Published in the Current
Kevin Concannon of Scarborough, formerly Maine’s commissioner of human services, has taken a job at the helm of the Iowa Department of Human Services.
That agency, like the one planned for Maine, combines health and human services and mental health. It also adds juvenile corrections.
“That is similar to the agency that I was in charge of in Oregon” from 1987 to 1995, Concannon said. Last month he had told the Current that he was looking to the private, non-profit sector. He says now that he had a change of heart on the way back from a job interview in Oregon.
“What do I really like the most?” he asked himself. “What I really like is what I’ve been doing on the public side,” he said.
Iowa is different from Maine in many ways, he said. Iowa has 3 million people spread across twice the geographic area as Maine.
“They have 99 counties,” Concannon said.
There are some similarities, however, in terms of the work he has done here. “They want to have an effect on things like prescription drugs, alternatives to nursing homes and Medicaid waivers. And I said, ‘I’m your man,’” Concannon said.
Of further interest, both the governor and lieutenant governor of Iowa are beneficiaries of the state’s human services department. Gov. Tom Vilsack was adopted, and Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson has an autistic child, Concannon said. He expects their experience to translate to strong support for his work.
Concannon expects to be confirmed by the state Senate in mid-April. He will sell his home in Scarborough and move to the Des Moines area, he said. His children, now adults, are still in Maine however, so Concannon and his wife will return to visit, he said.
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Ft. Williams fee killed
Published in the Current
As expected, the Cape Elizabeth Town Council ended discussion on admission to Fort Williams Park without imposing any fees. Five councilors said they would not support the fees proposed, and most said they would not support any fee for park entry.
Councilor Mary Ann Lynch, who had proposed a $5 annual charge for cars and $40 for tour buses, said she was glad to have raised the issue for discussion, but accepted that it was not to be. The fee was projected to raise $200,000 annually.
Councilor Anne Swift-Kayatta spoke in support of the fees, but for outsiders, not Cape residents. She said just under half of the e-mails she had received were for the fees.
In the historical documents laying out the park, its use was to be “within the financial capabilities of the town,” Swift-Kayatta said.
She wanted the money to go to the upkeep of the park itself, rather than the town’s general operating fund, as Lynch had proposed.
Because of tight budgets, Swift- Kayatta said people who use the park should pay. “Right now, Cape citizens do not freely enjoy Fort Williams,” because they pay for it through property taxes. “Only the tourists do,” she said.
Councilor Penny Carson said she noticed a contradiction between the proposal and people’s positions. While the idea was put forward to decrease pressure on the property tax and allow fixed-income people to stay in town,
most of the people who spoke against the fee were from the group the idea hoped to protect.
Residents spoke for and against the idea, suggesting some realistic solutions and others more amusing. Many wore stickers saying “NO” to show their opposition to the fees.
Eleanor Baker spoke on behalf of the Fort Williams Charitable Foundation, saying the organization’s mission was to raise charitable donations “to help keep the park free and open for all.” She said the council should give the foundation a chance before imposing fees.
“The foundation hasn’t been given enough time to do its job,” she said.
Other residents also expressed their concern that charging a fee would result in decreased volunteerism at the park.
One volunteer, Ruth Pitzele, said, “the people who volunteer might change their minds” if the park was no longer free.
Another resident suggested keeping costs down by increasing volunteerism. Eric Copperman said he moved to Cape from New York, where there was “class conflict” between people who could afford things and people who could not.
“Please do not do this to our town,” he said. Instead, people could help the town budget themselves: “Go to the park, pick up the trash, do it for free,” he said.
Some also spoke about the tradition of keeping the park free for everyone to use.
Al Barthelman, chair of the Fort Williams Advisory Commission, said the fort’s operating expenses were less than half a percent of town spending.
Jack Sears said Portland Head Light would be the only Maine lighthouse
with an admission fee, and suggested opening the south road for free access to the lighthouse alone. He then drew laughs with his idea of selling sponsorships for the park; he distributed to councilors digital mock-ups of the lighthouse with a Nike “swoosh” logo on it as an example of a way to help the park make money.
Stephen Simonds said he was a member of the last original Fort Williams study committee before the park was actually purchased by the town. “The word we heard was ‘leave this Fort Williams open without a fee,’” he said.
Brian Guthrie suggested asking for donations and seeing how much that raised. He also proposed charging a fine for people who get locked in the park by staying after closing time, saying they cost the town money to unlock the gate and let them out.
Representatives of the tourism industry also spoke to the council. Both Steve Lyons of the state Department of Tourism and Don Haggett, who helps bring bus tours to Maine, said tour companies would want lead time, to be able to incorporate the admission fees into ticket prices.
Jeanne Gross, director of the Portland Head Light Museum, said the museum’s entry fee of $2 turns away half of the people who get to the door. She predicted the volunteers would quit if there were fees, and that the town would have to hire replacements for them.
School funding also came into the discussion. Kevin Stack said he saw a councilor on television say that the town is “wealthy and can afford to pay for a park.” He differed, saying “if we were a wealthy town, there would have been no problem” to pay for the school construction project discussed the previous evening.
Elaine Moloney, finance chair of the School Board, who spoke as a private citizen, said “the schools are struggling in maintaining programs.”
She challenged the town’s statement that its contribution to the county budget is “beyond their control,” while the schools were held to account for reductions in state funding totaling nearly $1 million over the past two years.
“We must look at both the school and the town budgets as one,” she said.
When faced with cutting programs or charging fees, she saw the latter as “the lesser of two evils."
As expected, the Cape Elizabeth Town Council ended discussion on admission to Fort Williams Park without imposing any fees. Five councilors said they would not support the fees proposed, and most said they would not support any fee for park entry.
Councilor Mary Ann Lynch, who had proposed a $5 annual charge for cars and $40 for tour buses, said she was glad to have raised the issue for discussion, but accepted that it was not to be. The fee was projected to raise $200,000 annually.
Councilor Anne Swift-Kayatta spoke in support of the fees, but for outsiders, not Cape residents. She said just under half of the e-mails she had received were for the fees.
In the historical documents laying out the park, its use was to be “within the financial capabilities of the town,” Swift-Kayatta said.
She wanted the money to go to the upkeep of the park itself, rather than the town’s general operating fund, as Lynch had proposed.
Because of tight budgets, Swift- Kayatta said people who use the park should pay. “Right now, Cape citizens do not freely enjoy Fort Williams,” because they pay for it through property taxes. “Only the tourists do,” she said.
Councilor Penny Carson said she noticed a contradiction between the proposal and people’s positions. While the idea was put forward to decrease pressure on the property tax and allow fixed-income people to stay in town,
most of the people who spoke against the fee were from the group the idea hoped to protect.
Residents spoke for and against the idea, suggesting some realistic solutions and others more amusing. Many wore stickers saying “NO” to show their opposition to the fees.
Eleanor Baker spoke on behalf of the Fort Williams Charitable Foundation, saying the organization’s mission was to raise charitable donations “to help keep the park free and open for all.” She said the council should give the foundation a chance before imposing fees.
“The foundation hasn’t been given enough time to do its job,” she said.
Other residents also expressed their concern that charging a fee would result in decreased volunteerism at the park.
One volunteer, Ruth Pitzele, said, “the people who volunteer might change their minds” if the park was no longer free.
Another resident suggested keeping costs down by increasing volunteerism. Eric Copperman said he moved to Cape from New York, where there was “class conflict” between people who could afford things and people who could not.
“Please do not do this to our town,” he said. Instead, people could help the town budget themselves: “Go to the park, pick up the trash, do it for free,” he said.
Some also spoke about the tradition of keeping the park free for everyone to use.
Al Barthelman, chair of the Fort Williams Advisory Commission, said the fort’s operating expenses were less than half a percent of town spending.
Jack Sears said Portland Head Light would be the only Maine lighthouse
with an admission fee, and suggested opening the south road for free access to the lighthouse alone. He then drew laughs with his idea of selling sponsorships for the park; he distributed to councilors digital mock-ups of the lighthouse with a Nike “swoosh” logo on it as an example of a way to help the park make money.
Stephen Simonds said he was a member of the last original Fort Williams study committee before the park was actually purchased by the town. “The word we heard was ‘leave this Fort Williams open without a fee,’” he said.
Brian Guthrie suggested asking for donations and seeing how much that raised. He also proposed charging a fine for people who get locked in the park by staying after closing time, saying they cost the town money to unlock the gate and let them out.
Representatives of the tourism industry also spoke to the council. Both Steve Lyons of the state Department of Tourism and Don Haggett, who helps bring bus tours to Maine, said tour companies would want lead time, to be able to incorporate the admission fees into ticket prices.
Jeanne Gross, director of the Portland Head Light Museum, said the museum’s entry fee of $2 turns away half of the people who get to the door. She predicted the volunteers would quit if there were fees, and that the town would have to hire replacements for them.
School funding also came into the discussion. Kevin Stack said he saw a councilor on television say that the town is “wealthy and can afford to pay for a park.” He differed, saying “if we were a wealthy town, there would have been no problem” to pay for the school construction project discussed the previous evening.
Elaine Moloney, finance chair of the School Board, who spoke as a private citizen, said “the schools are struggling in maintaining programs.”
She challenged the town’s statement that its contribution to the county budget is “beyond their control,” while the schools were held to account for reductions in state funding totaling nearly $1 million over the past two years.
“We must look at both the school and the town budgets as one,” she said.
When faced with cutting programs or charging fees, she saw the latter as “the lesser of two evils."
Maine blood heads to Navy
Published in the Current
The U.S. Navy has asked the Maine Blood Center in Scarborough to send donated blood to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., to respond to additional need for blood by the armed forces.
MBC normally collects blood donations from around the state and provides blood and platelets to Maine Medical Center and other local hospitals. One place that has hosted blood drives over the past eight years is the Supervisor of Shipbuilding facility, a U.S. Navy site near Bath Iron Works, according to Kathy Carmichael at MBC.
In exchange for permission to collect blood at a Navy site, MBC had to agree to send blood to the Navy upon request, Carmichael said.
“The time has come,” she said. Mainers have benefited from blood donations by Navy personnel, and now it is time to repay the debt, she said.
Carmichael declined to be specific about how much blood MBC is sending to the Navy. “It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to put a bit of a strain on us,” she said. She also did not know how long the Navy would need MBC to continue to send blood.
Carmichael did not know why the Navy needs the blood, but speculated that some prospective donors in the military may have been inoculated against smallpox, making them ineligible to give blood.
Kevin Sforza, a spokesman for the National Naval Medical Center, said MBC sends two units of platelets to the hospital each Friday.
Platelets are in high demand because they expire in five days and cannot be frozen like whole blood can.
Many of the hospital’s usual donors have been rendered ineligible, either by being vaccinated against smallpox or other diseases in preparation for war, or by being exposed to West Nile Virus, Sforza said. “Having sufficient blood supplies ready to use is crucial to military effectiveness,” he said.
The U.S. Navy has asked the Maine Blood Center in Scarborough to send donated blood to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., to respond to additional need for blood by the armed forces.
MBC normally collects blood donations from around the state and provides blood and platelets to Maine Medical Center and other local hospitals. One place that has hosted blood drives over the past eight years is the Supervisor of Shipbuilding facility, a U.S. Navy site near Bath Iron Works, according to Kathy Carmichael at MBC.
In exchange for permission to collect blood at a Navy site, MBC had to agree to send blood to the Navy upon request, Carmichael said.
“The time has come,” she said. Mainers have benefited from blood donations by Navy personnel, and now it is time to repay the debt, she said.
Carmichael declined to be specific about how much blood MBC is sending to the Navy. “It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to put a bit of a strain on us,” she said. She also did not know how long the Navy would need MBC to continue to send blood.
Carmichael did not know why the Navy needs the blood, but speculated that some prospective donors in the military may have been inoculated against smallpox, making them ineligible to give blood.
Kevin Sforza, a spokesman for the National Naval Medical Center, said MBC sends two units of platelets to the hospital each Friday.
Platelets are in high demand because they expire in five days and cannot be frozen like whole blood can.
Many of the hospital’s usual donors have been rendered ineligible, either by being vaccinated against smallpox or other diseases in preparation for war, or by being exposed to West Nile Virus, Sforza said. “Having sufficient blood supplies ready to use is crucial to military effectiveness,” he said.
Heavy, dense, slow to move: Copenhagen like natural uranium
Published in the Portland Phoenix
Copenhagen
Written by Michael Frayn. Directed by Michael Rafkin. With Alison Edwards, Lee Godart, and Glen Pannell. At Portland Stage Company through March 23. Call (207) 774-0465.
Uranium in its natural form includes two subtypes: U-238, a heavy metal that absorbs energy without flinching, and U-235, the fuel for nuclear reactors and the first nuclear bombs. Volatile U-235 must be extracted from the surrounding material and gathered together in a tiny space to form a crucible of powerful material that explodes in a fury of energy and light.
So it is with a play. Dense words, dark on the page, must have their meaning and potential extracted and then presented on the crucible of a stage to enlighten and excite the audience. Copenhagen is a hard play to do this with, and resisted being distilled by Portland Stage Company.
Playwright Michael Frayn delved deep into theoretical physics to understand a historical event: German physicist Werner Heisenberg traveled to Nazi-occupied Copenhagen in 1941, where he spoke with his former teacher, Niels Bohr, the discoverer of atomic structure and grandfather of nuclear science. The subject of their conversation remains unknown. What Frayn surfaced with is a play that demonstrates in art two important concepts in physics, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and Bohr’s idea of complementarity (or duality).
Both are attempts to infer reality from what can be observed about the way particles move in the world, much as Frayn has tried to figure out what happened that night in Copenhagen by learning what Bohr and Heisenberg said and wrote about their meeting.
Frayn’s play is an example of the challenge of the uncertainty principle: It looks closely at one event, the meeting in Copenhagen, and tries not to lose focus of the rest of the context, including the Nazi occupation of much of Europe and the nascent arms race pitting the US and the UK, which had offered asylum to German Jewish physicists, against Germany itself. Further, it has a powerful physical duality: both a historical lecture and a play in one.
The historical value of it is a bit dubious, at least according to Heisenberg’s son Jochen, now a theoretical physicist at UNH, who told the PSC audience after a recent show that he thinks much of it is accurate, but his father was more rational and less emotional than Frayn allowed him to be. For that, we should thank Frayn: If any of these characters were less emotional, they would be dead, as indeed they all are today.
Combining science and art is a commendable undertaking, and one which this newspaper rewarded by sponsoring the play at PSC. However, the brutally spartan set and lighting force unwavering attention on complex speeches delivered by two of history’s most towering scientists. They discuss the moral role of a scientist who is pushing the limits of human capability, and whether people who know how to create terrible weapons should do so, or should delay politicians eager for new power.
Director Rafkin has chosen a play with strong contemporary tie-ins, weapons of mass destruction, scientific ethics, and the role of science in war. But he has not distilled the volatile, powerful emotion from the dense and deadening dialogue. The actors are perhaps put through their physical paces on a three-dimensional set unlike any other, but their passions are fettered and hidden. Brief bursts of energy are not reflected or amplified by the others, but are instead absorbed, stopping the chain reaction before it even starts.
Copenhagen
Written by Michael Frayn. Directed by Michael Rafkin. With Alison Edwards, Lee Godart, and Glen Pannell. At Portland Stage Company through March 23. Call (207) 774-0465.
BACKSTAGE
• Copenhagen is PSC technical director Ted Gallant’s 100th show. Since he started in 1987, he has climbed the exterior of a forklift to load a set into the building (Triple Espresso), designed two beds that fly for A Christmas Carol, built the lobster boat at the Children’s Museum of Maine, and ripped out a third of the stage to make room for a three-foot-deep swimming pool for Church of the Sole Survivor.
