”
It’s a double standard that is dangerous for parents and for kids, he said.
When cops tell parents what the kids are doing, parents don’t believe it. But, Fenton said, they should. “I have no reason to lie,” he said.
When he warns parents, he’s helping them catch a problem before it becomes big, not criticizing them for being bad parents, he said.
And parents who fight back against drug and alcohol use among kids become a minority. “There seems to be some social stigma with doing the right thing,” Gaspar said.
They get in bickering matches about who actually brought the bottle of booze the kids were caught with. That misses the point, Gaspar said. “They don’t say, ‘One of our kids had booze and they both hang out together.’”
Parents not stepping up to the plate can be a big problem, he said. They don’t always ask questions or call other parents to verify their kids’ plans.
“It doesn’t mean you don’t trust your kid,” Gaspar said.
And, he pointed out, kids do lie. They follow the example adults set for them. When they see their parents lie, or encounter some parents who use drugs and alcohol with kids, the ethical picture becomes cloudy.
The bigger picture, Gaspar said, is that there is a cultural desensitization to teen-age drinking. Adults set an example, he said. They drink at the office Christmas party and then drive home.
Wanting kids to have friends and be part of the “in crowd” can also take its toll, especially if parents reinforce cliquish behavior. “Even the parents will buy into that,” Fenton said.
Cape teens, according to Johnson of the Cape Coalition, have problems feeling valued if they’re not in sports or on the honor roll, but Johnson said it’s easy to help. “Know the kids in your neighborhood. Say ‘hi’ to them on the street,” he said.
And develop a support structure for parents who will report incidents to police.
“You need to develop accepted codes of conduct for parents,” Johnson said. Parents are sometimes nervous to create tension between neighbors or friends by calling the police.
“A parent doesn’t want to take action because of how other kids will treat their kids at school,” Johnson said.
School efforts
Adults in the schools also struggle with drug and alcohol use. It is less obvious in Cape schools than in other communities, but no less a concern.
At other high schools where Principal Jeff Shedd has worked, he would walk down the hall and now and again smell marijuana on a student. That hasn’t happened so far to him in Cape, he said.
“It’s less overt here,” Shedd said.
But with a high-pressure school environment and expectations that this is to be “the best times of their lives,” he said, drugs and alcohol can be a way to escape.
“Some kids can use alcohol or marijuana and seem to be able to function,” Shedd said.
Though some of the kids are good at hiding their use when at school, if students are caught red-handed, parents tend to cooperate with the schools, Shedd said.
Even then, the law is not very clear. The legal consequences for smoking a cigarette on school grounds are “more certain and severe” than with marijuana, Shedd said. And the consequences for having paraphernalia are greater than for having a drug itself, or for being under the influence of the drug.
One of the causes of drug and alcohol use can be the stress students are under, including pressure to be involved with a lot of activities. Health teacher Andrea Cayer said involvement in extracurricular activities is one way to help kids stay off drugs, but too many activities, with a lot of pressure to succeed, can end up doing more harm than good.
“Our culture doesn’t support a lifestyle of moderation,” she said, suggesting students and parents alike be kept busy but not over-committed.
Many colleges, she said, are more interested in an applicant doing a few activities well for a long period of time, a change from the mid-1980s when colleges rewarded students who were involved in many different activities.
Whatever the cause, Cayer said, the problem of abuse has to be addressed at home.
“I don’t know how much more school can do,” she said, laying responsibility at the door of parents, whom she said don’t always listen before reacting to drug and alcohol use.
Adolescents are in the process of figuring out who they are, separate from their parents. That means they will challenge values, rules and boundaries, Cayer said. They need risk and adrenaline highs, but in safe environments.
“Kids want to be listened to without judgment,” Cayer said. She suggests parents keep communication lines open, so kids don’t have to hide. That can be hard, especially if parents disagree strongly with what kids are saying.
Cayer noted that family can also be a source of stress from which students seek to escape with drugs and alcohol.
Parents, she said, should resist the urge to solve problems for their kids, opting instead to keep them safe while they figure out things on their own.
Cayer reminds parents that good kids can do bad things. “Separate behavior from who the person is,” she said. “Our children aren’t perfect.”
“Kids want to be able to make it through their teen years in a safe environment,” she said. The burden is on parents, teachers and others to provide that.
One of those efforts is the Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education, or DARE, program. It is a regular feature in Cape’s elementary and middle school classrooms. But its effectiveness is limited.
Officer Gaspar, who coordinates the DARE program in Cape schools, said it’s a matter of expectation. With 50 minutes one day a week, he said, “what do you hope to achieve?”
He compared that to the hours of television and movies and music that kids have access to, and in which they hear and see messages indicating that drugs and alcohol are acceptable, if not desirable.
