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New scoreboard approved by School Committee

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It will take some advertising sponsorships and fundraising by the athletics department to fund it, but the School Committee on Wednesday, June 20 approved the negotiation of a lease agreement for a new scoreboard for W-H’s Dennis M. O’Brien Field.

A $25,000 donation from the J.J. Frisoli Foundation has provided the down payment for the Daktronics scoreboard, estimated to cost about $100,000, with the remaining amount to be raised by the athletics department. Neither the district nor towns of Whitman and Hanson will be liable for the costs.

Athletics Director Bob Rodgers had initially suggested asking the towns to contribute to the cost as a capital project, but both the School Committee and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ruth Gilbert-Whitner advised against that amid tight budget circumstances.

“I think, overall, this is a fantastic project and I’m 100-percent in support of it,” School Committee member Christopher Howard said. “My only concern is the obligation of the district. I know it’s tough, but we’ve had a lot of financial pressures on us, and where we’re spending money. That’s where I say I’m leaning more toward a pause, do the math, put some money into it, but really try to raise the money to the point where we actually have the money to purchase it.”

Gilbert-Whitner expressed the concern that a funding request to the towns, in addition to all the other capital requests the district has, might not go over well.

“This is nothing [the towns] have ever seen on a capital matrix,” she said. “So, I think I’d be much more comfortable as well with the idea that the athletics department would be responsible.”

With Rodgers’ pledge to raise the additional $75,000, the School Committee unanimously supported the purchase. He had also pointed out that the athletics department transferred $40,000 to the general school budget to help meet district needs for fiscal 2019.

“It will not come out of the school budget at all,” Rodgers said, explain that the purchase order had to be submitted before the end of the week in order to have the scoreboard in place by the fall. “It will be through the fundraising via panels that are on the board and fundraising during the different events.”

The other option was to spend $4,000 to $5,000 to repair the current scoreboard to get it through the next year and make the purchase to have a new scoreboard in place for the following year. Replacing it with the exact same kind of scoreboard as the broken one would cost about $20,000 but would limit the ways it could be used he said.

The Daktronics scoreboard will be purchased from a local company, Scoreboard Enterprises in Mansfield. It is not the same as the one Rodgers described at the June 13 meeting, but has a larger video screen 8.5 feet high by 16 feet wide and has a life-expectancy of about 15 to 20 years with a five-year warranty. The broken board is 13 years old.

It provides six places for sponsoring advertisers that Rodgers expects will bring in “at least $60,000 in revenue.” Additional ads would be sold for display on the video screen.

“I think that, over the long term, we’re going to be able to make this a revenue-generator for us, and maybe bring in some money to the athletics program for uniforms we currently don’t fund,” Rodgers said.

He added that Daktronics screens have been “revenue-makers” at schools across the country.

“This is a real advertising investment for a company,” he said. “They’ll have 1,000 people at a football game on a Friday night that will be going someplace for dinner after the game and [a restaurant] could have a special on that screen that everybody is going to see. They’ll want to advertise.”

The school administration will establish advertising policy and the School Committee will set the rates.

One advertiser has already given verbal commitment to a sponsorship and a few others have expressed interest with some parents a agreeing to help sell ads. Facility Director Ernest Sandland has agreed to have his crews putting the beams up and pulling wires as part of the prep work involved in moving the scoreboard to the right for better visibility.

“I’m willing to commit to do what I have to do to make this work for our kids,” he said.

At the earlier meeting only one bid had been received, with a few more presenting bids since then.

“The one that I was going to go with actually doesn’t play live video unless you go with a huge upgrade to it,” he said. “We have 10 teams alone at W-H that will use this scoreboard in addition to all the youth teams. I think it’s a good investment.”

The screen will also allow the school to conduct programs such as a movie night recently suggested by students, and will permit moving the sound system to that end of the field for better reception and hearing by the crowds.

Sharing their gift of faith

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WHITMAN — Less than a month before his death from cancer on May, 15, 2013, Dr. John F. McEwan was thinking of the pain of others in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, assuring their friends and loved ones that faith would help see them through a dark time.

Such events, much like chronic illness “remind us that life is precious and our lives can suddenly change in a moment … you do have the opportunity to evaluate what is important in your life and how you choose to spend your time,” he and his wife Margaret wrote in an email to family and friends on April 20, 2013 — five days after the attack.

An organ donor, he wanted to share that life with others after he was gone, just as he had in his career in education. At first, the family was told that his cancer made that impossible, but a call from the New England Organ Bank advised them that his corneas could and would be used to help two blind people — who could now see the world through his eyes.

“This was the final gift of John’s legacy,” Margaret P. McEwan wrote in a May 18, 2013 email.

It turned out to be a premature coda to that legacy.

Those emails, written faithfully — in every sense of the word — to help inform and bouy the spirits of others during the illness faced by the retired W-H superintendent of schools, have been used as the framework of a new book by his widow, “Every Day Is a Gift: A Couple’s Cancer Journey,” [201 pages, trade paperback, 2018 SDP Publishing ISB 978-0-9992839-8-1 eBook ISBN 978-0-9992839-9-8], for which she shares author credit with him. The book is locally available at Duval’s Pharmacy as well as online through Amazon Books, Barnes & Noble and SDP Publishing Solutions.