He called the set work for Copenhagen easy, saying the set for True West was much more challenging. It had to be constructed both in intricate detail and in super-sturdy form. Not every telephone gets ripped out of the wall daily, nor kitchen drawers thrown on the floor every evening. He has to work with actors, directors, and lighting crews to get things that look good and work properly but also fit in the space allotted and suit the rest of the performance.
" I never thought I was going to do a 100th show, " Gallant said, and laughed at the idea of 100 or 50 more, saying he would see what happens. Don’t be too surprised, though. After 15 years, " it has become what I do. "
• With no warning or explanation, Cauldron and Labrys’ run of Carolyn Gage’s Thanatron has ended prematurely at the Portland Performing Arts Center studio theater.
• For an evening of free theater, check out Eggs over Eric, written and directed by Tim Rubel, in a workshop production at PPAC’s 25A Forest Avenue studio theater at 8 p.m. March 27, 28, and 29.
• PSC’s 14th Little Festival of the Unexpected is coming April 23 through 26, showcasing new women’s voices in theater and preparing Women and the Sea for its debut at PSC next season.
• Registrations have closed for the Maine Association of Community Theaters’ one-act festival. Keep your eyes open for many of Maine’s local stars at Great Falls Performing Arts Center in Auburn, May 2 and 3.
Thursday, March 13, 2003
School Board cans Hamlin idea
Published in the Current
The numbers seem to show that Town Council Chairman Jack Roberts’ proposal for Cape Elizabeth to take over or share South Portland’s Hamlin School would cost more than either building an addition to Pond Cove School or renting portable classrooms at the school.
South Portland also has told Cape there would be no chance for a long-term lease agreement. Instead, the longest lease Cape could look for in negotiations would be a single year, Superintendent Tom Forcella told his School Board at a finance committee meeting Tuesday night.
Roberts had suggested using the Hamlin School to house Cape Elizabeth’s kindergarten, now housed at the high school.
Cape Business Manager Pauline Aportria spoke with her counterpart in South Portland and learned that a lease of the building would cost roughly $86,000 for the first year, which would include heat, electricity, water and sewer fees and snow removal. Telephone lines and staffing the building with a custodian and a receptionist/secretary would cost an additional $74,200.
That would bring the Hamlin proposal in at $160,200 for the first year. Aportria expected that costs would rise 3 percent per year. The worksheet Aportria distributed did not include projections for a nurse, special education travel costs or any other incidental expenses.
“If anything, the number at the Hamlin School could be higher,” Forcella told the board. Finance Chairman Elaine Moloney said it was unclear what, if any, money would be available from the state as an incentive to carry out the Hamlin plan and offset its costs.
By contrast, the cost of renting and operating portable classrooms at Pond Cove for the kindergartners would start at $97,300 for the first year, and would drop to nearly $48,000 in the second year. After a third year of leasing (at $49,000), the district could buy the portables in five annual payments of roughly $74,000 each. Board member Kevin Sweeney warned bringing portables into compliance with future building codes could be expensive.
Building a new addition at Pond Cove would cost $139,000 in debt service and operating costs in the first year, would rise to $165,500 in the second year, and would decline each year for the 20-year life of the loan.
The board also agreed that the size and location of the Hamlin School were unsatisfactory. “Our kids would be in another town, which is not an ideal thing,” Forcella said.
“We’ve been trying to get those kids out of the high school, and now we’re going to ship them out of town?” Sweeney asked rhetorically.
Moloney said she was opposed to the Hamlin idea both because it costs more and because it “defeats the purpose” of the School Board’s efforts to get the students together in buildings housing grades K-4, 5-8 and 9-12.
Roberts, in an interview Wednesday, questioned whether the $86,000 figure for school rent was realistic. He said South Portland has rented other buildings to non-profits for lower rates per square foot. He also did not know whether control of the building would revert to the South Portland City Council if it were not being used as a school.
If the numbers do end up showing the Hamlin idea to be more expensive, Roberts said he would not be discouraged. “I’m not married to that proposal,” he said.
The numbers seem to show that Town Council Chairman Jack Roberts’ proposal for Cape Elizabeth to take over or share South Portland’s Hamlin School would cost more than either building an addition to Pond Cove School or renting portable classrooms at the school.
South Portland also has told Cape there would be no chance for a long-term lease agreement. Instead, the longest lease Cape could look for in negotiations would be a single year, Superintendent Tom Forcella told his School Board at a finance committee meeting Tuesday night.
Roberts had suggested using the Hamlin School to house Cape Elizabeth’s kindergarten, now housed at the high school.
Cape Business Manager Pauline Aportria spoke with her counterpart in South Portland and learned that a lease of the building would cost roughly $86,000 for the first year, which would include heat, electricity, water and sewer fees and snow removal. Telephone lines and staffing the building with a custodian and a receptionist/secretary would cost an additional $74,200.
That would bring the Hamlin proposal in at $160,200 for the first year. Aportria expected that costs would rise 3 percent per year. The worksheet Aportria distributed did not include projections for a nurse, special education travel costs or any other incidental expenses.
“If anything, the number at the Hamlin School could be higher,” Forcella told the board. Finance Chairman Elaine Moloney said it was unclear what, if any, money would be available from the state as an incentive to carry out the Hamlin plan and offset its costs.
By contrast, the cost of renting and operating portable classrooms at Pond Cove for the kindergartners would start at $97,300 for the first year, and would drop to nearly $48,000 in the second year. After a third year of leasing (at $49,000), the district could buy the portables in five annual payments of roughly $74,000 each. Board member Kevin Sweeney warned bringing portables into compliance with future building codes could be expensive.
Building a new addition at Pond Cove would cost $139,000 in debt service and operating costs in the first year, would rise to $165,500 in the second year, and would decline each year for the 20-year life of the loan.
The board also agreed that the size and location of the Hamlin School were unsatisfactory. “Our kids would be in another town, which is not an ideal thing,” Forcella said.
“We’ve been trying to get those kids out of the high school, and now we’re going to ship them out of town?” Sweeney asked rhetorically.
Moloney said she was opposed to the Hamlin idea both because it costs more and because it “defeats the purpose” of the School Board’s efforts to get the students together in buildings housing grades K-4, 5-8 and 9-12.
Roberts, in an interview Wednesday, questioned whether the $86,000 figure for school rent was realistic. He said South Portland has rented other buildings to non-profits for lower rates per square foot. He also did not know whether control of the building would revert to the South Portland City Council if it were not being used as a school.
If the numbers do end up showing the Hamlin idea to be more expensive, Roberts said he would not be discouraged. “I’m not married to that proposal,” he said.
CEHS traffic plan to be tested
Published in the Current
A new traffic flow plan for getting cars into the high school area in the mornings will begin trials just after April vacation. Starting that Monday morning, April 28, traffic coming south on Route 77 will be able to turn right onto Jordan Way, the road between the police and fire stations.
According to a proposal drawn up by parents, police and town and school officials, cars will be allowed to drive down the road and through the gate by the fire station, which is usually locked.
Then they will have to go around the loop where buses drop off at Pond Cove School and down to the high school.
“They need to go around the circle, not just go in and take a left,” said Debbie Croft, president of the High School Parents Association.
There will be a stop sign added at the intersection of the Pond Cove access road and the road leading behind the high school toward the pool, Croft said.
There also will be a couple of speed bumps put on that road to the pool.
Cars will only be allowed to exit the high school at the normal exit, onto Route 77, and drivers coming north toward the high school will still have to turn left into the existing entry, Croft said.
The new route will be used in the mornings only. Croft said the traffic is less of an issue in the afternoon because it is more spread out across time; not everyone is trying to get out of the high school at the same time.
The trial will run until the end of the year, Croft said. At that point they will reassess the situation and see about further changes.
Croft said the HSPA still wants to learn more about putting a traffic light at the Route 77 entry to the high school. That is the group’s long-term goal, she said.
The light would initially be used only at peak traffic times of the school day, but could also be used to manage traffic entering and leaving the high school during special events at night or on weekends, Croft said.
A new traffic flow plan for getting cars into the high school area in the mornings will begin trials just after April vacation. Starting that Monday morning, April 28, traffic coming south on Route 77 will be able to turn right onto Jordan Way, the road between the police and fire stations.
According to a proposal drawn up by parents, police and town and school officials, cars will be allowed to drive down the road and through the gate by the fire station, which is usually locked.
Then they will have to go around the loop where buses drop off at Pond Cove School and down to the high school.
“They need to go around the circle, not just go in and take a left,” said Debbie Croft, president of the High School Parents Association.
There will be a stop sign added at the intersection of the Pond Cove access road and the road leading behind the high school toward the pool, Croft said.
There also will be a couple of speed bumps put on that road to the pool.
Cars will only be allowed to exit the high school at the normal exit, onto Route 77, and drivers coming north toward the high school will still have to turn left into the existing entry, Croft said.
The new route will be used in the mornings only. Croft said the traffic is less of an issue in the afternoon because it is more spread out across time; not everyone is trying to get out of the high school at the same time.
The trial will run until the end of the year, Croft said. At that point they will reassess the situation and see about further changes.
Croft said the HSPA still wants to learn more about putting a traffic light at the Route 77 entry to the high school. That is the group’s long-term goal, she said.
The light would initially be used only at peak traffic times of the school day, but could also be used to manage traffic entering and leaving the high school during special events at night or on weekends, Croft said.
Cape man leads Civil Air Patrol to new skies
Published in the Current
Maine’s members of the Civil Air Patrol have a new mission and have formed a rapid-response team to be ready in case they are needed to respond to a public safety threat.
“We’re very involved in homeland security,” said Maj. Chris Hayden of Cape Elizabeth, commander of the Cumberland County Combined Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol.
In an emergency, the Civil Air Patrol could be called on to provide aerial reconnaissance of a disaster site, either visually or with equipment that can measure airborne contaminants. The planes and pilots could also search for people or vehicles, or transfer supplies or personnel to and from emergency sites and staging areas.
Cape Elizabeth has long been home to CAP leaders. Cape resident and newspaper magnate Guy Gannett was a leader in encouraging Fiorello LaGuardia to establish a national group of aviators to help with home defense. On Dec. 1, 1941, a week before Pearl Harbor, the CAP was founded, with Gannett as a member of the board of directors.
Since then, the CAP has been charged with aircraft education, emergency services and cadet training about aircraft handling and maintenance. It is adding the security work to that list and has a new name to reflect its new importance: U.S. Air Force Auxiliary.
“We are basically at the table with the Air Force” in homeland security planning, Hayden said.
The Cumberland County squadron is the first branch of the CAP in Maine to form a quick-response team. “We’ve written the book for the rest of the wing in Maine,” Hayden said.
There are always two pilots on call, who must keep their flight suits and clothing and toiletries for two days close by. The pilots and ground crew members must be able to get into their planes, parked at the Portland Jetport, within an hour after receiving an emergency page.
Members of the group are unpaid, though their aircraft purchases, maintenance and fuel are covered by the Air Force.
They are using cellular phones’ text messaging capability to activate the crews. When a message is received, the phone chirps or vibrates, alerting its owner to a new message. “I actually put mine under my pillow” at night, Hayden said.
The unit has been conducting drills and stepping up their training, to make sure they are prepared if something does happen.
CAP members are planning training exercises with other homeland-security agencies, including the Air Force, the Coast Guard and the National Guard, as well as local law enforcement agencies and the Red Cross.
“We haven’t all been training together,” Hayden said.
Hayden is also trying to spread the word to employers that CAP members have important public-safety duties that may require them to leave work at a moment’s notice. While training, meetings and most CAP activities are done at regularly scheduled times, CAP members may need to drop everything if a major incident occurs, Hayden said.
“If they do get called, let them go without prejudice” is the message he wants employers to get. “They are doing a service for the country.”
In addition, Hayden is building ties to towns and cities in Southern Maine, to let local governments know how the CAP can help them. CAP pilots and crews can search coastlines and borders and monitor disaster sites from above. And they can help towns with aerial photos, road surveys or other assistance where looking at the ground from above could be useful, Hayden said.
Maine’s members of the Civil Air Patrol have a new mission and have formed a rapid-response team to be ready in case they are needed to respond to a public safety threat.
“We’re very involved in homeland security,” said Maj. Chris Hayden of Cape Elizabeth, commander of the Cumberland County Combined Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol.
In an emergency, the Civil Air Patrol could be called on to provide aerial reconnaissance of a disaster site, either visually or with equipment that can measure airborne contaminants. The planes and pilots could also search for people or vehicles, or transfer supplies or personnel to and from emergency sites and staging areas.
Cape Elizabeth has long been home to CAP leaders. Cape resident and newspaper magnate Guy Gannett was a leader in encouraging Fiorello LaGuardia to establish a national group of aviators to help with home defense. On Dec. 1, 1941, a week before Pearl Harbor, the CAP was founded, with Gannett as a member of the board of directors.
Since then, the CAP has been charged with aircraft education, emergency services and cadet training about aircraft handling and maintenance. It is adding the security work to that list and has a new name to reflect its new importance: U.S. Air Force Auxiliary.
“We are basically at the table with the Air Force” in homeland security planning, Hayden said.
The Cumberland County squadron is the first branch of the CAP in Maine to form a quick-response team. “We’ve written the book for the rest of the wing in Maine,” Hayden said.
There are always two pilots on call, who must keep their flight suits and clothing and toiletries for two days close by. The pilots and ground crew members must be able to get into their planes, parked at the Portland Jetport, within an hour after receiving an emergency page.
Members of the group are unpaid, though their aircraft purchases, maintenance and fuel are covered by the Air Force.
They are using cellular phones’ text messaging capability to activate the crews. When a message is received, the phone chirps or vibrates, alerting its owner to a new message. “I actually put mine under my pillow” at night, Hayden said.
The unit has been conducting drills and stepping up their training, to make sure they are prepared if something does happen.
CAP members are planning training exercises with other homeland-security agencies, including the Air Force, the Coast Guard and the National Guard, as well as local law enforcement agencies and the Red Cross.
“We haven’t all been training together,” Hayden said.
Hayden is also trying to spread the word to employers that CAP members have important public-safety duties that may require them to leave work at a moment’s notice. While training, meetings and most CAP activities are done at regularly scheduled times, CAP members may need to drop everything if a major incident occurs, Hayden said.
“If they do get called, let them go without prejudice” is the message he wants employers to get. “They are doing a service for the country.”
In addition, Hayden is building ties to towns and cities in Southern Maine, to let local governments know how the CAP can help them. CAP pilots and crews can search coastlines and borders and monitor disaster sites from above. And they can help towns with aerial photos, road surveys or other assistance where looking at the ground from above could be useful, Hayden said.
Biotech struggles to start at PATHS
Published in the Current
Fifty years after James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA, a program offering cutting-edge biotechnology education to local high
school students is having trouble generating interest.
In August, teacher Don Berthiaume started the program, housed at the Portland Arts & Technology High School, in a room with bare walls. Since
then, he has furnished it and stocked it with his own library of texts and reference books. He also has gathered donations of equipment and supplies worth more than $16,000 from local biotech firms, but so far has attracted only one student.
Local schools may send one or two students each next year, which would be a big boost to the course.
“We have a functional lab,” Berthiaume said. It includes a bio-safety cabinet for working with materials in an uncontaminated space, DNA replication and extraction devices and machines that can create “fingerprints” from DNA that can then be used to do DNA matching.
This is not the first time Berthiaume has started such a program from scratch. Seven years ago, he was a high school biology teacher in Biddeford and began a biotech class at the vocational-technical school next door.
He had no trouble finding students then because they already knew him. He would recommend that the best students in his classes take the biotech course the following year.
For students who took the semester-long class and wanted to do more, he arranged internships with local biotech companies.
One of those students got a job with Maine Biotech Services right out of high school, and the company is paying for her to go to college at USM, Berthiaume said.