That message even makes it into the schools: Gaspar has heard references to drug use in popular music played at high school and middle school events.
DARE also addresses the consequences of individual actions. People make bad choices and make mistakes, he said. “It’s how you deal with that.”
Adults play into the dynamic of avoiding consequences, Gaspar said, protecting their kids by paying fines for them or otherwise deflecting blame from the kids.
“Everybody shares a part in it,” Detective Fenton said. Neighbors who don’t report the destruction of mailboxes or gardens are a part of the problem, he said, because they allow people to get away with misbehaving.
Cayer suggested people take the focus off kids who make bad decisions and instead ask, “what does it take to be a healthy adolescent?”
Community-minded adults
Some adults in town are working on the problem, but they say it is hard to get parents interested.
Norm Boucher, a prevention educator at Day One, a Fort Williamsbased statewide organization helping young people between the ages of 16 and 24 deal with drug and alcohol use, said the biggest weapon in the fight is information.
Boucher makes awareness and education presentations in schools and communities around the state, but getting the word out isn’t easy.
“It’s a tough battle,” he said. “Very few people show up to awareness nights. Parents don’t show.”
Parental support is important when dealing with teens, he said. The law is black and white, but, Boucher said, “the community doesn’t back (the laws).”
“The grown-ups aren’t encouraging (drinking) but they’re certainly not discouraging (it),” Boucher said. “The biggest enablers are the parents,” he said. “The kids don’t use (drugs) in a vacuum.”
“If parents really meant their threats, it could work,” Boucher said. And parents must back up the police when they get involved.
“Most of the affluent communities want to believe that the problem is in Portland,” Boucher said. But he pointed to the recent deaths of three Portland teenagers on Tukey’s Bridge. They were northbound on I-295 and heading out of the city.
“The Portland kids who want to party go to the affluent communities because that’s where the best drugs are and the best parties and the best booze,” Boucher said.
While Day One is a statewide organization, the Cape Community Coalition focuses on teen issues in town.
Co-chair Johnson agrees that keeping the interest of parents is a sizeable challenge.
“After a crisis you’ll get lots of people. That’ll last a couple of weeks,” he said.
But now, the turnout is small and usually involves one or two new people, and the regular folks who show up at all the coalition events.
“If we get 15 people, we consider it a success,” Johnson said.
The focus, Johnson said, is working on developmental assets that relate to kids’ success and good choices in behavior.
In addition to community conversations, in which a larger audience splits into small discussion groups to address certain issues, the coalition has two student-to-student mentoring programs, one for high school students to help middle schoolers, and the other for middle school students to work with students at Pond Cove.
The coalition also sponsored the climbing wall at the high school, as an activity that challenges kids and allows them to take risks in a safe environment, Johnson said.
The focus is on high school and middle school students. Getting the attention of middle school and elementary school parents has been “a lot harder than we thought,” Johnson said.
What teens think
Teens also think parents have a hard time with the issue of drugs and alcohol, but admit students can have an even harder time dealing with use among their peers.
“I see a lot of risky behavior and I see a lot of naïve parents,” said Cara Jordan, a senior at CEHS who joined the Cape Coalition as a freshman.
Alex Weaver, a senior and the coalition’s co-chair, said he sometimes feels “helpless” when facing drinking and drug use among his peers.
He said adults are often in attendance at coalition meetings, but students are rarer.
“It’s the kind of thing that a lot of kids know about,” Weaver said, but their schedules don’t always allow them to attend. “I don’t think they look at the meetings and don’t want to go,” Weaver said.
Though attendance is small, the programs work. “I think definitely the people who come have been affected,” Weaver said. Parents who attend, he said, go home and talk to their kids about the issues raised at coalition meetings.
Parents do want to get involved and help. “Parents just don’t know what to do,” Jordan said. She offers a suggestion, one the coalition is already doing: “Get kids and adults together and start talking about drinking.”
Parents can find themselves in a strange position, Jordan said. Knowing that kids are pretty likely to drink, should they let their kids drink at home, where the environment may be safer?
Another problem, Jordan said, is “they know what kids do but they don’t want to believe it’s their kids doing it.”
Some adults are especially concerned, she said. “A lot of parents of younger children want to hear what the high school students have to say so they can be prepared,” Jordan said.
Weaver said, “A lot of kids do (drugs or alcohol) because they don’t have anything else to do.”
Others find activities to keep them busy, and the users and the nonusers tend not to mix, he said. “The kids who do (drugs or alcohol) don’t tend to associate with the kids who don’t do it,” Weaver said.
The coalition will hold a community dialogue in early May about parents and drug and alcohol abuse in teen-agers, asking, “What are the things that we do that help create the problem?” Johnson said.