“It all started because he was working at W-H and he has so many people … interested in his progress that I sent out emails the entire time he was being treated,” Margaret said in an interview at her home Thursday, June 21. The emails were frequently passed along to friends the initial recipients thought might be interested in reading them. Several people who read the emails later urged her to consider writing a book.

“People were very interested in knowing how things transpired,” she said.

The title is a nod to an inspirational sign John had received as a gift from his Administrative Assistant Michelle (Kelley) Lindberg while he worked at WHRSD.

“When I was trying to think of a title for the book, I thought, ‘That was always our philosophy,’ because we felt very fortunate in our marital relationship,” Margaret said. “That’s the way he was.”

John was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma in 2008, when he had a spot on his scalp examined. While not a textbook “outdoorsman,” he did like working in his yard and never wore a hat when doing so, Margaret said.

“John always said ‘Things don’t happen for a reason — you find a purpose for why things happen.’ I finally thought that maybe I wrote all these emails so that I could compile them and make a book about his journey,” she said. Also included in the book are letters he wrote to W-H staff even before his diagnosis, to illustrate his long-held positive outlook to readers.

“He really believed that you really needed to do what you could in order to bring joy into other people’s lives,” Margaret said.

John McEwan began his career as an English teacher and later as a principal at Silver Lake Regional High School, W-H superintendent from 2001-09 and the first lay president of his high school alma mater Cardinal Spellman.

“It was something he took great pride in being able to do because he was very committed to trying to give back,” she said of the Spellman position.

Initially given a prognosis of six months to a year, John lived for five years in his cancer battle and never stopped working until his health forced him to give up the Spellman presidency in March 2013. They had also done the traveling they had planned for their retirement years — to China, Rome and the Amalfi coast, a Baltic cruise, the Canadian Rockies and Yellowstone — during his illness.

“We attribute that to fortunate proximity to hospitals in Boston where they do clinical trials,” she said of her husband’s long-term battle.

When she got to work on the book, Margaret had one main request to the publisher, referred by her friend, Kathleen Teahan, whose book, “The Cookie Loved ’Round the World,” they published: “Do not edit the emails.” John was an English teacher, she reasoned, and if he dangled a participle — leave it dangling.

She said people who knew John say they hear his voice in his writing. Her accompanying narrative took about a year to write, submitting it on his death anniversary of May 15, 2017 with the goal of publication this May 15 to mark his fifth anniversary year, and was successful in reaching that goal.

“The idea was to provide other people with hope and give purpose to whatever their journey is,” she said. “You hope that in living your life — even if it’s under a cloud — you can find joy every day. … It’s work, but he always said you can choose your attitude.”

The book is also a gift to the couple’s grandchildren, who were very young, the oldest being 8 and 6, when John died so they could get to know their grandfather.

The writing process also helped Margaret grieve and she had Dana-Farber’s Director of Bereavement Services Sue Morris, PsyD, and IMPACT Melanoma Executive Director Deb Girard read advance copies for feedback on the book.

“Margaret captures the essence of living well with cancer,” Morris said. “A must read for families and clinicians.”

“I believe anyone finding themselves on the cancer journey can identify the roads that Margaret and John traveled together and find tidbits of solace, grace and hope to journey down their own roads,” Girard wrote.

W-H named its performing arts center in John’s honor in 2014. Margaret McEwan holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in food and nutrition, was a registered dietitian and first female vice president of Shaw’s Supermarkets, from which she retired as vice president of corporate communications in 2004.

Parents urge no changes to open house

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Every year since 2009 in the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District, an open house has been held on the day before the first day of the school year to allow elementary and middle school students the chance to meet their teachers and become accustomed to a new classroom and/or building.

This fall, however, plans for the open houses have been complicated by the Maquan School closing in Hanson and how it affects teachers and programs moving to Indian Head and Duval elementary schools, Hanson Middle School and WHRHS, raising concerns among some parents.

Hanson parents’ concerns were raised at a Monday, June 18 building transition update meeting with school officials assuring parents during the Wednesday, June 20 School Committee meeting that they would continue discussing how to handle the issue and pledging to quickly communicate any decision with parents.

Three Hanson residents among a group attending the meeting spoke to the School Committee in favor or keeping the traditional open house.

“As a parent, just having the opportunity to meet the person that they will be spending the next 180 school days with the night before, will ease a lot of anxiety,” one mother said, who has been a teacher required to transfer to a new building. “I also think that there is so much change happening for Hanson — we’re losing an elementary school, we’re losing a principal and gaining a new principal. We’re also gaining a new assistant principal … and new superintendent. There are a lot of changes that are facing families and students in this district and Hanson in particular.”

While she conceded some change is inevitable in life, she said she is not sure so much change at one time is good.

“I think the open house has proven a really effective strategy for handling those first-day jitters, [and] new parents get to meet people in town,” another parent said.

Whitman schools are going ahead with the usual day before the first day of open house because only Duval is affected by transitions stemming from the Maquan closing.

“There was a little rumbling about open house there, as well,” said WHRHS Principal Jeffrey Szymaniak, who takes the helm as superintendent in July. Duval’s open house will, however, take place the night before school starts as usual. Szymaniak said he wanted to meet with new Indian Head Principal Jill Coutreau before making any decisions.