It was a great opportunity and with the high school right next door, students jumped at the chance. “I actually had a problem with enrollment – too many students,” he said.
Now, in the program’s first year at PATHS, he has but one. He has been working hard to attract students to the program, giving presentations to local school guidance counselors and science teachers.
Part of the challenge is overcoming a large number of barriers all at once. First, PATHS has never been seen as a place for top-notch academic students to find opportunities.
Second, timing is a problem. Not only are PATHS sessions two and a half hours long, but students have to be bused back and forth to the school. Students in college-prep classes can’t often miss that many classes, Berthiaume said.
He is now targeting high school seniors because they will have taken the prerequisite courses and have some flexibility to choose electives, including biotech.
Enrollment doesn’t worry at least one member of the PATHS advisory board, Kevin Sweeney, also a member of the Cape Elizabeth School Board.
“We are going to continue to support this for a while regardless of student enrollment,” Sweeney said. He recognizes the challenge of overcoming PATHS’ image as a school for special education students.
“This program puts PATHS in an entirely different place than it was,” Sweeney said.
It does, however, still target students who want to have direct experiences and have an alternative learning style, Sweeney said. Also, it takes advantage of the broad base of schools PATHS serves. No single school could fund a biotech program or attract enough students to make it work, Sweeney said.
Ellen Ross, science department head at Scarborough High School, said one student is expecting to go next year, and another may also go. Ross said biotech is an important field for future scientists to learn about.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” said Michael Efron, science department head at CEHS. A student or two from Cape may be looking at it for next year, he said.
A student from South Portland High School is also looking at the program, according to Linda Sturm in the SPHS guidance office.
Fifty years after James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA, a program offering cutting-edge biotechnology education to local high
school students is having trouble generating interest.
In August, teacher Don Berthiaume started the program, housed at the Portland Arts & Technology High School, in a room with bare walls. Since
then, he has furnished it and stocked it with his own library of texts and reference books. He also has gathered donations of equipment and supplies worth more than $16,000 from local biotech firms, but so far has attracted only one student.
Local schools may send one or two students each next year, which would be a big boost to the course.
“We have a functional lab,” Berthiaume said. It includes a bio-safety cabinet for working with materials in an uncontaminated space, DNA replication and extraction devices and machines that can create “fingerprints” from DNA that can then be used to do DNA matching.
This is not the first time Berthiaume has started such a program from scratch. Seven years ago, he was a high school biology teacher in Biddeford and began a biotech class at the vocational-technical school next door.
He had no trouble finding students then because they already knew him. He would recommend that the best students in his classes take the biotech course the following year.
For students who took the semester-long class and wanted to do more, he arranged internships with local biotech companies.
One of those students got a job with Maine Biotech Services right out of high school, and the company is paying for her to go to college at USM, Berthiaume said.
It was a great opportunity and with the high school right next door, students jumped at the chance. “I actually had a problem with enrollment – too many students,” he said.
Now, in the program’s first year at PATHS, he has but one. He has been working hard to attract students to the program, giving presentations to local school guidance counselors and science teachers.
Part of the challenge is overcoming a large number of barriers all at once. First, PATHS has never been seen as a place for top-notch academic students to find opportunities.
Second, timing is a problem. Not only are PATHS sessions two and a half hours long, but students have to be bused back and forth to the school. Students in college-prep classes can’t often miss that many classes, Berthiaume said.
He is now targeting high school seniors because they will have taken the prerequisite courses and have some flexibility to choose electives, including biotech.
Enrollment doesn’t worry at least one member of the PATHS advisory board, Kevin Sweeney, also a member of the Cape Elizabeth School Board.
“We are going to continue to support this for a while regardless of student enrollment,” Sweeney said. He recognizes the challenge of overcoming PATHS’ image as a school for special education students.
“This program puts PATHS in an entirely different place than it was,” Sweeney said.
It does, however, still target students who want to have direct experiences and have an alternative learning style, Sweeney said. Also, it takes advantage of the broad base of schools PATHS serves. No single school could fund a biotech program or attract enough students to make it work, Sweeney said.
Ellen Ross, science department head at Scarborough High School, said one student is expecting to go next year, and another may also go. Ross said biotech is an important field for future scientists to learn about.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” said Michael Efron, science department head at CEHS. A student or two from Cape may be looking at it for next year, he said.
A student from South Portland High School is also looking at the program, according to Linda Sturm in the SPHS guidance office.
Chancellor Gardens changes hands
Published in the Current
With its principal owner in bankruptcy, the company that owned Chancellor Gardens on Scott Dyer Road has sold the Cape Elizabeth assisted living home, as well as a sister facility in Saco, to Commonwealth Communities of Massachusetts. The home has been renamed Village Crossings of Cape Elizabeth.
It is the second turnover of a senior living facility on Scott Dyer Road in three months. In January, Haven Healthcare of Cromwell, Conn., took over the management of the Viking Nursing Home and Crescent House, with plans to take ownership in the next several months.
Abraham Gosman, who lives in Florida, was the majority owner of the company that owned Chancellor Gardens and Chancellor Place. He was also a founder of Carematrix, the company that managed the Chancellor properties. Carematrix will not continue its management functions, according to Beth Derrico, a spokeswoman for the company.
Gosman, who made millions in real estate and healthcare, filed for bankruptcy in 2001, according to William King of Development Specialists
Inc., the Miami-based firm that was appointed by the court as trustee for Gosman’s assets.
His filing was cited as an example of a problem some legislators see with the federal bankruptcy system – the unlimited homestead exemption.
Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., told the U.S. Senate in March 2001 that Gosman, while owing as much as $233 million, was keeping a 64,000-square-foot mansion in West Palm Beach, Fla.
In his Maine business dealings, Gosman had guaranteed a mortgage taken out by the Chancellor company, with the two homes as collateral.
“The value (of the properties) was significantly less than the mortgage,” King said.
Rather than foreclosing on the homes, the lender agreed to cooperate in the sale of the properties and take the proceeds as partial payment of the debt, King said.
The change of ownership took effect March 1, bringing Chancellor Gardens and Chancellor Place in Saco into a company that already operates 12 nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities, six assisted living homes and four specialized hospitals in Massachusetts.
“This is our first step into Maine,” said David Calendrella, vice president of operations for Commonwealth Communities.
Last year Commonwealth bought two Massachusetts nursing homes from the same owners. “They proved to be quality facilities,” Calendrella said. That experience led to this recent deal.
“We’re very bullish on the Maine marketplace,” he said.
The company does not have significant plans to change things at Chancellor Gardens. “At the moment, the plan is to introduce ourselves as the new owners,” Calendrella said. No staff changes are in the works, he said. Everyone has signed on with the new owners.
Calendrella plans to pay close attention to hiring practices and employee supervision, in the wake of an employee’s February arrest on charges of stealing medication from several patients. He said the company would be open about any problems that might arise.
With its principal owner in bankruptcy, the company that owned Chancellor Gardens on Scott Dyer Road has sold the Cape Elizabeth assisted living home, as well as a sister facility in Saco, to Commonwealth Communities of Massachusetts. The home has been renamed Village Crossings of Cape Elizabeth.
It is the second turnover of a senior living facility on Scott Dyer Road in three months. In January, Haven Healthcare of Cromwell, Conn., took over the management of the Viking Nursing Home and Crescent House, with plans to take ownership in the next several months.
Abraham Gosman, who lives in Florida, was the majority owner of the company that owned Chancellor Gardens and Chancellor Place. He was also a founder of Carematrix, the company that managed the Chancellor properties. Carematrix will not continue its management functions, according to Beth Derrico, a spokeswoman for the company.
Gosman, who made millions in real estate and healthcare, filed for bankruptcy in 2001, according to William King of Development Specialists
Inc., the Miami-based firm that was appointed by the court as trustee for Gosman’s assets.
His filing was cited as an example of a problem some legislators see with the federal bankruptcy system – the unlimited homestead exemption.
Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., told the U.S. Senate in March 2001 that Gosman, while owing as much as $233 million, was keeping a 64,000-square-foot mansion in West Palm Beach, Fla.
In his Maine business dealings, Gosman had guaranteed a mortgage taken out by the Chancellor company, with the two homes as collateral.
“The value (of the properties) was significantly less than the mortgage,” King said.
Rather than foreclosing on the homes, the lender agreed to cooperate in the sale of the properties and take the proceeds as partial payment of the debt, King said.
The change of ownership took effect March 1, bringing Chancellor Gardens and Chancellor Place in Saco into a company that already operates 12 nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities, six assisted living homes and four specialized hospitals in Massachusetts.
“This is our first step into Maine,” said David Calendrella, vice president of operations for Commonwealth Communities.
Last year Commonwealth bought two Massachusetts nursing homes from the same owners. “They proved to be quality facilities,” Calendrella said. That experience led to this recent deal.
“We’re very bullish on the Maine marketplace,” he said.
The company does not have significant plans to change things at Chancellor Gardens. “At the moment, the plan is to introduce ourselves as the new owners,” Calendrella said. No staff changes are in the works, he said. Everyone has signed on with the new owners.
Calendrella plans to pay close attention to hiring practices and employee supervision, in the wake of an employee’s February arrest on charges of stealing medication from several patients. He said the company would be open about any problems that might arise.
Alcohol on stage: What price the bottle?
Published in the Portland Phoenix
An ad campaign now being broadcast on Maine television stations warns parents that they are misleading themselves about teen drinking. The Maine Office of Substance Abuse conducted a study of Maine parents, and compared the results with the annual Maine Youth Drug and Alcohol Use Survey administered in schools all over the state.
Over 80 percent of Maine parents, the study shows, believe their kids have " not had more than a few sips of alcohol in their life. " But 65 percent of teens say they’ve had " more than a few sips of alcohol. "
And nearly every Maine parent — 98 percent of them, in a survey with a four-percent margin of error — believe their child hasn’t had alcohol in the past month. But over a third of teens — 38 percent — have, in fact, consumed alcohol in the last 30 days.
Alcohol is a part of adult life, and a part of young-adult life, teen life. At a recent community meeting in Cape Elizabeth, a parent asked teens why they drink. The response — aside from the predictable silence — was a question: " Why do adults drink? " That answer was even more predictable: silence from the adults.
As life on stage reflects life off-stage, so does alcohol appear in both worlds. It may have started, as Andrew Sokoloff suggests, in the distant past. " The list of alcoholic playwrights is a long, sad, and honorable one, " extending as far back as Shakespeare, he says. Sokoloff is the artistic director at Mad Horse Theater and says " the use of alcohol on stage depends mightily upon the time the play was written and the time it’s produced. "
Alcohol, in short, is part of an accurate portrayal of life. " Good playwrights . . . put alcohol in their plays for many of the same reasons people in real life drink: to kill pain, to tell the truth, to have fun, to feel more alive, to feel closer to someone, " Sokoloff says.
Anita Stewart, artistic director at Portland Stage Company, agrees. " The theater is often a mirror of our culture, and in our society alcohol has played and continues to play a tremendous role. "
Recent examples of alcohol on Maine stages include True West at Portland Stage, in which both main characters got drunk, one to drown his pain when confronting society and the other to distance himself from the realization that his sheltered experience was not the raw stuff of life a movie producer wanted.
Straitlaced Austin behaved like the stereotypical drunk most commonly found in college freshman dormitories: Barely able to stand and slurring words badly, a man at the end of the night sits on the floor surrounded by empty beer cans, singing to himself. It is a means by which playwright Sam Shepard shows the audience the depth to which Austin has sunk, without actually having a character come out and say, " Gosh, Austin, you look awful. " The alcohol is a vehicle for communicating a message.
Over at the St. Lawrence, the Cast put on Pvt. Wars, in which the three characters drink frequently in an Army hospital. It is a sign of their growing camaraderie that, as the play progresses, first one man drinks alone, then another joins him, and finally the third man takes up a glass as well. The message? He has joined the group, become part of at least the hospital society again, and may be moving more toward " normal, " despite his deep physical injuries and evident psychological distress.
And, most recently, there was the bottle of alcohol used by a newly empowered woman, rejecting the traditional social anesthetic and choosing instead to use it as a weapon to overpower a death-crazed doctor in Carolyn Gage’s Thanatron, performed by Cauldron & Labrys.
Stewart’s choice for most memorable alcohol-related scene is in Betrayal and Emma, by Harold Pinter, in which " a smart, together woman " tells her lover she is pregnant, while drinking vodka. " In the ‘70s that was normal; now it is unimaginable. I wonder if drunken scenes will ever have that same bone-chilling effect on me, " Stewart says.
Alcohol has yet to carry the same moral weight as smoking, Stewart says. " We get tons of complaints if someone lights up, even briefly, on stage, but no one seems to be that bothered by drinking, " she says.
Teen issues are beginning to get some attention in local theater, especially with David J. Mauriello’s To Bear Witness at the Players’ Ring, in which a teen holds a gun while contemplating his friend’s suicide. I have yet to see a drunk teen character on a local stage; the numbers say it’s time.
BACKSTAGE
• Watch this space for the first glimpse of the 2003/2004 season at the Players’ Ring in Portsmouth. Scuttlebutt is that they have had proposals from a bunch of new playwrights, as well as a version of The Hobbit and several rarely seen classic plays. When the group makes their decision, " Backstage " will get the word out so you can mark your calendars.
• Room to move: The Theater At Monmouth (theateratmonmouth.org) has a few design and production slots open for the summer, and improv and sketch comedy group TRATCO is looking for one or two women to join the cast (no_stache@yahoo.com).
• Carol Noonan headlines a benefit concert for the Public Theatre in Lewiston March 29. Showtime’s at 8 p.m., tickets are $15. It’s a great way to support this excellent theater, which is now showing a play, Gun-Shy, exploring what happens if your divorce isn’t working.
• Props to Bonny Eagle and Biddeford high schools, who move on to the states after winning the Southern Maine Regional Drama Festival last weekend in South Portland.
Thursday, March 6, 2003
A parent’s green thumb: Bearing witness to the challenges of growing
Published in the Portland Phoenix
It’s really just a baseball hat. A blue Boston Red Sox hat, always perched on Justin Rasch’s head, especially when he’s not acting. But this hat, belonging to a sturdy eighth-grader from Rochester, New Hampshire, now has a place in the script of a locally written play: To Bear Witness, by David J. Mauriello.
To Bear Witness
Written by David J. Mauriello. Directed by Chuck Galle. With Justin Rasch, Al Vautour, Denise McDonough, Paul J. Bell and Kate Kirkwood. At the Players Ring, Portsmouth, through March 9. Call (603) 436-8123.
It’s really just a baseball hat. A blue Boston Red Sox hat, always perched on Justin Rasch’s head, especially when he’s not acting. But this hat, belonging to a sturdy eighth-grader from Rochester, New Hampshire, now has a place in the script of a locally written play: To Bear Witness, by David J. Mauriello.
The hat could have started there; it’s quite common for teens to wear hats these days. But it’s just riding coattails to the top. Rasch is taking acting classes at Arts Rochester. When Mauriello and Chuck Galle were looking for someone to play a 14-year-old, that’s where they looked.
" Half the kids in the class tried out for it, " Rasch said. " The kid knocked me out, " Galle said. Even with such high praise coming from his director, his hat stayed the same size. " Sometimes I think I’m more excited about it than he is, " said his mother.
Her son really wants to star on Saturday Night Live, but you can see him before he makes it there, by spending an evening at the Players Ring in Portsmouth. Both Rasch and his drama teacher at home, Kate Kirkwood, play key supporting roles in Mauriello’s sixth play at the Ring.
It started as a screenplay in the late 1980s, after Mauriello read an article about teen suicide and decided to explore the issue in script form. Now a play, the show has 16 scenes, a throwback to its film roots. The suicide scene is gone, and the audience never meets Danny, the boy who has killed himself months before the play begins.