Students take PATHS toward careers
Published in the Current; co-written with Kate Irish Collins
Dustin Perreault, a senior at Scarborough High School, wants to be a diesel engine technician. He already has a job waiting for him after graduation in June and credits the auto body program at the Portland Arts and Technology High School (PATHS) for getting him ready.
Perreault is among 26 Scarborough students and nine Cape Elizabeth students attending PATHS this year. These students are learning trades from video production to fashion merchandising to commercial art. Other programs include dance and music, horticulture and masonry.
Students at SHS have the opportunity to learn a skill or trade by attending either PATHS or the Westbrook Regional Vocational Center. “These two schools offer our students 27 different programs that we would not be able to produce locally,” said Scarborough schools Assistant Superintendent David Doyle. No students from Cape attend Westbrook Vocational.
Both Scarborough and Cape students attending vocational classes still earn their core credits in English, math, social studies, science and physical education at their hometown high schools.
Value for the dollar
Scarborough pays $140,533 for students to attend these vocational programs. The amount each sending school is assessed is based on a percentage of the average number of students that have attended over the past two years. “The amount we spend is less than one percent of the overall operating budget,” Doyle said.
Cape Elizabeth pays $84,124 for students to attend PATHS. “It’s really a bargain,” said Cape School Board member Kevin Sweeney, who is also chair of the PATHS general advisory council. “PATHS offers a huge number of programs,” Sweeney said. In the fall, the school will add a biotechnology program, in response to demand from Maine’s growing biotech sector for qualified workers. None of those programs, Sweeney said, could be offered in Cape. CEHS Principal Jeff Shedd wants students to consider PATHS more frequently. “I think our guidance counselors would like more students to go to PATHS,” Shedd said.
“It’s such a huge bargain for the buck,” Cal Chaplin, PATHS director, said. “Kids come here thinking they’re not students. At this school, they begin to see themselves as smart,” she said.
Westbrook offers programs in such trades as business and computer technology, driving commercial vehicles, automotives and the culinary arts. Westbrook has a restaurant that is open to the public and marketing students run the school store which brings in around $50,000 a year, said Westbrook Vocational Principal Todd Fields.
“We also offer medical occupations and students can graduate with a minimum of a certified nurse assistant’s training,” Fields said.
Student choice
PATHS serves 544 students from 23 high schools in Cumberland County and the town of Kennebunk in York County and was started in 1976. Westbrook Regional Vocational first opened its doors in 1963 and went through a renovation and addition project three years ago.
“Students at Scarborough self-select one of the two vocational schools to attend, depending on their talents and interests. Students are given a chance to tour each school and meet with perspective teachers,” Doyle said.
“This is a school of choice, which makes a big difference,” said PATHS guidance counselor, Frank Ingerowski. “The numbers are up in each program. We’re seeing a significant push towards learning a trade.”
“We do encourage our students to get a post-secondary education, mostly at the technical college level. We also have a number of students who do go into the work force after graduation and others choose the military,” he added.
“We encourage them to be in the business world,” Chaplin said. She is concerned that parents and students don’t think of PATHS when considering high school courses. “I think there’s a lot of educating we can do to attract more students,” Chaplin said.
Each of the school’s 24 programs has four or five business partners, who help make sure the skills students are learning are the ones they will use in the marketplace. Some businesses also offer internships or job-shadowing experience to PATHS students. “We’re constantly connected,” Chaplin said.
Learning skills
A food program also trains special education students to work in food service. “We cook here, we prep here,” said Cape Elizabeth student Paul Sandberg, gesturing to different sections of the kitchen. For the Thanksgiving harvest meal, the food workers served 700 people.
“I like it a lot. It’s more hands-on,” said Eddie Robbins, a junior at Cape Elizabeth High School in his third year at PATHS. He completed horticulture, and is now working on video production. The two and a half hours go quickly, he said. “It feels like a half-hour,” Robbins said.
“You get to really get involved with what you’re interested in,” said Derek Danie, a Cape sophomore in his first program, working with computers.
Scarborough senior Perreault would recommend the program at PATHS to others. “This is a great program if you like working with cars, especially restoration or collision work,” Perrault said. Perrault admits to missing some things at Scarborough High, but most of his friends are at PATHS.
Josie Hastings is a junior at Scarborough and is in the fashion-merchandising program at PATHS. She intends to go to Brooks College in California after graduation. “There’s more freedom here. I like it a lot better than Scarborough,” Hastings said.
Scarborough junior Joe Ellis is in the video technology program and is learning how to create professional video productions such as commercials and documentaries. “I love this place. I wish that I could take some of the basics here too,” Ellis said. “It was a little strange at first, traveling between the two schools, but now it’s easy. I would definitely recommend it here,” he added.