School Committee member Christopher Howard, a Hanson resident with two young children, said he saw two issues at work — a normal open house and this year.

“This is not a normal year,” he said. “I think everyone recognizes there’s lot going on, there might be some 12th-hour things that have to happen this year to do something fantastic, but I am a huge fan of open house the night before.”

He said that, on that night,  the focus of parents and children is on school and getting everyone together in that environment is helpful to reduce anxiety and avoid conflict with other activities.

Fellow Hanson School Committee member and parent Robert O’Brien Jr., agreed and asked if there was a way to modify the event.

School Committee Chris Scriven of Whitman, meanwhile, did not see a problem with making accommodation for the unusual circumstances this year.

“I think I might be missing what the concerns are,” he said.

“I think it’s the opportunity to meet the teachers the night before,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ruth Gilbert-Whitner said.

She explained that was the reason principals within the district suggested the event nine years ago.

“Principals that brought that forward — [including retired principals] Elaine White and Ellen Stockdale — believed that it was better for students to have an opportunity to see the school right before it started to help with some anxiety the first day of school,” Gilbert-Whitner. “This year, it’s a little bit different because of the changes that are going on.”

Teachers had also expressed questions and concerns about the move through union official Kevin Kavka. Open house, and the pressure of moving classrooms from one building to another or within buildings and not being ready for open house, was among those concerns, Gilbert-Whitner said. An extra day for an open house would mean an extra personal day for teachers, according to their contract.

“Their request was could they possibly move open house to another date,” she said. “They know their rooms have to be ready for the first day of school, but when their rooms are ready for open house, they want the bulletin boards up, they want to give the best possible look to the classroom and, I think there were concerns that it wouldn’t look the way they wanted it to.”

Gilbert-Whitner said she thought the parents already knew that information, and when she learned otherwise she was surprised, but declined to point to anyone as being at fault.

Parents attending the session said the open house was more important as a day to meet teachers than for perfect bulletin boards.

“Nothing is written in stone,” Gilbert-Whitner said. “This is a unique year.”

Szymaniak said alternatives have been looked to, including an opportunity to explore the schools the day before the year starts and an open house at a later date.

Some classrooms at Indian Head won’t be ready until mid-August, he noted. He said the event there could include older students showing the Maquan students around, an ice cream social and a special opening of the new Indian Head playground.

“My priority on [Aug. 27 and 28] and of my teachers is to be prepared for students on that Wednesday and have a ‘Welcome back — Welcome to our new school’ with a lot of energy,” he said.

Szymaniak also offered the opportunity for school walk-throughs for students who have difficulty with change.

New Duval Principal Dr. Darlene Foley, who was also introduced at the School Committee meeting, plans to survey her staff about open house over the summer.

“Darlene is the solidification of our team,” Szymaniak said in making that introduction to the committee. “It’s been a long month and a half or so, with some great candidates, but I think we got the cream of the crop.”

Foley has already been to visit Maquan and Indian Head before the end of the school year to look at the special education programs that are transitioning to Duval.

“I’m really excited to be working at Duval,” she said. “I feel it’s already a very special place and I’ve met terrific people at Duval and at the other two schools and central office and I feel very supported already.”

Gilbert-Whitner said the physical transition of the buildings are continuing and lauded the assistance from town departments.

“We are indebted to the town of Whitman for their dedicated effort in getting on top of this project and what they’ve done as an in-kind contribution,” Gilbert-Whitner said of the work DPW crews are doing on the parent drop-off driveway for the preschool program at WHRHS. “They’ve saved this project an awful lot of money.”

Testing budgetary waters

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WHITMAN — Selectmen, on Tuesday, June 26, began the process through which they plan to survey residents on budgeting priorities — the first step in developing long-range budget plans.

The board heard Bridgewater State University political science professor Dr. Melinda Tarsi review survey methodology and strategies aimed at obtaining the most accurate information from the largest possible number of people in town.

Tarsi teaches survey methodology and public opinion research, and is chairman of the Halifax Finance Committee. She also recently helped the town of Millbury conduct a survey as part of its master plan research, achieving a participation rate of 20 percent in a town of about 5,100 people.

“It was quite good for a municipal survey with no incentives offered,” she said.

That short turn-around survey was in the field for two weeks, because of a scheduled public forum. Tarsi said results of a Whitman survey could be complete by October and that she could “reverse engineer” the process to meet a specific deadline.

“The point is to make it as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, to improve response rates,” she said. Adding other questions about health concerns and other issues of interest on the budget survey could help address other town government needs without creating survey burnout from too many questionnaires.

Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski, Selectman Scott Lambiase and Town Administrator Frank Lynam will be working with Tarsi and discussing which stakeholders sould be included in futher meetings with her, including WHRSD and SSVT, and  to begin talking about questions.

“More importantly, we need to reach out to the public,” Lynam said. “We can easily collect the information internally, it’s the getting the public involved that is [crucial].”

Tarsi said identifying and sitting down with stakeholders prior to the survey as a way to begin the formulation of survey issues and questions.