The hat has appeared, now an important device in the show, used to signal father/son communication and camaraderie. Words have been changed, whole lines revamped. Mauriello admits he has a melodramatic tendency with dialogue, and while it remains throughout, it has been tempered by the cast, who made many suggestions. " I’m rewriting as I’m watching rehearsals, " Mauriello said before the play’s run began.
The actors tried out a lot of different angles in practice, to see how they worked or if they failed. " We don’t talk about having an affair. We’re all over each other on stage, " said Kirkwood (playing Diane Putnam) of her interaction with Frank DeMarco (played by Al Vautour).
The play is about nurturing roots and connections, between friends, neighbors, family. It contrasts 1980s ideals of success — money, power, domination — with those beginning to take hold in the 21st century — love, trust, respect. The characters are all very human, with honest differences separating them and deeply personal needs pulling them together.
Frank’s bizarre physical intimacy with nearly every character in the play springs from his need to connect with people. As a landscaper, he knows how to nurture plants, healing them and bringing them to their full, blossoming potential. With human beings, however, he is stuck.
As a father, husband, boss, and aspiring politician, he both resents and is mystified by others’ successes. His weakness is his son, from whom he desperately wants love, but who sees through the bullshit to Frank’s cheating heart.
The play walks the line between preaching and showing, and raises powerful questions about parenting. As Helen (played by Denise McDonough) notes, parents have a monopoly on their children, but only as long as there is truth and honesty between them. When those are lost, so are the kids.
A strong, old tree and a brand-new sapling are the metaphors for what Frank wants in his life and what he has. At a crossroads, he must choose to let the sapling die or revise his priorities to keep the tree alive. " He’s thrown everything in, " Kirkwood said of Mauriello’s writing, which includes a brief scene of heady philosophy as well as more botany than most stage productions.
Parents who are trying to keep strong connections as their kids grow up should see this show, which will cause them to step back and re-examine the priorities and assumptions behind however they choose to raise their offspring.
The cast, and their characters, are laid out as plants, needing love, honesty, and attention to flourish: The weed is expelled from the flower bed and the myriad not-quite-misfit plants that had been on the edge of the garden are brought together in a quiet, simple, and pleasing conclusion.
" I hope, " said Mauriello, " the audience is going to feel all of my characters have grown."
To Bear Witness
Written by David J. Mauriello. Directed by Chuck Galle. With Justin Rasch, Al Vautour, Denise McDonough, Paul J. Bell and Kate Kirkwood. At the Players Ring, Portsmouth, through March 9. Call (603) 436-8123.
BACKSTAGE
• Word is the soldiers over at the St. Lawrence, busy putting on Pvt. Wars, are getting lonely. It’s a fabulous show, and they’re there through March 9. Support the troops!
• Portsmouth screenwriter Nancy Grossman is a playwright on the verge of seeing the fruits of her first stage play, Therapist on the Verge. She’ll get her chance when it is read aloud at the Rice Public Library in Kittery, at 7 p.m., March 11.
• The Theater Project’s Al Miller corralled a group of fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders into performing a bilingual acting/singing show, Rose in Red, using traditional French folksongs. It created a lot of interest and plans to do a full bilingual show are in the works.
• Maybe Miller was warming up for the upcoming revision of his musical Matching Shadows with Homer, put on last year and set to reopen March 14, with some new writing, music, and a few new faces on stage as well.
• Camden playwright Robert Manns has several plays being produced in the next couple of months in the Belfast area. Get out the binocs: Wildlife and the environment are characters in some of his work.
Wednesday, March 5, 2003
Viking to see $1 million in renovations
Published in the Current and the American Journal
The Viking and Crescent House in Cape Elizabeth will see up to $1 million in renovations in the coming months and will be upgraded to become what its new owner calls “the facility of choice” in the area.
Ray Termini, president, CEO and owner of Haven Healthcare of Cromwell, Conn., met with Viking staff last month to announce the change of management. Haven has a consulting arrangement with the Viking pending state approval of a certificate of need for the change of ownership.
When the approval is complete, three to six months after the application is submitted, Haven will take over management from Duane Rancourt Sr., the current co-owner and administrator of the nursing home.
The certificate of need application has not yet been filed.
As of this month, Termini told the Current, Haven is operating 26 nursing homes throughout New England, with 3,200 patients and a similar number of employees.
Of those, four homes in Connecticut and one in Vermont have had more than one situation where residents were either subjected to “actual harm” or “immediate jeopardy,” since Haven took over management, according to federal documents and information from the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
Each affected one patient or a small number of them, and each has been rectified. Termini told the Current all of his facilities are in compliance.
Two of the problems found by Connecticut inspectors in May 2002 at Haven Health Center of New Haven are representative of the problems.
One patient was given only one-fourth the prescribed amount of a medication. Another resident was not properly restrained or attended while in a shower chair, resulting in the resident “almost falling out” of the chair, and suffering two scrapes on the head.
The nursing home was fined $600 by state authorities. Upon inspection in August 2002, the nursing home was found to have corrected the problems.
The Viking had much more serious problems prior to Haven’s arrival on the scene. In August 2002, Viking resident Shirley Sayre, 77, wandered out of the nursing home and drowned in a culvert across the street. As the family mourned, Viking was hit with an “immediate jeopardy” citation and over $30,000 in fines.
Money tight
Those fines came at a tough point for the nursing home, which faced running out of money by November.
State reimbursements for Medicare were late, and the company faced the tough choice of paying creditors or meeting payroll.
In a time when nursing homes are feeling financial pressure, Termini said Haven succeeds by making their nursing homes more attractive to residents and families than competing facilities.
Most nursing homes, he said, have 10 percent of their patients on private payment, 10 to 12 percent on federally funded Medicare payment and the rest on state-funded Medicaid payments.
Many are also not near full capacity, resulting in overhead costs with no revenue to make up for them.
Medicaid does not pay the full amount for services, forcing Medicaid-dependent homes into financial ruin, Termini said. Medicare pays $315 per day, while Medicaid pays $130 per day, no matter the services a patient requires.
Haven solves the problem by attracting higher-paying customers, and by making sure its homes are full.
“The only way to survive is to decrease dependency on Medicaid,” Termini said. Haven homes have 96 percent occupancy and over 30 percent non-Medicaid patients, he said.
Just that additional margin is enough to make the difference between a successful nursing home and one that is in trouble, he said.
Termini said attracting higher-paying residents takes work and said he will begin renovating the buildings as soon as he takes ownership.
New look, new faces
Resident rooms will get all new surfaces, including paint, flooring and window dressings, as well as electric beds, according to Patrick Keaveny, regional vice president for Haven Healthcare, who will be overseeing the renovation.
Gathering areas also will be renovated, with a new fine-dining area planned for what is now a “sunroom” space, and a bistro area in the assisted-living facility, Keaveny said.
A lounge area, corridor and office space will be converted into a large physical therapy, occupational and speech therapy room.
To staff that room, Haven will be hiring a new physical therapist and assistant, an occupational therapist and assistant, as well as a part-time speech therapist.
To get new blood into the rest of the staff, Keaveny plans to send recruiting mailings out to all the nurses in the area.
The changeover will not involve layoffs, however. “Everybody that has a job (at the Viking and Crescent House) is going to be an employee of Haven Healthcare,” Keaveny said.
All of this is dependent on state approval. While the certificate of need process is usually used for constructing a new healthcare facility, it is also used for transferring ownership, according to Cathy Cobb in the Maine Department of Human Services.
The process determines whether a company is “fit, willing and able to run a nursing home,” she said, and also makes sure costs to the state-funded Medicaid program will not increase.
The process involves an application, an initial hearing and then a public hearing and then a review of the application and any additional information, Cobb said.
Regulators look at the organization applying for the certificate, its financial plans and
the quality of care it provided elsewhere.
The Viking and Crescent House in Cape Elizabeth will see up to $1 million in renovations in the coming months and will be upgraded to become what its new owner calls “the facility of choice” in the area.
Ray Termini, president, CEO and owner of Haven Healthcare of Cromwell, Conn., met with Viking staff last month to announce the change of management. Haven has a consulting arrangement with the Viking pending state approval of a certificate of need for the change of ownership.
When the approval is complete, three to six months after the application is submitted, Haven will take over management from Duane Rancourt Sr., the current co-owner and administrator of the nursing home.
The certificate of need application has not yet been filed.
As of this month, Termini told the Current, Haven is operating 26 nursing homes throughout New England, with 3,200 patients and a similar number of employees.
Of those, four homes in Connecticut and one in Vermont have had more than one situation where residents were either subjected to “actual harm” or “immediate jeopardy,” since Haven took over management, according to federal documents and information from the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
Each affected one patient or a small number of them, and each has been rectified. Termini told the Current all of his facilities are in compliance.
Two of the problems found by Connecticut inspectors in May 2002 at Haven Health Center of New Haven are representative of the problems.
One patient was given only one-fourth the prescribed amount of a medication. Another resident was not properly restrained or attended while in a shower chair, resulting in the resident “almost falling out” of the chair, and suffering two scrapes on the head.
The nursing home was fined $600 by state authorities. Upon inspection in August 2002, the nursing home was found to have corrected the problems.
The Viking had much more serious problems prior to Haven’s arrival on the scene. In August 2002, Viking resident Shirley Sayre, 77, wandered out of the nursing home and drowned in a culvert across the street. As the family mourned, Viking was hit with an “immediate jeopardy” citation and over $30,000 in fines.
Money tight
Those fines came at a tough point for the nursing home, which faced running out of money by November.
State reimbursements for Medicare were late, and the company faced the tough choice of paying creditors or meeting payroll.
In a time when nursing homes are feeling financial pressure, Termini said Haven succeeds by making their nursing homes more attractive to residents and families than competing facilities.
Most nursing homes, he said, have 10 percent of their patients on private payment, 10 to 12 percent on federally funded Medicare payment and the rest on state-funded Medicaid payments.
Many are also not near full capacity, resulting in overhead costs with no revenue to make up for them.
Medicaid does not pay the full amount for services, forcing Medicaid-dependent homes into financial ruin, Termini said. Medicare pays $315 per day, while Medicaid pays $130 per day, no matter the services a patient requires.
Haven solves the problem by attracting higher-paying customers, and by making sure its homes are full.
“The only way to survive is to decrease dependency on Medicaid,” Termini said. Haven homes have 96 percent occupancy and over 30 percent non-Medicaid patients, he said.
Just that additional margin is enough to make the difference between a successful nursing home and one that is in trouble, he said.
Termini said attracting higher-paying residents takes work and said he will begin renovating the buildings as soon as he takes ownership.
New look, new faces
Resident rooms will get all new surfaces, including paint, flooring and window dressings, as well as electric beds, according to Patrick Keaveny, regional vice president for Haven Healthcare, who will be overseeing the renovation.
Gathering areas also will be renovated, with a new fine-dining area planned for what is now a “sunroom” space, and a bistro area in the assisted-living facility, Keaveny said.
A lounge area, corridor and office space will be converted into a large physical therapy, occupational and speech therapy room.
To staff that room, Haven will be hiring a new physical therapist and assistant, an occupational therapist and assistant, as well as a part-time speech therapist.
To get new blood into the rest of the staff, Keaveny plans to send recruiting mailings out to all the nurses in the area.
The changeover will not involve layoffs, however. “Everybody that has a job (at the Viking and Crescent House) is going to be an employee of Haven Healthcare,” Keaveny said.
All of this is dependent on state approval. While the certificate of need process is usually used for constructing a new healthcare facility, it is also used for transferring ownership, according to Cathy Cobb in the Maine Department of Human Services.
The process determines whether a company is “fit, willing and able to run a nursing home,” she said, and also makes sure costs to the state-funded Medicaid program will not increase.
The process involves an application, an initial hearing and then a public hearing and then a review of the application and any additional information, Cobb said.
Regulators look at the organization applying for the certificate, its financial plans and
the quality of care it provided elsewhere.
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Moving the ad message
Published in the Current
As the Goodwill Industries trucks roll across the state of Maine, their new designs are thanks to a Cape Elizabeth man, who has found a way to make
money from the sides of trucks.
Don Mackenzie has founded Mobile Marketing Solutions, which sells space on what are, after all, basically moving billboards.
Mackenzie used to sell technology to trucking companies and was familiar with trucking fleets in other areas of the country that sold ads on the sides of their trucks.
Eight months ago, when Mackenzie and his family moved to Maine from Atlanta, he decided to put his idea in motion.
His first challenge was to find a trucking fleet that would work with him. He found it “very hard to find a fleet” that was interested. Most companies wanted just their own logos on the sides of their trucks, if there were any markings at all.
One day, when Mackenzie was driving somewhere, he saw a white truck with nothing really on its sides and followed it to a Goodwill store. When he called to ask if the company would be interested, he found that someone there had always wanted to do just exactly what he was proposing.
In exchange for an ongoing ad campaign for Goodwill on the side of one truck, Mackenzie’s fledgling company had its fleet.
Best of all, the Goodwill trucks run regular routes in populated areas, picking up donations at drop-off centers and also delivering goods to the company’s retail stores. Most trucking companies run their routes far from where people are, because traffic slows them down. And many of them run at night, again to avoid congestion.
Not Goodwill trucks, which are on the road for six to 10 hours per day.
“They’re always where the people are,” Mackenzie said.
He had the trucks fitted with what are called “changeable fleet graphic systems,” essentially easy-to-change billboards. Aluminum rails hold a heavy vinyl sheet tight against the side of the truck.
The vinyl itself is printed by a firm in Seattle that can put any graphic or text on the fabric. It takes a couple of hours to put on a sign, which Mackenzie often has done at Wagon Masters in Scarborough.
His goal is to get the company to $60,000 in revenue by June and triple that by next year. He wants to expand the business beyond Maine, into the New England region and then into the mid-Atlantic states.
As the Goodwill Industries trucks roll across the state of Maine, their new designs are thanks to a Cape Elizabeth man, who has found a way to make
money from the sides of trucks.
Don Mackenzie has founded Mobile Marketing Solutions, which sells space on what are, after all, basically moving billboards.
Mackenzie used to sell technology to trucking companies and was familiar with trucking fleets in other areas of the country that sold ads on the sides of their trucks.
Eight months ago, when Mackenzie and his family moved to Maine from Atlanta, he decided to put his idea in motion.
His first challenge was to find a trucking fleet that would work with him. He found it “very hard to find a fleet” that was interested. Most companies wanted just their own logos on the sides of their trucks, if there were any markings at all.
One day, when Mackenzie was driving somewhere, he saw a white truck with nothing really on its sides and followed it to a Goodwill store. When he called to ask if the company would be interested, he found that someone there had always wanted to do just exactly what he was proposing.
In exchange for an ongoing ad campaign for Goodwill on the side of one truck, Mackenzie’s fledgling company had its fleet.
Best of all, the Goodwill trucks run regular routes in populated areas, picking up donations at drop-off centers and also delivering goods to the company’s retail stores. Most trucking companies run their routes far from where people are, because traffic slows them down. And many of them run at night, again to avoid congestion.
Not Goodwill trucks, which are on the road for six to 10 hours per day.
“They’re always where the people are,” Mackenzie said.
He had the trucks fitted with what are called “changeable fleet graphic systems,” essentially easy-to-change billboards. Aluminum rails hold a heavy vinyl sheet tight against the side of the truck.
The vinyl itself is printed by a firm in Seattle that can put any graphic or text on the fabric. It takes a couple of hours to put on a sign, which Mackenzie often has done at Wagon Masters in Scarborough.
His goal is to get the company to $60,000 in revenue by June and triple that by next year. He wants to expand the business beyond Maine, into the New England region and then into the mid-Atlantic states.
Scarborough hunting ranch escapes ban
Published in the Current
A so-called “hunting ranch” in Scarborough has been spared from a proposed law that would have banned the hunting of game animals inside enclosures like the 200-acre Bayley Hill Hunt Park here.