Dustin Perreault, a senior at Scarborough High School, wants to be a diesel engine technician. He already has a job waiting for him after graduation in June and credits the auto body program at the Portland Arts and Technology High School (PATHS) for getting him ready.
Perreault is among 26 Scarborough students and nine Cape Elizabeth students attending PATHS this year. These students are learning trades from video production to fashion merchandising to commercial art. Other programs include dance and music, horticulture and masonry.
Students at SHS have the opportunity to learn a skill or trade by attending either PATHS or the Westbrook Regional Vocational Center. “These two schools offer our students 27 different programs that we would not be able to produce locally,” said Scarborough schools Assistant Superintendent David Doyle. No students from Cape attend Westbrook Vocational.
Both Scarborough and Cape students attending vocational classes still earn their core credits in English, math, social studies, science and physical education at their hometown high schools.
Value for the dollar
Scarborough pays $140,533 for students to attend these vocational programs. The amount each sending school is assessed is based on a percentage of the average number of students that have attended over the past two years. “The amount we spend is less than one percent of the overall operating budget,” Doyle said.
Cape Elizabeth pays $84,124 for students to attend PATHS. “It’s really a bargain,” said Cape School Board member Kevin Sweeney, who is also chair of the PATHS general advisory council. “PATHS offers a huge number of programs,” Sweeney said. In the fall, the school will add a biotechnology program, in response to demand from Maine’s growing biotech sector for qualified workers. None of those programs, Sweeney said, could be offered in Cape. CEHS Principal Jeff Shedd wants students to consider PATHS more frequently. “I think our guidance counselors would like more students to go to PATHS,” Shedd said.
“It’s such a huge bargain for the buck,” Cal Chaplin, PATHS director, said. “Kids come here thinking they’re not students. At this school, they begin to see themselves as smart,” she said.
Westbrook offers programs in such trades as business and computer technology, driving commercial vehicles, automotives and the culinary arts. Westbrook has a restaurant that is open to the public and marketing students run the school store which brings in around $50,000 a year, said Westbrook Vocational Principal Todd Fields.
“We also offer medical occupations and students can graduate with a minimum of a certified nurse assistant’s training,” Fields said.
Student choice
PATHS serves 544 students from 23 high schools in Cumberland County and the town of Kennebunk in York County and was started in 1976. Westbrook Regional Vocational first opened its doors in 1963 and went through a renovation and addition project three years ago.
“Students at Scarborough self-select one of the two vocational schools to attend, depending on their talents and interests. Students are given a chance to tour each school and meet with perspective teachers,” Doyle said.
“This is a school of choice, which makes a big difference,” said PATHS guidance counselor, Frank Ingerowski. “The numbers are up in each program. We’re seeing a significant push towards learning a trade.”
“We do encourage our students to get a post-secondary education, mostly at the technical college level. We also have a number of students who do go into the work force after graduation and others choose the military,” he added.
“We encourage them to be in the business world,” Chaplin said. She is concerned that parents and students don’t think of PATHS when considering high school courses. “I think there’s a lot of educating we can do to attract more students,” Chaplin said.
Each of the school’s 24 programs has four or five business partners, who help make sure the skills students are learning are the ones they will use in the marketplace. Some businesses also offer internships or job-shadowing experience to PATHS students. “We’re constantly connected,” Chaplin said.
Learning skills
A food program also trains special education students to work in food service. “We cook here, we prep here,” said Cape Elizabeth student Paul Sandberg, gesturing to different sections of the kitchen. For the Thanksgiving harvest meal, the food workers served 700 people.
“I like it a lot. It’s more hands-on,” said Eddie Robbins, a junior at Cape Elizabeth High School in his third year at PATHS. He completed horticulture, and is now working on video production. The two and a half hours go quickly, he said. “It feels like a half-hour,” Robbins said.
“You get to really get involved with what you’re interested in,” said Derek Danie, a Cape sophomore in his first program, working with computers.
Scarborough senior Perreault would recommend the program at PATHS to others. “This is a great program if you like working with cars, especially restoration or collision work,” Perrault said. Perrault admits to missing some things at Scarborough High, but most of his friends are at PATHS.
Josie Hastings is a junior at Scarborough and is in the fashion-merchandising program at PATHS. She intends to go to Brooks College in California after graduation. “There’s more freedom here. I like it a lot better than Scarborough,” Hastings said.
Scarborough junior Joe Ellis is in the video technology program and is learning how to create professional video productions such as commercials and documentaries. “I love this place. I wish that I could take some of the basics here too,” Ellis said. “It was a little strange at first, traveling between the two schools, but now it’s easy. I would definitely recommend it here,” he added.
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