“I am a big advocate of beta-testing a survey, getting a lot of eyes on it and making sure that we don’t just sort of pass things around in our little bubble and think it makes sense to us without making sure that it makes sense to other people, too,” she said.

Kowalski noted that it was a good thing that Finance Committee member Shawn Kain also attended the meeting.

“Shawn has had a burr under his saddle for a couple of years now about the need for our town to do more long-range planning than it has done — especially around the budget,” he said. “Budget cycles go from year-to-year. We need to take, not only the short-term look, but we need to take a long-term look, too.”

Kowalski said it can be daunting to determine how to even begin determining goals and objectives of a community, which includes a statement of its priorities for immediate budgeting as well as long-range planning. He mentioned once receiving a survey on his cell phone regarding health needs of the South Shore that the opioid coalition with which his wife works was conducting.

“She said why don’t you just do a survey?” Kowalski said. He then spoke to Lynam who mentioned Tarsi’s work.

Tarsi said she was excited to work with Whitman on the project, suggesting Whitman use both a paper and online survey. She has a license for Qualtrix, one of the premier survey platforms at Bridgewater State.

She cautioned that the wording and order of questions was an important consideration, and would work with the town on doing that as a way to obtain the best data possible.

“I tell my students I think that bad data is worse than no data at all and I want to make sure that we’re crafting questions — and even ordering questions — in a way that ensures we get reliable information on what your residents prioritize when it comes to the budget,” Tarsi said.

Kowalski said he noticed, on some surveys, that police services and public safety are often at the bottom of the list when surveys ask people to rate public services.

Selectman Dan Salvucci suggested an alphabetical listing of town departments for surveying could address that concern.

“Something as simple as how you order responses, or having one question appear below another question, might seem inconsequential, but actually, from a political psychology point of view, it can have major implications for how someone views a question,” Tarsi said. “Those are the things I’d be very much attuned to.”

She also offered the services of her fall public opinion class members to code paper surveys as part of their service learning requirement at Bridgewater State. Students could begin that coding process when they return to classes in September.

As an academic surveyor, Tarsi said she would have to submit it to an institutional review board to ensure it does not unethically harm participants, which takes about two weeks.

Lynam asked if it was a good idea to distribute paper surveys through town departments as a way to ensure the interests of all stakeholders were represented. Tarsi said direct mail is the most efficient method for distributing paper surveys, but encouraged departments to advertise the importance of completing the survey on any of their social media platforms.

Reminder postcards also help spur people to return completed surveys, Tarsi said.

Travel policy

In other business, the board gave a first reading to proposed changes to the town’s travel and expense policy to permit town departments an opportunity to provide feedback.

Police Chief Scott Benton asked if department heads could ask questions as he had not seen the proposal.

“We sit down and talk with the union,” Benton said. “I don’t know why there wouldn’t be a conversation with the people that are going to be affected.”

Lynam said the biggest change involves “identifying reasonable limits” to expenses charged for travel on town business based on market fluctuations in geographic areas.

Kowalski asked that the proposal be distributed for review and the board could then act on it at the next meeting, slated for 7 p.m., Tuesday, July 10.

“We need to put in some policies to control our spending, plain and simple,” Salvucci said, particularly in view of the fact that residents are being surveyed about budget priorities.

Kain also asked if other policies with a potential budget impact were being reviewed.

“You’re going to see policies coming [before the board] with some regularity,” Kowalski said. “We have a personnel policy book that we pretty much finished awhile ago — until we started adding things to it and we’re polishing it now.”

Learning rules of the games

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Eighth-graders planning to participate in sports as freshmen this fall at WHRHS — along with their parents — took part in the annual Athletics First Night program Wednesday, June 13.

It was the second year in which the program was held in the spring instead of the week before school begins in late August when families are trying to “squeeze in an extra week of vacation,” according to Athletic Director Bob Rodgers.

Project Impact concussion baseline exams were administered; school and MIAA rules for eligibility, game-day attendance, chemical health and other issues were reviewed; Athletic Trainer Lexi Watkins went over rules governing post-concussion returns to competition and three team captains spoke before two guest speakers talked about opioid addiction and positive sports psychology.

“It’s important for you to know them,” Rodgers said of the rules. “It solves a lot of problems before they happen.”

Quinn Sweeney, a football team co-captain spoke about the importance of the fitness center in conditioning. Fellow football team co-captain Jacob Nixon advised incoming freshmen to keep in mind what high school sports are all about.

“High school sports are not your job,” he said. “You do not get paid to do this, so make it fun, make it count.”

But he said sports do serve an important social function.

“They bring people together of a variety of races, religions and all different backgrounds,” Nixon said. “In this world today that’s very special because you don’t see a lot of that across the country. … We’re creating peace and we don’t even realize it.”

He also said high school sports bring the two communities together.

Chloe Wilson, a cross-country captain, said a team is a place to feel welcomed with open arms.

“I understood — from the hallways, to the classrooms to the track — it was no longer just me, a little powerless freshman, it was me and my team,” she said. “Open arms — my team took me under their wing [and] I took them into my heart. … Our job is to welcome you with open arms.”

Messages sent

In reviewing the chemical health rules, Rodgers set up his first speaker by cautioning parents that none of the rules would serve to dissuade students from violating them, but stressed there are consequences that will be enforced.