The bill, proposed by Rep. Tom Bull, D-Freeport, and Rep. Matt Dunlap, D-Old Town, failed in a legislative committee Monday.
“Fortunately, (Monday) it was completely squashed,” said Nick Richardson, manager of the Bayley Hill Deer and Elk Farm and the adjoining hunt park. “It was really a storm in a teacup.”
Hunting ranches are typically several hundred acres of forest and wild land, Richardson said. They are stocked with deer and elk raised on farms like Bayley Hill’s farm. The animals are then released into wildland-type areas with fences around them.
Hunters pay the owners of the ranches hundreds and even thousands of dollars to hunt on the ranch’s land and are sent home with trophy heads as well as meat processed from the carcass of any animals shot.
Critics of the ranches say the practice is inhumane, effectively hunting an animal that has been penned up. Ranch supporters, including Richardson, say the animals are allowed to run free in natural environments, where they are hard to find and shoot, and added that hunters are hunting for meat as well as trophies.
“They’re not just coming to shoot an animal for its horns,” Richardson said.
Further, economic and regulatory pressures on supplier farms mean it is already difficult to make ends meet. Without being able to sell trophy animals to hunting ranches, the business would fail, Richardson said.
Hunting ranches bring tourist dollars into the state, helping the economy, Richardson said.
A so-called “hunting ranch” in Scarborough has been spared from a proposed law that would have banned the hunting of game animals inside enclosures like the 200-acre Bayley Hill Hunt Park here.
The bill, proposed by Rep. Tom Bull, D-Freeport, and Rep. Matt Dunlap, D-Old Town, failed in a legislative committee Monday.
“Fortunately, (Monday) it was completely squashed,” said Nick Richardson, manager of the Bayley Hill Deer and Elk Farm and the adjoining hunt park. “It was really a storm in a teacup.”
Hunting ranches are typically several hundred acres of forest and wild land, Richardson said. They are stocked with deer and elk raised on farms like Bayley Hill’s farm. The animals are then released into wildland-type areas with fences around them.
Hunters pay the owners of the ranches hundreds and even thousands of dollars to hunt on the ranch’s land and are sent home with trophy heads as well as meat processed from the carcass of any animals shot.
Critics of the ranches say the practice is inhumane, effectively hunting an animal that has been penned up. Ranch supporters, including Richardson, say the animals are allowed to run free in natural environments, where they are hard to find and shoot, and added that hunters are hunting for meat as well as trophies.
“They’re not just coming to shoot an animal for its horns,” Richardson said.
Further, economic and regulatory pressures on supplier farms mean it is already difficult to make ends meet. Without being able to sell trophy animals to hunting ranches, the business would fail, Richardson said.
Hunting ranches bring tourist dollars into the state, helping the economy, Richardson said.
Cape warns school support slipping
Published in the Current
Facing a $486,000 cut in state education funding, the Cape Elizabeth School Board is proposing a 2003-2004 budget with no new programs, and the superintendent is warning that Cape schools are “falling behind” in their ability to meet the community’s high expectations.
Based on Gov. John Baldacci’s proposed budget, the Cape school budget, up 2.75 percent over this year’s total, would result in a 4.06 percent tax increase. District statistics indicate that if state funding were kept constant, the tax increase would be 0.23 percent. Baldacci’s budget has yet to be approved by the Legislature.
Several town councilors had asked the School Board for no more than a 2 percent tax rate increase.
Superintendent Tom Forcella told School Board members at a workshop Tuesday night that he did not hear a consensus from the council on that. “What I heard at that meeting were two or three council members” asking for the 2 percent cap, he said.
There is new spending in the budget, to provide additional help to meet Maine Learning Results and the federal No Child Left Behind requirements, as well as adding legally required special education staff members.
Enrollment at the three schools is expected to be flat, meaning no regular teaching positions will be added or cut.
The $15,328,320 budget also restores half of the capital improvement funding cut from this year’s budget. Additionally, it uses $200,000 in savings from a spending freeze last year to offset revenue shortfalls. The board had previously asked the council to use that $200,000 to make urgent repairs at the high school.
Forcella said the proposed budget is not enough to halt a slide in Cape’s education spending, and he painted a picture of crisis in Cape’s financial support of the schools.
“We’re not even maintaining where we’ve been,” he said. “We’re falling behind.”
Citing the community’s pride in the quality of its schools, Forcella made it clear the district wants to be able to spend more money. “If our expectation is to be the best, we need to have the resources to get us there.”
He said further cuts will jeopardize the quality of the schools, including its highly successful music program, which recently won acclaim at the Berklee Jazz Festival in Boston.
“(Low spending) will take a toll at some point in time,” Forcella said.
Forcella reiterated his concerns that Cape’s per-pupil spending is dropping, as compared with other districts in Cumberland County and around the state, including many to which the district often compares itself.
“We have people who want the highest performing district” but are not supporting it with the financial backing given to other high-performing districts, Forcella said.
Board member Kevin Sweeney said the per-pupil comparison shows a very different view from statistics the Town Council has recently cited, indicating that Cape Elizabeth has higher education spending per capita than any other town in Maine.
Despite his misgivings, Forcella put forward a budget that includes no new programs, and incorporates several cost-saving initiatives.
The proposed budget includes savings of nearly $20,000 by sharing a psychologist with Cumberland and North Yarmouth rather than contracting out those services,
It also assumes two large construction projects – renovations to Pond Cove and the high school – will not go forward in time to avoid using portable classrooms.
Business Manager Pauline Aportria told the board the budget included savings of $57,000 in architectural fees for the two projects. “We don’t need Bob Howe,” the project architect, Aportria said. The budget does include $10,000 for architectural work related to putting portable classrooms at Pond Cove.
One possible variable is the cost of heating oil. The budget assumes the district will be able to purchase oil for $1 per gallon, but it has not yet been able to lock in a price with any suppliers, Aportria said.
Possible areas for future cuts include athletics and the technology budget, according to board member George Entwistle. “This is going to be a tough year. We may need to make some tough choices,” he said.
The technology budget presently includes money to purchase a student information system, which would track students in all grade levels, keeping records of attendance, grades and progress toward the Maine Learning Results.
Facing a $486,000 cut in state education funding, the Cape Elizabeth School Board is proposing a 2003-2004 budget with no new programs, and the superintendent is warning that Cape schools are “falling behind” in their ability to meet the community’s high expectations.
Based on Gov. John Baldacci’s proposed budget, the Cape school budget, up 2.75 percent over this year’s total, would result in a 4.06 percent tax increase. District statistics indicate that if state funding were kept constant, the tax increase would be 0.23 percent. Baldacci’s budget has yet to be approved by the Legislature.
Several town councilors had asked the School Board for no more than a 2 percent tax rate increase.
Superintendent Tom Forcella told School Board members at a workshop Tuesday night that he did not hear a consensus from the council on that. “What I heard at that meeting were two or three council members” asking for the 2 percent cap, he said.
There is new spending in the budget, to provide additional help to meet Maine Learning Results and the federal No Child Left Behind requirements, as well as adding legally required special education staff members.
Enrollment at the three schools is expected to be flat, meaning no regular teaching positions will be added or cut.
The $15,328,320 budget also restores half of the capital improvement funding cut from this year’s budget. Additionally, it uses $200,000 in savings from a spending freeze last year to offset revenue shortfalls. The board had previously asked the council to use that $200,000 to make urgent repairs at the high school.
Forcella said the proposed budget is not enough to halt a slide in Cape’s education spending, and he painted a picture of crisis in Cape’s financial support of the schools.
“We’re not even maintaining where we’ve been,” he said. “We’re falling behind.”
Citing the community’s pride in the quality of its schools, Forcella made it clear the district wants to be able to spend more money. “If our expectation is to be the best, we need to have the resources to get us there.”
He said further cuts will jeopardize the quality of the schools, including its highly successful music program, which recently won acclaim at the Berklee Jazz Festival in Boston.
“(Low spending) will take a toll at some point in time,” Forcella said.
Forcella reiterated his concerns that Cape’s per-pupil spending is dropping, as compared with other districts in Cumberland County and around the state, including many to which the district often compares itself.
“We have people who want the highest performing district” but are not supporting it with the financial backing given to other high-performing districts, Forcella said.
Board member Kevin Sweeney said the per-pupil comparison shows a very different view from statistics the Town Council has recently cited, indicating that Cape Elizabeth has higher education spending per capita than any other town in Maine.
Despite his misgivings, Forcella put forward a budget that includes no new programs, and incorporates several cost-saving initiatives.
The proposed budget includes savings of nearly $20,000 by sharing a psychologist with Cumberland and North Yarmouth rather than contracting out those services,
It also assumes two large construction projects – renovations to Pond Cove and the high school – will not go forward in time to avoid using portable classrooms.
Business Manager Pauline Aportria told the board the budget included savings of $57,000 in architectural fees for the two projects. “We don’t need Bob Howe,” the project architect, Aportria said. The budget does include $10,000 for architectural work related to putting portable classrooms at Pond Cove.
One possible variable is the cost of heating oil. The budget assumes the district will be able to purchase oil for $1 per gallon, but it has not yet been able to lock in a price with any suppliers, Aportria said.
Possible areas for future cuts include athletics and the technology budget, according to board member George Entwistle. “This is going to be a tough year. We may need to make some tough choices,” he said.
The technology budget presently includes money to purchase a student information system, which would track students in all grade levels, keeping records of attendance, grades and progress toward the Maine Learning Results.
Death be not subtle: Thanatron full of crushing blows
Published in the Portland Phoenix
You read it here first: When the generation now in their 20s and 30s take political power in this country, assisted suicide will be made legal. Nobody wants to die the way we have watched our grandparents and parents die. Much better to die with dignity than to slowly ebb away like a sandbar before a storm.
Written and directed by Carolyn Gage. With Megan Dauphinais, Sheila Jackson, Muriel Kenderdine, Jessica Porter, Liz Rensenbrink, and Vic Symonds. At Portland Stage Company’s Studio Theater, through March 16. Call (207) 774-0465.
You read it here first: When the generation now in their 20s and 30s take political power in this country, assisted suicide will be made legal. Nobody wants to die the way we have watched our grandparents and parents die. Much better to die with dignity than to slowly ebb away like a sandbar before a storm.
But dying with a party, before you’re even past your prime? Isn’t that overkill? Carolyn Gage raises questions like these in Thanatron (the latest production by Cauldron & Labrys, her all-women’s theater project) in which a middle-aged mother of four (Molly Hawthorne, played by Liz Rensenbrink) fears her memory is failing, and decides she wants to die. A clever, if overly enthusiastic, Kevorkian–like doctor (played by Sheila Jackson) has determined a means by which people can calculate their quality of life, thereby determining "with 95-percent accuracy" who will want to off themselves and when. He has also built a death machine — Thanatron — to "take the risk out of" suicide.
To make herself feel better about her precipitous decision, Molly throws a farewell party, inviting her whole family and the neighbors. The play follows the family through the lead-up to the party, as they struggle with the concepts of leaving and remembering, and past what is literally a moment of truth.
Is Molly a "progressive woman" who is "ahead of her time," as her husband Frank (Jessica Porter) says, or is she just wishing for release, already so beaten down that she yields to her stereotypically traditional mother even in choosing the dress in which she’ll die.
The family — with the exception of the youngest, Caitlin (Megan Dauphinais), and the lesbian housekeeper (Dani, played by Vic Symonds) — greets Molly’s decision with obvious glee. The two sons go so far as to hand-build a custom-fit coffin for their mother to repose in, and Frank keeps reminding everyone that it is "almost time."
Clearly, Gage has set out to hit the audience over the head with the idea that men, families, and society kill women spiritually long before they die physically. As such, it is a success both on stage — where a renewed Molly literally hits the doctor on the head, leaving him to stagger across the stage into the coffin — and off, when the audience leaves with no room for post-play dialogue or introspection.
All conflicts are resolved on stage, leaving no openings for wonder or further intellectual investigation after the show is over. As the play ends, women are vindicated, triumphant and empowered. This excellent and exciting message is delivered, over and over again, in a painstakingly literal play.
Nothing is left to the imagination, nor even to involved spectation. When there is a point to be made, it is laid out in so many words. First there is the doctor, played by a woman but clearly a male character, and his phallic-symbol IV-drip stand feeding on the very idea of the death of a woman. Caitlin and Dani, one who says she wants to be a lesbian when she grows up and the other already there, conspire to foul the IV drip to prevent Molly’s death, and to supply, instead, a revelatory dose of truth serum, transforming death into truth.
All of the elements — the family’s grim excitement, the strong women’s objections, and the husband’s leering affair with the still-passionate neighbor — end up as large, glass bottles to be smashed over the head of each audience member.
When the time comes and Molly begins to reveal memories she has repressed, the party turns ugly. As Molly remembers repressed abuse, the men in the room scuffle and murder her, preferring a dead woman to the truth.
But even the ugliness draws a laugh, and indeed the play is written to be a comic farce rather than the morbidly serious drama it could also be. Characters are cartoons and play out stereotypical roles well beyond the normal realm of absurdity, which results in audience members laughing their heads off as the death machine is erected on stage.
Dani and Caitlin stage a further redemptive moment for Molly, whom they have managed to save from herself, and even this bears an obvious message that Gage does not leave to the spectator’s brain, instead forcing the issue by delivering the message in dialogue.
The play is darkly funny and well-cast, with Rensenbrink exceeding all expectations of a loving but disoriented mother, Dauphinais acting her age to a T, and the stage-debuting Symonds doing very well but needing to deliver her lines without cracking a smile when she knows the audience will laugh.
The opening and closing scenes are the hardest parts to handle: the beginning seems very nearly not part of the play at all, and the final word is spoken so often that it becomes impossible not to remember, remember, remember, remember.
THANATRONWritten and directed by Carolyn Gage. With Megan Dauphinais, Sheila Jackson, Muriel Kenderdine, Jessica Porter, Liz Rensenbrink, and Vic Symonds. At Portland Stage Company’s Studio Theater, through March 16. Call (207) 774-0465.
Thursday, February 20, 2003
Student assessment rules a maze
Published in the Current
Despite district concerns that as many as 20 current eighth-graders may not satisfy state requirements for high school graduation, Cape Elizabeth teachers are not getting the help they need from the state.
“There are still a lot of unanswered questions and missing pieces,” said Sarah Simmonds, the district’s facilitator of curriculum, assessment and professional development.
In the meantime, teachers are continuing their work creating a local assessment and tracking system, and figuring out how to identify and support students who are struggling to meet educational standards.
It’s something the schools have been working on for a while, Simmonds said. The effort began a few years ago when Superintendent Tom Forcella started to develop a district-wide Future Direction Plan, Simmonds said.
Since then, state and federal requirements and guidelines have entered the picture, with the Maine Learning Results and the No Child Left Behind Act. All of these leave districts and teachers in a bind. They know they need to move toward the goals of the laws, but need government guidance about what exactly will satisfy the requirements.
There are two big questions. First, will students be permitted to receive high school diplomas if they do not meet the Maine Learning Results standards in all eight content areas?
Second, what impact will those standards have on special education students?
The state has not yet made clear to schools what will be required for issuing a diploma. If diplomas are available only to students who meet all content standards, other students, entitled only to a certificate of attendance, may suffer in the job market, Simmonds said.
But schools also want to acknowledge the achievements of students who have met the standards. “We have to understand the consequences,” Simmonds said.
Special education could be another variable. Individual education plans, developed for all students in special education, lay out goals for students to work toward. When adapted to take into account students’ special needs, those plans, called IEPs, can differ from curricular goals for non-special-education students.
If students who meet the goals of the IEPs are given diplomas, regardless of whether they meet the Learning Results standards, more parents will be asking for their kids to get special education services, Simmonds said.
“Learning Results is about high standards for all kids,” Simmonds said. That much is clear, but “the devil is in the details,” she said.
Students who need support should get it, Simmonds said. Teachers are working on how to identify them systematically, as well as how to meet their needs once students at risk of not graduating are identified.
A support structure is likely to include help during the academic year, possibly from teachers or other school staff, who are available during students’ free periods or before or after school.
It may also include what Simmonds called “a standards-based summer school,” which would be different from the stereotypical summer school, because students would be given assistance with the specific areas in which they need help. A student with fairly few needs could spend as little as a couple of days in summer school if things went well, Simmonds said, while a student who needed help in several areas or had significant difficulties with a set of topics could spend a few weeks.
Other problems are more administrative. To respect the tradition of “local control” for school districts, the state Legislature laid out broad standards and left it to schools to determine how those standards would be met, measured and recorded.
Many teachers never learned how to do this during their training, Simmonds said. The state has made available guideline assessments and standards for teachers to use, but most teachers around the state don’t want to use the state’s suggestions, and start to make changes.
Documenting the outcomes from the assessments is also a challenge. State and federal officials are only now beginning to specify how they need to receive information from schools, and there are others who need that information, too. Parents and teachers need to know how their students are measuring up to the standards.
To further complicate matters, colleges still look for grade-point-averages, class rank and SAT scores, which will need to be on official transcripts.
In the end, the bottom line should be that if a student does not get a diploma after four years at CEHS, “it shouldn’t be a surprise,” Simmonds said.
Despite district concerns that as many as 20 current eighth-graders may not satisfy state requirements for high school graduation, Cape Elizabeth teachers are not getting the help they need from the state.
“There are still a lot of unanswered questions and missing pieces,” said Sarah Simmonds, the district’s facilitator of curriculum, assessment and professional development.
In the meantime, teachers are continuing their work creating a local assessment and tracking system, and figuring out how to identify and support students who are struggling to meet educational standards.
It’s something the schools have been working on for a while, Simmonds said. The effort began a few years ago when Superintendent Tom Forcella started to develop a district-wide Future Direction Plan, Simmonds said.
Since then, state and federal requirements and guidelines have entered the picture, with the Maine Learning Results and the No Child Left Behind Act. All of these leave districts and teachers in a bind. They know they need to move toward the goals of the laws, but need government guidance about what exactly will satisfy the requirements.
There are two big questions. First, will students be permitted to receive high school diplomas if they do not meet the Maine Learning Results standards in all eight content areas?
Second, what impact will those standards have on special education students?
The state has not yet made clear to schools what will be required for issuing a diploma. If diplomas are available only to students who meet all content standards, other students, entitled only to a certificate of attendance, may suffer in the job market, Simmonds said.
But schools also want to acknowledge the achievements of students who have met the standards. “We have to understand the consequences,” Simmonds said.
Special education could be another variable. Individual education plans, developed for all students in special education, lay out goals for students to work toward. When adapted to take into account students’ special needs, those plans, called IEPs, can differ from curricular goals for non-special-education students.
If students who meet the goals of the IEPs are given diplomas, regardless of whether they meet the Learning Results standards, more parents will be asking for their kids to get special education services, Simmonds said.
“Learning Results is about high standards for all kids,” Simmonds said. That much is clear, but “the devil is in the details,” she said.
Students who need support should get it, Simmonds said. Teachers are working on how to identify them systematically, as well as how to meet their needs once students at risk of not graduating are identified.
A support structure is likely to include help during the academic year, possibly from teachers or other school staff, who are available during students’ free periods or before or after school.
It may also include what Simmonds called “a standards-based summer school,” which would be different from the stereotypical summer school, because students would be given assistance with the specific areas in which they need help. A student with fairly few needs could spend as little as a couple of days in summer school if things went well, Simmonds said, while a student who needed help in several areas or had significant difficulties with a set of topics could spend a few weeks.
Other problems are more administrative. To respect the tradition of “local control” for school districts, the state Legislature laid out broad standards and left it to schools to determine how those standards would be met, measured and recorded.
Many teachers never learned how to do this during their training, Simmonds said. The state has made available guideline assessments and standards for teachers to use, but most teachers around the state don’t want to use the state’s suggestions, and start to make changes.
Documenting the outcomes from the assessments is also a challenge. State and federal officials are only now beginning to specify how they need to receive information from schools, and there are others who need that information, too. Parents and teachers need to know how their students are measuring up to the standards.
To further complicate matters, colleges still look for grade-point-averages, class rank and SAT scores, which will need to be on official transcripts.
In the end, the bottom line should be that if a student does not get a diploma after four years at CEHS, “it shouldn’t be a surprise,” Simmonds said.
On Active Duty: Airman First Class Mike Layton
Published in the Current
Airman First Class Mike Layton, a 2001 CEHS graduate, has been in Bahrain providing support for the war in Afghanistan since his 19th birthday, Nov. 26, 2002. He was initially supposed to be there for 90 days, said his father, also named Mike. But now Mike the younger has been “frozen,” meaning he will be staying in that location for the time being, his father said.
Layton has been in the Air Force for a year and a half. He joined right out of high school and is now assigned to the 509th Security Forces Squadron, which normally provides security at Whiteman Air Force Base, Knob Noster, Mo., the home of the B-2 Stealth bomber.
Layton volunteered for overseas duty, and his father said he wants to be a policeman when he gets out of the military. Layton’s father is himself a 24-year veteran of the Coast Guard now working in law enforcement.
The family e-mails Layton regularly and also sends pre-paid phone cards so Layton can call home, his father said. In addition to the people in his family, “the dog misses him,” his father said.
Airman First Class Mike Layton, a 2001 CEHS graduate, has been in Bahrain providing support for the war in Afghanistan since his 19th birthday, Nov. 26, 2002. He was initially supposed to be there for 90 days, said his father, also named Mike. But now Mike the younger has been “frozen,” meaning he will be staying in that location for the time being, his father said.
Layton has been in the Air Force for a year and a half. He joined right out of high school and is now assigned to the 509th Security Forces Squadron, which normally provides security at Whiteman Air Force Base, Knob Noster, Mo., the home of the B-2 Stealth bomber.
Layton volunteered for overseas duty, and his father said he wants to be a policeman when he gets out of the military. Layton’s father is himself a 24-year veteran of the Coast Guard now working in law enforcement.
The family e-mails Layton regularly and also sends pre-paid phone cards so Layton can call home, his father said. In addition to the people in his family, “the dog misses him,” his father said.
Cape volunteers become brothers’ keepers
Published in the Current
Several Cape Elizabeth High School students, in cooperation with high school students from other towns and the United Way of Greater Portland, are trying to give homeless teenagers in the area a better shot at making it by providing them with a backpack filled with the essentials of daily life.
Leslie Preti, Whitney Turkanis, Hannah Botto, Mary Ann Chapman and Schuyler Armstrong are among a group called Youth Engaged in Service, or YES, getting teens involved in community service and leadership through the United Way.
They want to put together 50 backpacks, 25 for males and 25 for females, with toiletries, pens, phone cards, batteries and more. The catch is they have to do all the work themselves.
Jessica Esch, the United Way coordinator of the project, said her job is basically to facilitate the kids’ efforts and make sure they all stay more or less on track. It is up to the teens to decide what projects they want to undertake and to carry them out, Esch said.
“It’s a loose group because kids are so busy,” Esch said.
Students find out about it from their friends, who have been involved with it in previous years. “The word just kind of gets spread around the schools,” Botto said.
Three CEHS students were in YES last year, and five are in it this year. Some of the students involved found out about it through the Volunteer Club at the high school. Jill Dalfonso of South Portland, a student at Catherine McAuley High School in Portland, said her school’s Key Club is the way most students learn about YES.
The year’s first task is to decide what the group will focus on. “When we had our first meeting, we just kind of started yelling out random ideas,” Preti said.
They were inspired by a flyer Turkanis had found about the BluePack Project, an initiative giving school and basic hygiene supplies to children in Afghanistan.
“We decided we wanted to help people our own age,” Armstrong said. They are now out soliciting donations of goods and money from community members, businesses and non-profit organizations.
Some of the work involves writing formal grant proposals to organizations like the Libra Foundation.
Other efforts involve heading to a local dentist and asking for help buying toothbrushes, toothpaste and dental floss, or asking Sam’s Club in Scarborough for toiletries.
Donations of money are also helpful, and the students plan how they will spend the money, depending on how the solicitation goes for donations of actual products.
They also learn to revise their plans as they go along, determining – with the help of the staff at the Preble Street Teen Center – that deodorant and socks are more important than, say, playing cards.
They also ensure that each backpack has a personal touch, with a container of nice lotion for young women and shaving cream for the young men.
Several Cape Elizabeth High School students, in cooperation with high school students from other towns and the United Way of Greater Portland, are trying to give homeless teenagers in the area a better shot at making it by providing them with a backpack filled with the essentials of daily life.
Leslie Preti, Whitney Turkanis, Hannah Botto, Mary Ann Chapman and Schuyler Armstrong are among a group called Youth Engaged in Service, or YES, getting teens involved in community service and leadership through the United Way.
They want to put together 50 backpacks, 25 for males and 25 for females, with toiletries, pens, phone cards, batteries and more. The catch is they have to do all the work themselves.
Jessica Esch, the United Way coordinator of the project, said her job is basically to facilitate the kids’ efforts and make sure they all stay more or less on track. It is up to the teens to decide what projects they want to undertake and to carry them out, Esch said.
“It’s a loose group because kids are so busy,” Esch said.
Students find out about it from their friends, who have been involved with it in previous years. “The word just kind of gets spread around the schools,” Botto said.
Three CEHS students were in YES last year, and five are in it this year. Some of the students involved found out about it through the Volunteer Club at the high school. Jill Dalfonso of South Portland, a student at Catherine McAuley High School in Portland, said her school’s Key Club is the way most students learn about YES.
The year’s first task is to decide what the group will focus on. “When we had our first meeting, we just kind of started yelling out random ideas,” Preti said.
They were inspired by a flyer Turkanis had found about the BluePack Project, an initiative giving school and basic hygiene supplies to children in Afghanistan.
“We decided we wanted to help people our own age,” Armstrong said. They are now out soliciting donations of goods and money from community members, businesses and non-profit organizations.
Some of the work involves writing formal grant proposals to organizations like the Libra Foundation.
Other efforts involve heading to a local dentist and asking for help buying toothbrushes, toothpaste and dental floss, or asking Sam’s Club in Scarborough for toiletries.
Donations of money are also helpful, and the students plan how they will spend the money, depending on how the solicitation goes for donations of actual products.
They also learn to revise their plans as they go along, determining – with the help of the staff at the Preble Street Teen Center – that deodorant and socks are more important than, say, playing cards.
They also ensure that each backpack has a personal touch, with a container of nice lotion for young women and shaving cream for the young men.
State cuts local school aid
Published in the Current; co-written with Kate Irish Collins and Josh Williamson
School districts across the state are getting their first look at next year’s state funding for education, and locally it doesn’t look good.
Cape is looking at a reduction of $486,000 in state aid for education and Scarborough is looking at a cut of a little over $600,000. South Portland will actually see a $500,000 increase this year, but the total percentage of the school budget funded by the state will drop to 5 percent, the lowest allowed under state regulation.
The tough budget news comes as the Secretary of State’s Office certified on Tuesday a referendum question that would require the state to pay more to communities in education aid.
The proposal, proposed and backed by the Maine Municipal Association, would require 55 percent of total education expenditures statewide to be funded in the state budget.
The Legislature can either approve the proposal itself or put the question out to voters in November.
The education aid numbers, released this week by the state’s Department of Education, are based on the governor’s proposed budget, but have not yet been through the Legislature’s committee process or been voted on by lawmakers. They provide, however, the first look at how district budgets could be affected.
“This is the starting point for the discussion,” said Jim Watkins at the Department of Education.
Cape Elizabeth Business Manager Pauline Aportria said the expected $486,000 cut this year is on top of the nearly $450,000 cut in 2001-2002.
“It’s going to make life very difficult,” said Superintendent Tom Forcella.
He said the Town Council has asked the schools to keep any budget increase from causing a tax increase of more than 2 percent.
Replacing the money lost from the state with locally raised property taxes would require a 64-cent increase in taxes in Cape, an increase of 3.8 percent.
There is a $3 million “cushion” available to soften the blow, which has yet to be divided among schools throughout the state, but Forcella said it is unclear what that will mean.
Last year there was a $4 million cushion, of which Cape got $200,000.
In Scarborough, the superintendent’s office was all set to present a budget to the Board of Education based on the assumption the town would get the same amount of state aid for education as it did this year.
“There’s no doubt this is a lot for us,” said Herb Hopkins, the school finance director, about the now anticipated cut of $600,000 or more.
“We were hoping for flat funding because of our increasing school enrollment,” he said. Scarborough is expecting an additional 100 students to enroll in the fall.
On Thursday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m., at Town Hall, the school department plans to hold a public hearing on next year’s school budget, which as it currently stands would total $28.1 million. This represents a 12.6 percent increase over the current school budget, or an additional $2.4 million.
Scarborough Superintendent William Michaud was out of the office this week, and Board of Education Chairman David Beneman was reluctant to comment on the anticipated reduction in state aid, arguing that there has been no formal announcement from the Department of Education.
“The school department certainly did budget planning on the assumption that there would be no increase in general purpose aid, even though we’re going to have an additional 100 students,” Beneman said. “Any decrease in revenue doesn’t affect the cost of running the schools,” however, he added.
South Portland, which lost $1.1 million last year, will see a $500,000 increase this year, bringing state aid up to $2.77 million. However, the total percentage of the school budget funded by the state will drop.
Last year, the state’s $2.2 million contribution was 8 percent of the city’s school budget, but budget increases due largely to the debt service from five elementary school projects mean that even with the aid increase, the state is covering just 5 percent now, the lowest percentage allowed under the funding formula.
“I think we are the only municipality in the state that is a minimum receiver that I am aware, certainly among the larger school districts,” said Polly Ward, business manager for the South Portland school department. “We get so little state aid that we really couldn’t get any less.”
South Portland’s tax base is roughly 65 percent commercial and 35 percent residential, accounting largely for the low funding from the state.
School districts across the state are getting their first look at next year’s state funding for education, and locally it doesn’t look good.
Cape is looking at a reduction of $486,000 in state aid for education and Scarborough is looking at a cut of a little over $600,000. South Portland will actually see a $500,000 increase this year, but the total percentage of the school budget funded by the state will drop to 5 percent, the lowest allowed under state regulation.
The tough budget news comes as the Secretary of State’s Office certified on Tuesday a referendum question that would require the state to pay more to communities in education aid.
The proposal, proposed and backed by the Maine Municipal Association, would require 55 percent of total education expenditures statewide to be funded in the state budget.
The Legislature can either approve the proposal itself or put the question out to voters in November.
The education aid numbers, released this week by the state’s Department of Education, are based on the governor’s proposed budget, but have not yet been through the Legislature’s committee process or been voted on by lawmakers. They provide, however, the first look at how district budgets could be affected.
“This is the starting point for the discussion,” said Jim Watkins at the Department of Education.
Cape Elizabeth Business Manager Pauline Aportria said the expected $486,000 cut this year is on top of the nearly $450,000 cut in 2001-2002.
“It’s going to make life very difficult,” said Superintendent Tom Forcella.
He said the Town Council has asked the schools to keep any budget increase from causing a tax increase of more than 2 percent.
Replacing the money lost from the state with locally raised property taxes would require a 64-cent increase in taxes in Cape, an increase of 3.8 percent.
There is a $3 million “cushion” available to soften the blow, which has yet to be divided among schools throughout the state, but Forcella said it is unclear what that will mean.
Last year there was a $4 million cushion, of which Cape got $200,000.