“Parents, we need to work together to make sure we’re sending the same message: It’s not OK for them to drink in the basement as long as you take their keys,” he said. “The addictive part of their brain gets triggered when they start doing these things. The younger they do it, the greater the chance that they’re going to have a problem with addiction as they get older.”

He drove home the point that the reasoning and impulse-control center of the brain is not fully developed until age 25 — and that vaping is addictive and may soon be included as a drug offense at the school.

“I have been to too many funerals of W-H student-athletes who left here, had trouble, overdosed and died,” Rodgers said. “We’ve had a lot of them. … they were the best and the brightest.”

Speaker Kevin Rosario, regional outreach representative for Gosnold Treatment Center, headquartered in Falmouth, outlined the challenges he faced as a teen that, coupled with a family history of addiction led to his abusing alcohol and drugs.

“What I bring to the table is I’m a person in long-term recovery,” said Rosario, a New Bedford native who has been sober since July 2010. “I try to be a decent human today … but that wasn’t always the case.”

A student who was small for his age and socially insecure, he was bullied and when his heart was broken in sixth grade, he felt the need to “create a new character.”

He became a class clown and “player” who frequently got into fights. He also started smoking weed and drinking in grade seven.

“Self-esteem, insecurity and peer pressure, body image and all those different things play a huge factor in whether somebody will experiment with drugs or alcohol,” he said, noting he also had undiagnosed ADHD. “Before drugs or alcohol I already had an issue.”

Even nicotine can impede the reasoning and impulse-control center of the brain he said.

“If at a young age, you use a chemical to try to deal with feelings, the body naturally builds a tolerance to it … over time, you will find you need stronger chemicals to get the same effect,” Rosario said. Even one small Juul contains the same amount of nicotine as more than two packs of cigarettes.

Eating, exercise, making love — but wait until you’re at least out of high school, he quipped — and laughter release the same dopamine in the brain as the chemicals that addictive drugs release in larger quantities.

“Once you start abusing [drugs, alcohol or nicotine] you’re flooding your body with so much dopamine from an unnatural source, the rest of your life becomes desensitized,” he said. “All those things that used to make you feel good don’t do it anymore because now you’re so used to being over-stimulated.”

Rosario’s first arrest for under-age drinking was at 16, after moving on to marijuana and pain-killers such as percocet and within a year after that he started sniffing heroin — and shooting it six months after that. It was the beginning of nine years of addiction.

“It wasn’t fun anymore,” he said. “I needed it every day to not be sick.”

He has had episodes where he has walked out of the hospital after being saved by Narcan to get high again — and has been arrested “more than a dozen times,” but does not remember exactly how many.

“It was a long, nasty cycle,” he said.

About 63 percent of Americans know a person, or have a family member, struggling with addiction to drugs or alcohol.

“You’ve got to know the risk that you’re at,” Rosario said, noting that alcoholism runs on both sides of his family.

Power of happiness

He concluded where speaker Pam Garramone picked up, that finding what makes you happy and confident because “happy, confident people don’t do what other people are doing.”

A positive psychology life coach, Garramone said being happy is a goal parents have for their children and each person would like attain in life — but most people say they know more unhappy people.

While 60 percent of how happy we are is due to genetics or external influences, she said “the good news is, 40 percent … are things you can do everyday to increase your happiness and well-being.”

Social connection, exercise, a healthy and happy committed relationship, all lead to happiness and research shows that happy people are more productive, make more money and have better jobs, are better leaders, are more likely to marry and stay married, have more friends, are healthier and live longer, they give more and are less stressed, anxious and depressed.

“Or brains are hard-wired for negative thoughts,” Garramone cautioned. She recommended journaling the three good things that have happened to you that day. “It proves the power of words.”

She had the audience pair off to discuss three good things that happened to them over the past 24 hours, with a few sharing examples with the audience.

One student-athlete was part of a community service project to clean an elderly man’s home so he could keep his cat. Another said he had played his first Junior Legion game.

Garramone also offered students a chance to thank people who have made a difference to them to demonstrate how gratitude makes both you and the person you thank feel better. Several thanked teachers.

“I want to thank [Hanson Middle School history teacher and Builders Club advisor Joshua] Lopes for not only being an amazing teacher, but for teaching his students to be better people,” one student said.

“I want to thank my mom, Amanda Pearl, for keeping my head up high,” her daughter in the crowd said.

Ready for a disaster

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HANSON — When a “tornado” struck, the state’s assisted living, nursing and rehabilitation facilities had to coordinate evacuations from affected areas.

It was just a drill, but an important one.

Among the facilities participating in the mock facility evacuation scenario on Tuesday, June 19 was All American Assisted Living in Hanson where resident volunteers were staged awaiting transportation to “Resident Accepting Facilities” within MassMAP. It was part of a full-scale, statewide annual exercise for simulating disaster at nursing facilities and covered how staff and families would be notified, recovery and repair of building damage — down to working with local public safety personnel.

Responders included the professionally trained staff at the Hanson facility – which consist of nurses, certified nursing assistants, physical therapists, and other professional staff. Hanson Fire Chief Jerome Thompson Jr., Lt. Sherilyn Mullin and Lt. Charles Barends as well as Hanson Police Sgt. Peter Casey represented the town’s first responders at the drill.

No patients were actually moved in the exercise — “evacuations” were done via fax machine on this day.

“Everyone [on staff] has their priority, it’s just how does it fall into disaster mode?” said facilitator Darren Osleger of Russell Phillips & Associates (RPA), a fire and emergency management consulting firm out of Fairport, N.Y. “It’s very similar to incident command … a fairly new concept in health care.”

Osleger said after the event that he thought the exercise went well.

“What we’re trying to do is better prepare ourselves and put ourselves in a position so, if we ever had to evacuate a building like that, through communicating with the coordinating center, having … the team really figure out certain tasks, they were able to identify open beds and correct fit for the residents if they had to be moved.”

The All American staff communicated with other participating facilities via computer and telephone to find open beds for evacuating patients.

“We are proud to have been chosen to participate in this exercise, although we spend countless hours training all of our associates in disaster events, a real live drill allows us to put our training to the test,” All American Assisted Living Executive Director Kristen Ward said before the event.

Chief Thompson said the exercise provided, especially for his command staff, the ability to iron out any problems or work with All American so things would run smoother if something did happen.

“We’re here to observe and assist them,” he said. “It gives an opportunity to see how they would handle stuff internally before we got here.”

The purpose of the exercise is to evaluate the interaction of the long-term care/mutual aid plan (LTC-MAP) members in each region in preparation for internal events. Though rare in such communities, the evacuation of an assisted living community is a complex event requiring significant coordination with the local community and region to ensure the safety of all residents, associates, and family members involved.

“I was impressed,” said Community Relations Director Bonnie Durrell at the midpoint of the tabletop exercise in which All American had to find beds in other facilities for eight male residents and 17 females, plus an additional 13 residents requiring care in a secure or dementia facility. “We have a plan in place, now we’ve used it and we have somebody to call and there’s a chain of command. … It’s going really well.”

The resident volunteers were given name tags bearing the name of the “victim” they were portraying for the exercise and a go-bag representing the one they would take with them in a real emergency. The bags would contain their medications — represented this day by candies or placebos — and a change of clothes.

“When they had the flooding in Texas, they were saying everyone had totes [packed with their needed belongings], which looked heavy,” Ward said. “We thought that it would be good to have a bug-out bag for this drill so they would have at least their meds and a change of clothes. The most important thing is that their medications go with them and for each of them we have their prescription list.”

A first for Hanson Fire

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HANSON — The Board of Selectmen welcomed the town’s first female fire officer Tuesday, June 19 with the official swearing-in of Lt. Sherilyn Mullin, who has been working in that capacity since May 8.

After the ceremony, Selectmen approved a marijuana application process designed to protect the town until a bylaw article on recreational cannabis can be voted on at next May’s annual Town Meeting and Town Election.

Lt. Mullin fills the vacancy created when Dept. Chief Robert O’Brien was promoted to that rank.

Under the department’s collective bargaining agreement, the promotion process requires that applicants score 70 percent or higher on a written exam, followed by an assessment center involving exercises in a fire problem and a structured interview.

Seven members of the Hanson Fire Department participated in the promotion process, according to Chief Jerome Thompson Jr.

“Although we only had one position available, I believe that those members in our department benefitted by taking the time to study the materials and prepare themselves for the process,” he said. “She has been a great addition to our command staff. Lt. Mullin will be the first female fire officer to serve the town of Hanson.”

A native of Abington and a 2006 graduate of Abington High School, Mullin holds a bachelor’s degree from Bridgewater State University in 2010. She then trained in EMS and became a paramedic and was hired as a full-time Hanson firefighter/paramedic in 2015. Mullin is a graduate of Mass. Firefighting Academy Class No. 234.

Her fiancé Sean Malley pinned on her badge after Town Clerk Elizabeth Sloan administered the oath of office to Mullin.

Marijuana policy

Town Counsel Katherine Feodoroff briefed Selectmen on the cannabis policy and bylaw process before the board voted 5-0 to approve the policy.

Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett asked about how the policy protects the town.

“If people vote yes [on the Town Meeting warrant] then it will go to ballot,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “However, in the interim, we’re talking about having something in place just in case someone comes forward. We don’t want to be left out in the cold without having something that we at least can manage the process until we get to Town Meeting.”

The new article — proposed after this year’s Town Meeting approved a zoning bylaw to allow siting of all recreational marijuana establishments within certain areas of town — would seek to ban retail marijuana sales.

Selectman Jim Hickey asked for simpler language on the ballot question so residents better understand how to vote their opinions.

The article, Feodoroff said, makes it clear an affirmative vote is required at both Town Meeting and on the election ballot, but agreed the ballot language can be difficult to understand.

“To me, it could be confusing to a voter because if all someone is thinking is, ‘I do not want marijuana in Hanson,’ they’re going to vote no,” Hickey said. “But [a no vote] is actually confirming a vote to have marijuana in Hanson. Can that question be simplified?”

Feodoroff said legislation requires the text of the bylaw on the ballot, but said the style of the question and its summary can be changed for clarity.

“You’re asking if the town wants this bylaw,” she said. “You want to make sure everyone votes and their vote is then counted in way they expect it to be counted.”