In Scarborough, the superintendent’s office was all set to present a budget to the Board of Education based on the assumption the town would get the same amount of state aid for education as it did this year.
“There’s no doubt this is a lot for us,” said Herb Hopkins, the school finance director, about the now anticipated cut of $600,000 or more.
“We were hoping for flat funding because of our increasing school enrollment,” he said. Scarborough is expecting an additional 100 students to enroll in the fall.
On Thursday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m., at Town Hall, the school department plans to hold a public hearing on next year’s school budget, which as it currently stands would total $28.1 million. This represents a 12.6 percent increase over the current school budget, or an additional $2.4 million.
Scarborough Superintendent William Michaud was out of the office this week, and Board of Education Chairman David Beneman was reluctant to comment on the anticipated reduction in state aid, arguing that there has been no formal announcement from the Department of Education.
“The school department certainly did budget planning on the assumption that there would be no increase in general purpose aid, even though we’re going to have an additional 100 students,” Beneman said. “Any decrease in revenue doesn’t affect the cost of running the schools,” however, he added.
South Portland, which lost $1.1 million last year, will see a $500,000 increase this year, bringing state aid up to $2.77 million. However, the total percentage of the school budget funded by the state will drop.
Last year, the state’s $2.2 million contribution was 8 percent of the city’s school budget, but budget increases due largely to the debt service from five elementary school projects mean that even with the aid increase, the state is covering just 5 percent now, the lowest percentage allowed under the funding formula.
“I think we are the only municipality in the state that is a minimum receiver that I am aware, certainly among the larger school districts,” said Polly Ward, business manager for the South Portland school department. “We get so little state aid that we really couldn’t get any less.”
South Portland’s tax base is roughly 65 percent commercial and 35 percent residential, accounting largely for the low funding from the state.
Deal with Pvt. Wars: Then look further afield
Published in the Portland Phoenix
Its Friday opening performance put off by frozen pipes, Pvt. Wars managed to draw a small crowd of about 20 people Saturday night, hours after a worldwide peace rally’s local event ended in a super-cooled Monument Square. Rather than chanting anti-Bush slogans or expressing concern about the well-being of the people of Iraq, however, the Cast — a grassroots theater company made up of three actors who rope their friends into lighting and stage managing — takes a look at war from the other end, through the lens of a Vietnam-era Army hospital. It is a reminder of how war affects people, distills them to their most basic characteristics, and of how humor may yet save us all.
Beautifully acted, hilariously funny, and backed by well selected music from the 1970s, Pvt. Wars deserves to fill the house at the St. Lawrence. It shows us the best we have to hope for if war does break out: If our military casualties have the resilience and humanity of these three characters, our world will get on fine.
Woodruff Gately (David A. Currier) is a shell-shocked simpleton with a good heart, determined to fix a broken radio, no matter how many working radios he must steal and dismantle to do it. He is able to befriend Natwick (J.P. Guimont), a foppish Long Island boy who joined the Army to continue, it seems, his trend of failures begun while he was growing up. Natwick’s physical injuries are hidden from view, but his psychological ones are very visible. Fortunately, actor Guimont’s senses of irony, delivery, and comedic timing were untouched by Natwick’s war.
Their relationship is complicated and enhanced by Silvio (Craig Bowden), who becomes a sort of misfit squad leader for the trio. It is Silvio who drives the dialogue, bringing up wide-ranging topics based primarily on his own fears of inadequacy now that he has had his testicles and penis blown off by shrapnel.
Rather than dealing with this injury in a depressing way, dwelling on the message the gods are sending him, Silvio chooses to take a more Kramer-type approach, concerned with how underwear feels and its effects on sperm motility.
Conversations between the three are awkward at first, as they adjust to their situations and become friends. As the play develops, they move on into learning more about each other and beginning to prepare for a return to the world.
There is both quiet and agitation on the stage, with between-scenes blackouts used not as a way for actors to move around unseen, but as a time for sound itself to become the performance. Hospital announcements, Natwick’s voiced letters home — clearly covering the truth of his crisis to assuage his parents’ worries — and period music break up the play’s moments and provide reminders that there is a world outside the hospital, and one outside the theater as well.
The actors are all very strong: Currier is bursting with Gately’s dynamic energy and goodwill; Bowden coils, springs, and relaxes like a comic Tarzan, fixing on an idea, ensnaring it and then finding it has escaped; and Guimont’s affected mannerisms and self-assured superiority mask his character’s vulnerabilities as well as any real Long Island boy could. Each has a sense of moment, timing, and expression, drawing out each of the play’s laughs naturally from the audience.
The characters are also well crafted in the writing and fully explored by the actors. Mannerisms, accents, and blocking all build onto the powerful base of the play’s introspection, showing us visually what we can also hear and feel going on in the characters’ lives.
And though it may seem a bit cliché to have the simplest man also be the deepest, Gately, who senses the true meaning of Longfellow’s epic "The Song of Hiawatha," also sees through the fog into the reality of the world outside the hospital, and into which our political leaders could stand to peer. We all have enough to deal with on our own, he says, "And if everybody would fight their own private wars, things would be all right. But, no, people have to stick their noses into other people’s wars."
The humor reigns supreme, however, which, possibly more than politics, is why the three chose the play for production. Looking for three-man shows, they found Pvt. Wars and "couldn’t stop laughing," Guimont says.
Laughter is a powerful weapon of war and tool of healing. Natwick’s admission of cowardice and thoughts of suicide is powerful, as he explains to Gately that a suicide threat is a cry for help. Gately’s replying offer of a razor blade to "help" Natwick, who shaves electric and has no blade, is the ironic punch line. And Silvio’s motivational tactic of radio-parts theft adds a darker, but still funny, aspect to the show, forcing us again to see beyond initial purposes and into our own hidden agendas.
Pvt. Wars
By James McLure. Produced by the Cast. With Craig Bowden, David A. Currier, and J.P. Guimont. At St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center, through March 9. Call (207) 775-5568.
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Board says support for schools dropping
Published in the Current
While the Town Council likes to point out that Cape Elizabeth spends more per capita on schools than any other town in the state, the School Board says the truth is the town’s support of schools is dropping and it now ranks 30th in terms of per pupil spending.
“You’re not putting into your school system what other districts are,” Superintendent Tom Forcella said of the town’s contribution at Tuesday night’s School Board meeting.
“The amount of money we’re spending per pupil has fallen dramatically” compared with other schools, Forcella said. “We’re not putting in the effort financially that the towns around us are putting into their schools,” he said.
School officials say the town’s per-pupil spending is being outpaced by towns throughout the state, including many in Cumberland County, to which the school system regularly compares itself.
In 1995-1996, Cape was fourth in the state and second in the county in per pupil spending, when compared with other K-12 school districts with more than 500 students, according to state statistics distributed by Forcella.
In 2001-2002, the district was 30th in the state and seventh in the county, indicating what Forcella called “a continuous downward trend.”
The state Department of Education ranks schools’ per-pupil spending after factoring out transportation costs and loan payments. Adding those in would probably lower the town’s ranking even more, Forcella said.
Board member Kevin Sweeney said the numbers disturbed him because the district made a significant push to raise teacher salaries three years ago, which seemed to have no effect on the slipping ranking. He went on to say that cuts already have been made wherever they can be, and even in some places that might not be able to be sustained with less money.
“When it comes to what kids need in classrooms and what teachers need in classrooms, we’ve been cutting,” Sweeney said.
Finance Committee Chairman Elaine Moloney said the School Board was reassessing how much effort townspeople want them to make on behalf of the schools.
“We really will be looking at getting a better feel from our community about how much support they want to put behind our budget,” she said.
While the Town Council likes to point out that Cape Elizabeth spends more per capita on schools than any other town in the state, the School Board says the truth is the town’s support of schools is dropping and it now ranks 30th in terms of per pupil spending.
“You’re not putting into your school system what other districts are,” Superintendent Tom Forcella said of the town’s contribution at Tuesday night’s School Board meeting.
“The amount of money we’re spending per pupil has fallen dramatically” compared with other schools, Forcella said. “We’re not putting in the effort financially that the towns around us are putting into their schools,” he said.
School officials say the town’s per-pupil spending is being outpaced by towns throughout the state, including many in Cumberland County, to which the school system regularly compares itself.
In 1995-1996, Cape was fourth in the state and second in the county in per pupil spending, when compared with other K-12 school districts with more than 500 students, according to state statistics distributed by Forcella.
In 2001-2002, the district was 30th in the state and seventh in the county, indicating what Forcella called “a continuous downward trend.”
The state Department of Education ranks schools’ per-pupil spending after factoring out transportation costs and loan payments. Adding those in would probably lower the town’s ranking even more, Forcella said.
Board member Kevin Sweeney said the numbers disturbed him because the district made a significant push to raise teacher salaries three years ago, which seemed to have no effect on the slipping ranking. He went on to say that cuts already have been made wherever they can be, and even in some places that might not be able to be sustained with less money.
“When it comes to what kids need in classrooms and what teachers need in classrooms, we’ve been cutting,” Sweeney said.
Finance Committee Chairman Elaine Moloney said the School Board was reassessing how much effort townspeople want them to make on behalf of the schools.
“We really will be looking at getting a better feel from our community about how much support they want to put behind our budget,” she said.
Sweeney running again, two undecided
Published in the Current
Cape School Board member Kevin Sweeney will run for re-election in the spring, he told the Current. His second three-year term expires in June. “I have unfinished business,” Sweeney said. He wants to continue looking after the interests of special needs and marginal students, particularly in light of the Maine Learning Results requirements.
“I want to make sure that those kids are not shortchanged” by being offered a certificate of attendance instead of a real high school diploma, he said.
“We are facing very very tough times,” Sweeney said. “I can hit the ground running,” he added, citing his six years on the board, as well as his experience as chairman of most of the School Board’s subcommittees.
He said people important to him “have convinced me that I’m still relevant to addressing issues in the schools.”
The terms of board members Elaine Moloney and Susan Steinman also expire this year. Steinman said she is “leaning toward not” running again, though she is still technically undecided. She does not plan to take out nominating papers, but pointed out that she ran last time as a write-in candidate.
Moloney, currently serving as the board’s finance chairman, said she is “considering” running again, but will wait until she sees about community support for the schools in the coming budget process.
Cape School Board member Kevin Sweeney will run for re-election in the spring, he told the Current. His second three-year term expires in June. “I have unfinished business,” Sweeney said. He wants to continue looking after the interests of special needs and marginal students, particularly in light of the Maine Learning Results requirements.
“I want to make sure that those kids are not shortchanged” by being offered a certificate of attendance instead of a real high school diploma, he said.
“We are facing very very tough times,” Sweeney said. “I can hit the ground running,” he added, citing his six years on the board, as well as his experience as chairman of most of the School Board’s subcommittees.
He said people important to him “have convinced me that I’m still relevant to addressing issues in the schools.”
The terms of board members Elaine Moloney and Susan Steinman also expire this year. Steinman said she is “leaning toward not” running again, though she is still technically undecided. She does not plan to take out nominating papers, but pointed out that she ran last time as a write-in candidate.
Moloney, currently serving as the board’s finance chairman, said she is “considering” running again, but will wait until she sees about community support for the schools in the coming budget process.
Maine Med researchers delve into life
Published in the Current
The Maine Medical Center Research Institute in Scarborough is the site of world-class, groundbreaking medical research on a par with the Mayo Clinic and the Scripps Research Institute.
The building’s spiral staircase evokes the concept of DNA, and a poster in a lab tells scientists that research mice have saved more people than firefighters.
MMCRI permits Maine Med to function as a teaching hospital, said Dr. Ken Ault, MMCRI’s director.
Normally those types of hospitals are right next to a medical school, with clinical work and basic scientific research complementing each other. Maine Med doesn’t have a med school nearby, and is only affiliated with the University of Vermont medical school in Burlington.
“The main reason we’re here is to provide the academic environment that otherwise is missing,” Ault said. MMCRI is one of only about 20 research institutes around the country not affiliated with a medical school. “It’s fairly unusual,” he said.
For the first 10 years, the institute was funded almost entirely by the hospital and did the research needed by medical professionals caring for patients.
Six years ago, though, the institute decided to focus its efforts, to be more effective in its research and to respond to the increasingly competitive biomedical world. It committed to building the structure that is now tucked away on the Maine Med campus in Scarborough, and getting “on the map” of biomedical research, Ault said.
The effort has succeeded, with world-class scientists at MMCRI looking into four wide sectors of medical subjects: cardiology and blood vessel formation; molecular biology, including work using adult stem cells; applying academic research to clinical practice; and clinical trials of procedures or drugs in the FDA approval process.
Some of the things they are learning about include how cancer cells are able to attract blood vessels to help them grow and, correspondingly, how doctors may be able to shut off blood flow to tumors. They also are looking at how cells organize themselves into an organism, which could permit scientists to develop genetic treatments for certain conditions.
Doctors are also looking into the question, “how do we practice medicine?” Ault said. They study how different doctors treat similar conditions and compare the results of each treatment to determine the most clinically effective way of helping people get healthy.
“That’s a big area of research,” Ault said. It can show doctors not only how well and how quickly patients recover, but also how to keep costs down, by determining what procedures work best for different patients. Two clinical studies include work on early intervention for patients bordering on psychosis and how dialysis affects patients over the long term.
The institute attracts research grants from the National Institutes of Health, non-profits like the American Heart Association and pharmaceutical companies, among others, Ault said.
He is looking to expand the institute, but not too much. He wants to get more doctors involved in clinical trials and to add on more basic science as well.
There are 13 graduate students from the University of Maine who are doing work at MMCRI, as part of a program with UMaine and the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor.
Students are taught to do biomedical research as part of their courses of study.
They get to use state-of-the-art equipment, including machines that can build molecules of specific types or ones that can tear apart molecules and tell scientists how they are constructed.
And they interact with people in clinical trials, the ones Ault calls “heroes,” making sacrifices of themselves to help researchers better understand medicine.
“It’s not for you, it’s for the greater good,” he said.
The Maine Medical Center Research Institute in Scarborough is the site of world-class, groundbreaking medical research on a par with the Mayo Clinic and the Scripps Research Institute.
The building’s spiral staircase evokes the concept of DNA, and a poster in a lab tells scientists that research mice have saved more people than firefighters.
MMCRI permits Maine Med to function as a teaching hospital, said Dr. Ken Ault, MMCRI’s director.
Normally those types of hospitals are right next to a medical school, with clinical work and basic scientific research complementing each other. Maine Med doesn’t have a med school nearby, and is only affiliated with the University of Vermont medical school in Burlington.
“The main reason we’re here is to provide the academic environment that otherwise is missing,” Ault said. MMCRI is one of only about 20 research institutes around the country not affiliated with a medical school. “It’s fairly unusual,” he said.
For the first 10 years, the institute was funded almost entirely by the hospital and did the research needed by medical professionals caring for patients.
Six years ago, though, the institute decided to focus its efforts, to be more effective in its research and to respond to the increasingly competitive biomedical world. It committed to building the structure that is now tucked away on the Maine Med campus in Scarborough, and getting “on the map” of biomedical research, Ault said.
The effort has succeeded, with world-class scientists at MMCRI looking into four wide sectors of medical subjects: cardiology and blood vessel formation; molecular biology, including work using adult stem cells; applying academic research to clinical practice; and clinical trials of procedures or drugs in the FDA approval process.
Some of the things they are learning about include how cancer cells are able to attract blood vessels to help them grow and, correspondingly, how doctors may be able to shut off blood flow to tumors. They also are looking at how cells organize themselves into an organism, which could permit scientists to develop genetic treatments for certain conditions.
Doctors are also looking into the question, “how do we practice medicine?” Ault said. They study how different doctors treat similar conditions and compare the results of each treatment to determine the most clinically effective way of helping people get healthy.
“That’s a big area of research,” Ault said. It can show doctors not only how well and how quickly patients recover, but also how to keep costs down, by determining what procedures work best for different patients. Two clinical studies include work on early intervention for patients bordering on psychosis and how dialysis affects patients over the long term.
The institute attracts research grants from the National Institutes of Health, non-profits like the American Heart Association and pharmaceutical companies, among others, Ault said.
He is looking to expand the institute, but not too much. He wants to get more doctors involved in clinical trials and to add on more basic science as well.
There are 13 graduate students from the University of Maine who are doing work at MMCRI, as part of a program with UMaine and the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor.
Students are taught to do biomedical research as part of their courses of study.
They get to use state-of-the-art equipment, including machines that can build molecules of specific types or ones that can tear apart molecules and tell scientists how they are constructed.
And they interact with people in clinical trials, the ones Ault calls “heroes,” making sacrifices of themselves to help researchers better understand medicine.
“It’s not for you, it’s for the greater good,” he said.
Third-graders and parents work on character in Cape
Published in the Current
It was almost bedlam in the Pond Cove gym around midday Tuesday. All of the third-graders and about 60 of their parents had gathered to share what they had learned in character-building sessions earlier in the morning.
The parents had met in the town center fire station to participate in a workshop entitled “Parenting: the biggest job we’ll ever have,” led by Laura Gauld, co-director of the Hyde School in Bath, which focuses on character building and involving the whole family and community in raising and teaching children.
“Our kids are not in their comfort zone” for most of the day, Gauld told parents. She encouraged parents to get out of their own comfort zones, to become role models by trying new things. “We will set an example for our kids to follow,” she said.
Gauld also cautioned parents against trying to become friends with their kids. “Do the job you need to do; you will have that relationship” eventually, she said.
Meanwhile, at Pond Cove, high school students from the Hyde School and about 25 Cape Elizabeth High School juniors and seniors had led discussions with third-graders about learning to be themselves.
When they all came together, parents spoke first, stepping forward out of the crowd to tell students what they had learned, including the importance of attitude when approaching a challenge; letting their kids try difficult things without automatically jumping in to take over; and having families agree on principles they all work toward.
One parent said she had learned that “it’s more important to do the right thing, even if it’s the hard thing.”
The students, for their part, spoke about their private feelings and the public face they put forward; what they want to be when they grow up; and what principles they stand for. They participated in skits demonstrating ways to overcome stress and how to treat people better.
Parent Kelly Dell’Aquila, who is a social worker, pushed for the workshop to help kids deal with bullying behaviors in school. Pat Wright and Karen Niehoff, the Pond Cove guidance counselors, and Katie Lisa, the high school social worker, helped plan and coordinate the events.
Funding was provided by the Cape Coalition, the Pond Cove Parents Association, the DARE program and Oakhurst Dairy.
At the end of her session, Gauld quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Our chief want in life is someone who will make us do what we can.”
It was almost bedlam in the Pond Cove gym around midday Tuesday. All of the third-graders and about 60 of their parents had gathered to share what they had learned in character-building sessions earlier in the morning.
The parents had met in the town center fire station to participate in a workshop entitled “Parenting: the biggest job we’ll ever have,” led by Laura Gauld, co-director of the Hyde School in Bath, which focuses on character building and involving the whole family and community in raising and teaching children.
“Our kids are not in their comfort zone” for most of the day, Gauld told parents. She encouraged parents to get out of their own comfort zones, to become role models by trying new things. “We will set an example for our kids to follow,” she said.
Gauld also cautioned parents against trying to become friends with their kids. “Do the job you need to do; you will have that relationship” eventually, she said.
Meanwhile, at Pond Cove, high school students from the Hyde School and about 25 Cape Elizabeth High School juniors and seniors had led discussions with third-graders about learning to be themselves.
When they all came together, parents spoke first, stepping forward out of the crowd to tell students what they had learned, including the importance of attitude when approaching a challenge; letting their kids try difficult things without automatically jumping in to take over; and having families agree on principles they all work toward.
One parent said she had learned that “it’s more important to do the right thing, even if it’s the hard thing.”
The students, for their part, spoke about their private feelings and the public face they put forward; what they want to be when they grow up; and what principles they stand for. They participated in skits demonstrating ways to overcome stress and how to treat people better.
Parent Kelly Dell’Aquila, who is a social worker, pushed for the workshop to help kids deal with bullying behaviors in school. Pat Wright and Karen Niehoff, the Pond Cove guidance counselors, and Katie Lisa, the high school social worker, helped plan and coordinate the events.
Funding was provided by the Cape Coalition, the Pond Cove Parents Association, the DARE program and Oakhurst Dairy.
At the end of her session, Gauld quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Our chief want in life is someone who will make us do what we can.”
Chinese teacher comes to Pond Cove
Published in the Current
A Chinese teacher, Wu Shumei, better known as “Mei,” will be visiting Pond Cove School for the rest of the academic year, sharing Chinese culture with the school’s students, as well as children at the town’s other schools.
At a welcoming party, Mei spoke with neighbors, kids, parents and friends about her school in China and her family, as well as her time in Maine. She is from Jiangxi province, in southeastern China, and teaches high school English at Linchuan High School Number 2.
She is working with the allied arts team at Pond Cove, bringing Chinese arts to the elementary school classrooms, and will also teach Tai Chi and other aspects of Chinese culture to high school students. Mei’s mentor teacher is Shari Robinson, the school’s librarian and media center supervisor.
She has also helped the South Portland Branch Library with its Chinese New Year festivities.
“I hope I will do a good job,” Mei said. She is excited about meeting the students and the teachers, and hopes to learn about American educational practices, as well as perfect her English. The Pond Cove team is very excited to have her – a number of teachers told the Current how great it is to have Mei there.
She is on an American Field Service program and has already visited a school in Readfield for several months.
She is staying with the Belden family, and is helping them teach their daughter Lydia about her heritage. The Beldens adopted Lydia from the Jiangxi region of China several years ago, and learned from Mei that her original Chinese name is that of a village near where Mei lives.
A Chinese teacher, Wu Shumei, better known as “Mei,” will be visiting Pond Cove School for the rest of the academic year, sharing Chinese culture with the school’s students, as well as children at the town’s other schools.
At a welcoming party, Mei spoke with neighbors, kids, parents and friends about her school in China and her family, as well as her time in Maine. She is from Jiangxi province, in southeastern China, and teaches high school English at Linchuan High School Number 2.
She is working with the allied arts team at Pond Cove, bringing Chinese arts to the elementary school classrooms, and will also teach Tai Chi and other aspects of Chinese culture to high school students. Mei’s mentor teacher is Shari Robinson, the school’s librarian and media center supervisor.
She has also helped the South Portland Branch Library with its Chinese New Year festivities.
“I hope I will do a good job,” Mei said. She is excited about meeting the students and the teachers, and hopes to learn about American educational practices, as well as perfect her English. The Pond Cove team is very excited to have her – a number of teachers told the Current how great it is to have Mei there.
She is on an American Field Service program and has already visited a school in Readfield for several months.
She is staying with the Belden family, and is helping them teach their daughter Lydia about her heritage. The Beldens adopted Lydia from the Jiangxi region of China several years ago, and learned from Mei that her original Chinese name is that of a village near where Mei lives.
Piano Man coming to town?
Published in the Current
Rumors abound that Billy Joel has bought a house in Cape Elizabeth, but it appears to be just a lark.
“As far as I know, Billy Joel has not bought a house in Maine,” his publicist, Claire Mercuri of Columbia Records, told the Current.
The rumor has found its way to the schools, Town Hall, the police station, homes all over town and even the Sugarloaf ski area. But there is no record of any such deal in the property transfer records in the town assessor’s office (current through Dec. 31), or at the county’s registry of deeds (including deeds filed as recently as Feb. 7).
Police have not received any requests to keep an eye on any property that might be owned by the singer, according to Capt. Brent Sinclair.
Several houses are rumored to be the one Joel has purchased, including one for sale in Delano Park and two on Shore Road.
Frank Strout of Shore Road said the house next door to his was taken off the market several weeks ago, but he doesn’t know whether the house has been sold, or who the new neighbors might be.
“As long as he doesn’t play his piano too loud, I don’t mind,” Strout said of the prospect of Billy Joel living next door.
Rumors abound that Billy Joel has bought a house in Cape Elizabeth, but it appears to be just a lark.
“As far as I know, Billy Joel has not bought a house in Maine,” his publicist, Claire Mercuri of Columbia Records, told the Current.
The rumor has found its way to the schools, Town Hall, the police station, homes all over town and even the Sugarloaf ski area. But there is no record of any such deal in the property transfer records in the town assessor’s office (current through Dec. 31), or at the county’s registry of deeds (including deeds filed as recently as Feb. 7).
Police have not received any requests to keep an eye on any property that might be owned by the singer, according to Capt. Brent Sinclair.
Several houses are rumored to be the one Joel has purchased, including one for sale in Delano Park and two on Shore Road.
Frank Strout of Shore Road said the house next door to his was taken off the market several weeks ago, but he doesn’t know whether the house has been sold, or who the new neighbors might be.
“As long as he doesn’t play his piano too loud, I don’t mind,” Strout said of the prospect of Billy Joel living next door.
Parents talk circles around teen drinking
Published in the Current
Cape Superintendent Tom Forcella told about 70 people crowded into the Town Council chambers Feb. 6 to discuss teens, alcohol abuse and school policies that in terms of teen drinking Cape is “the most accepting” community he has seen and the culture needs to change.
The forum, hosted by the Cape Coalition, was entitled “Contracts and Consequences,” a subject of widespread community discussion in the wake of the suspensions of a basketball star and hockey player from their teams following a huge party at Sugarloaf over New Year’s.
“We wanted to try to provide a forum” for discussing in a larger group what is already being talked about in small groups around town, Coalition co-chairman Terry Johnson said. He wanted people to “start to agree on a fair and consistent message” to send teens about drinking, but that did not emerge from the meeting.
Parents and teens were present in droves, and high school Principal Jeff Shedd was there, as was Superintendent Forcella and School Board member
Kevin Sweeney.
Policy, problem not new
Parents began the discussion by saying they are concerned about preventing a teen-drinking tragedy, but want to have an environment in town and in school where kids could learn from their mistakes, rather than suffer severe consequences on the first or second offense.
A School Board policy that took effect at the beginning of this school year requires student-athletes and their parents to sign a contract saying they have read the rules and agree to abide by them. The consequences of drinking are laid out on paper, with a first offense punishable either by suspension from two games (if a student or the student’s parents tell school officials about the infraction) or for the remainder of the season (if the school finds out about it another way). A second offense results in suspension from all athletic
teams for the remainder of the year.
Shedd announced in December that the rules would be enforced equally for all students involved in extracurricular and co-curricular activities, rather than just for athletes.
Further, students who host parties where drinking occurs, and who do not take steps to break them up (by calling police or parents), could also be in trouble.
Parents and teens alike said the contract had previously been seen as “a joke” and not enforced. Specifically, star athletes’ transgressions had been “winked at,” one adult said. The new enforcement of the rules does not make Shedd popular with students, some of whom expressed concern about how the rules were communicated to them.
Many parents said athletes don’t read the contract before signing, though no student said that was the case. Students did say that increasing coach and team involvement in following the contract would help them do better at it, though several students in the room said they did not drink.
Parents go to bat for teens
A number of parents were concerned that taking away athletics – seen by school officials as a privilege – would put teens more at risk than allowing them to “work their way back” onto a team or activity.
Many parents said the school’s role in this is too big, but Sweeney said the School Board was responding to parents’ demands. Each time something happened with teens and drinking, parents came to the School Board demanding to know what the schools were going to do about it, he said.
As a result, the School Board has supported outdoor education programs in the middle school, DARE programs and this policy, he said.
One parent suggested the school step back and let parents enforce household rules when drinking occurs outside of school events.
Another said the policy makes school officials “policemen” when really they are educators. And, he said, the policy isn’t fixing the problem.
One parent suggested alcohol violations be treated similarly to academic probation, in which a student who is failing a class must come up with a way to bring his or her grades up, and is checked regularly on progress, but is allowed to play sports while working on the problem.
One parent said drinking is different because it is against the law, and allowing kids to get away with drinking is letting them go down a slippery slope to lawbreaking.
Another said parents aren’t enforcing the policy, the law or any other rules. At least 25 kids party “every weekend,” one said. Parents also typically do not show up to Cape Coalition meetings to discuss the issue, according to coalition organizer Liz Weaver. By contrast, students are often at coalition meetings.
Cape Superintendent Tom Forcella told about 70 people crowded into the Town Council chambers Feb. 6 to discuss teens, alcohol abuse and school policies that in terms of teen drinking Cape is “the most accepting” community he has seen and the culture needs to change.
The forum, hosted by the Cape Coalition, was entitled “Contracts and Consequences,” a subject of widespread community discussion in the wake of the suspensions of a basketball star and hockey player from their teams following a huge party at Sugarloaf over New Year’s.
“We wanted to try to provide a forum” for discussing in a larger group what is already being talked about in small groups around town, Coalition co-chairman Terry Johnson said. He wanted people to “start to agree on a fair and consistent message” to send teens about drinking, but that did not emerge from the meeting.
Parents and teens were present in droves, and high school Principal Jeff Shedd was there, as was Superintendent Forcella and School Board member
Kevin Sweeney.
Policy, problem not new
Parents began the discussion by saying they are concerned about preventing a teen-drinking tragedy, but want to have an environment in town and in school where kids could learn from their mistakes, rather than suffer severe consequences on the first or second offense.
A School Board policy that took effect at the beginning of this school year requires student-athletes and their parents to sign a contract saying they have read the rules and agree to abide by them. The consequences of drinking are laid out on paper, with a first offense punishable either by suspension from two games (if a student or the student’s parents tell school officials about the infraction) or for the remainder of the season (if the school finds out about it another way). A second offense results in suspension from all athletic
teams for the remainder of the year.
Shedd announced in December that the rules would be enforced equally for all students involved in extracurricular and co-curricular activities, rather than just for athletes.
Further, students who host parties where drinking occurs, and who do not take steps to break them up (by calling police or parents), could also be in trouble.
Parents and teens alike said the contract had previously been seen as “a joke” and not enforced. Specifically, star athletes’ transgressions had been “winked at,” one adult said. The new enforcement of the rules does not make Shedd popular with students, some of whom expressed concern about how the rules were communicated to them.
Many parents said athletes don’t read the contract before signing, though no student said that was the case. Students did say that increasing coach and team involvement in following the contract would help them do better at it, though several students in the room said they did not drink.
Parents go to bat for teens
A number of parents were concerned that taking away athletics – seen by school officials as a privilege – would put teens more at risk than allowing them to “work their way back” onto a team or activity.
Many parents said the school’s role in this is too big, but Sweeney said the School Board was responding to parents’ demands. Each time something happened with teens and drinking, parents came to the School Board demanding to know what the schools were going to do about it, he said.
As a result, the School Board has supported outdoor education programs in the middle school, DARE programs and this policy, he said.
One parent suggested the school step back and let parents enforce household rules when drinking occurs outside of school events.
Another said the policy makes school officials “policemen” when really they are educators. And, he said, the policy isn’t fixing the problem.
One parent suggested alcohol violations be treated similarly to academic probation, in which a student who is failing a class must come up with a way to bring his or her grades up, and is checked regularly on progress, but is allowed to play sports while working on the problem.
One parent said drinking is different because it is against the law, and allowing kids to get away with drinking is letting them go down a slippery slope to lawbreaking.
Another said parents aren’t enforcing the policy, the law or any other rules. At least 25 kids party “every weekend,” one said. Parents also typically do not show up to Cape Coalition meetings to discuss the issue, according to coalition organizer Liz Weaver. By contrast, students are often at coalition meetings.
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