Procedure outlined

Feodoroff outlined the procedures applicants would be required to follow under the policy.

“What you want to do, because it’s not necessarily spelled out in the law, what the order should be in terms of local approvals, so you want to create a policy like this,” Feodoroff said. “That’s for every type of establishment, including your retailers, your cultivators, your manufacturers and your testing facilities, because all of them are required by law to execute a host community agreement.”

Such an agreement must be executed by would-be businesses before they can even apply to the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) for a license to operate.

The agreement requires submission of a letter of intent to Selectmen identifying the type of special permit sought, with copies sent to the Police Department. Applicants must then hold a community outreach meeting in accordance with state regulations and broadcast by local cable access TV.

Applicants must obtain a special permit from the Board of Selectmen and site plan approval, providing Selectmen with a synopsis of the community meeting, copies of the special permit/site plan vote and draft application of intent and supporting documents. They must also present a proposed draft of a host community agreement, which Feodoroff said town counsel can help with.

local impact

“One of the impacts that you’re going to find is the Board of Health is going to have to ramp up because they are now the inspection agency,” Feodoroff said. “Where, with medical [marijuana] it was under DPH and not the purview of the Board of Health, so we’re going to have to do training — we’re going to have to think about staffing, depending on the number of establishments that are planning on siting in Hanson.”

Police will also require additional training, she said.

The town can lock in a dollar amount in fees, rather than a 3-percent tax over the sales tax, but Feodoroff said the town should not do so at this time, because the 3-percent figure could represent a higher amount.

“When you have a general bylaw in place, there’s no grandfathering [of existing businesses], unlike zoning bylaws, which have a grandfather component,” Feodoroff said. “But what we have proposed for this Town Meeting is both a general and a zoning bylaw.”

She said Attorney General Maura Healy has recommended both kinds of bylaws to avoid cases where general bylaws were invalidated because courts saw a failure of proper procedure to pass them. Zoning bylaws require a two-thirds majority to pass after protectionary procedures.

“If both measures pass and aren’t challenged or are challenged and not properly defended, there’s no grandfathering,” Feodoroff said. “So it is complicated and there are risks in this kind of interim period.”

VIP pass to parking safety

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A dangerous parking lot situation at Friday night football games is being addressed — while also helping raise funds for the WHRHS athletic programs — through a one-year trial program of “VIP parking passes.”

Athletic Director Bob Rodgers also received the School Committee’s backing to accept a $25,000 donation from the J.J. Frisoli Foundation toward the installation of a new scoreboard at the football field.

It was the idea of the parking passes that generated the most discussion. The School Committee unanimously approved both proposals.

“I’m not really about this as much about the revenue, although we can use every penny we get,” Rodgers said of the parking fee idea School Committee member Fred Small has been talking about for a couple of years. “My concern as the athletic director is safety.”

He said Friday night football games present a traffic nightmare of double-parking, parking in fire lanes and by fire hydrants, creating access problems for ambulances, no matter how many police officers there are working traffic details. Children running through the parking lot also present a dangerous situation, Rodgers said.

“I want to create an environment down there [in the lot in front of the football field known as the junior lot] where parking is a little bit more structured, a little safer … and we can make some money in the process,” he argued.

The proposal would make the entire 150-space junior lot VIP parking, either on a pre-paid permit basis, for $50 for the football season or for $10 per game. There is ample free parking elsewhere on school grounds and the seniors’ lot to the left front of the school is actually a shorter walk to the field than some of the junior lot spaces.

He will also offer football parents a parking pass for $30 above the user fee. Handicapped placards will allow motorists to park there free of charge.

“I’m trying to convince myself to vote for this,” said School Committee member Robert Trotta, who was concerned about angering the community. “It’s like fee, fee, fee, fee, fee. [But] I understand the purpose.”

School Committee member Dan Cullity was concerned about the fairness of asking taxpayers to pay for parking at the school that their tax dollars support.

Rodgers countered that they are already charged admission to the game and school plays.

“It comes down to safety,” he said. Signs and hired parking lot details would direct motorists and enforce paid parking restrictions.

School Committee member Alexandria Taylor asked if a game/parking fee package was considered, but Rodgers said it would make his accounting to the auditors more complicated at this point.

“At least right now that’s not something I want to do,” he said. “I don’t know how this is going to go. We can try it for a year and, if we don’t like it, we can undo it.”

“Between safety and revenue, I’m all for trying it this year,” School Committee member Michael Jones said.

NEW SCOREBOARD

Regarding the scoreboard, Rodgers said a new one is needed. His request to the School Committee was in three parts: acceptance of a $25,000 donation from the Frisoli Foundation toward a new scoreboard; allow him to obtain sponsors for scoreboard ads; and give Rodgers, new Principal Dr. Christopher Jones and new Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak authority to contract with advertisers on the scoreboard.

The total cost is estimated in the $50,000 range.

“There are 36 panels in that current scoreboard we have that is quite old,” he said. “Each [panel] costs between $1,600 and $2,000 and we’ve already had to replace four of them.”

The main panel, showing the minute number, has just failed and must be replaced if the old scoreboard is kept. There are also frequency problems between the controller and scoreboard.

“Bottom line is we need a new scoreboard,” he said, and it was not a high enough priority for the capital plan. Rodgers, therefore, began working on obtaining one without the school district or towns having to pay.

A $25,000 donation has been secured from the Frisoli Foundation, named for W-H alum and football and wrestling standout J.J. Frisoli. To pay any up-front costs, no matter what scoreboard is purchased, Rodgers said he would have to use the athletic revolving account, reimbursing it when the sustaining advertising revenue comes in.

“His name will be on the scoreboard at some point,” Rodgers said. “He represented the ideals that we want here at W-H.”

There are also two advertising panels, for which sponsors are currently negotiating with Rodgers, and two additional sponsored ad panels would also be included, as well as a four-foot-by-10-foot video panel.

Rodgers said the video panel “which is going to open so many doors for us to be able to raise revenue” for the athletic program, which one of the lowest-funded — if not the lowest-funded — programs in the Patriot League. Among services not funded are uniforms, officials, buses, athletic trainers and equipment.

Advertisers would have to meet School Committee policy standards opposing ads that discriminate against any group or promote the use of tobacco or alcohol, and must be approved by the superintendent and principal at rates set by the School Committee.

“We really don’t want to raise user fees because, frankly, a lot of families can’t afford that,” Rodgers said. “This scoreboard … could be a sustainable source of revenue moving forward.”

He also argued the video screen could be a safety consideration, permitting important messages on where to park or where safety officers are when it is hard to hear the public address system. Postive messages on sportsmanship and student-athletes’ work on community projects could also be posted there, Rodgers said.

The scoreboard would also be relocated to a more visible location.

Youth sports groups would be able to use the scoreboard, and perhaps a scroll of pre-recorded sportsmanship messages on the video screen, but not live use of the screen.

One-to-one devices lease plan approved

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The manner in which Chromebook purchases were included in the level-service fiscal 2019 school budget was the subject of terse discussion during a review of one-to-one devices in the region’s schools by the district’s IT Director Chad Peters during the Wednesday, June 6 meeting.

“As you know, money was put in the budget to begin a plan to add one-to-one devices to the school system,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ruth Gilbert-Whitner said in introducing Peters’ report.

Peters said about 600 more Chromebooks have been added over the course of the school year, bringing the total number to about 1,760 devices district-wide. He requested a $140,760 four-year lease for 600 more devices, which the School Committee approved by an 8-1 vote. Member Fred Small voted no based on how he felt the program’s inclusion in the FY ’19 budget was presented. Member Rob O’Brien was absent.

“We looked at a one-to-one, where every student got one, or going to a cart-based system,” he said, noting the cart-based approach was preferred to ensure that no teachers were left scrambling if a student forgot their device or forgot to charge it. The goal is to provide a cart of 25 devices for every classroom.

“In order to fully get to that one cart in every classroom, it’s going to take about 4,000, so we do have a little ways to go,” Peters said. “But because we had the money put into our budget this year — $40,000 to start this initiative to little by little increase the number of devices — we were able to get 600 new devices for next year.”

That point raised questions for Whitman School Committee members Small and Dan Cullity. Both said their understanding was that the one-to-one initiative had been part of the “extras” above a level-service budget that had been cut to bring the assessment increase down to 9.5 percent, and that they had “sold” it that way at Town Meeting.

“It was my understanding that we were doing only level services,” Small said. “I know we go up on Town Hall floor and we stated that we were asking for exact level services.”

Cullity said that had been his understanding, as well.

“Service does not include this,” he said of the one-to-one device initiative. “We went and sold [the budget] to the town … we told them we were taking this out.”

Gilbert-Whitner said that would have meant selling students short and was never stated by the district. She said the only cuts that were made were a plan to add two special ed liaisons at Whitman Middle School and no-cost full-day kindergarten.

“We said the things that we took out to get to the [9.5 percent] increase in the assessment were the exact positions we said that would be, but we never once said we were taking the [computers] out,” Gilbert-Whitner countered. “We felt that they were instructional supplies that are needed absolutely to provide level services as we move to testing that has to be done online.”

The 600 new devices were divided between the middle schools in support of the math and science curriculum and the high school, where standardized testing is going to be exclusively online in coming years.

Duval’s fundraising has put that school “three or four carts away” from having a Chromebook for every student, Peters said.

“In my thinking, these are supplies that our students need,” she said. “What used to be a textbook that we would have put into a budget, can’t be a textbook anymore.”

The middle school math and science program, for example, is “absolutely dependent” on the use of Chromebooks. Pulling the devices would have put students behind.

“There was no intent by anyone — the leadership team, the administrative team — to say that those had been cut,” Gilbert-Whitner said. “We were extremely clear in what we said. … There was no intent to try and fool somebody or to say we’re not doing what we’re doing. I think we’re very transparent — maybe we need to be more so in the future.”

NEW PRINCIPALS

In other business, W-H Principal Jeffrey Szymaniak, who becomes superintendent in July, introduced the new principals hired at district schools.

Succeeding Szymaniak at WHRHS will be Dr. Christopher Jones, who had been principal of Seekonk High School. He was introduced to the staff June 6.

Whitman Middle School’s current Assistant Principal Michael Grable will take the helm as principal when Principal George Ferro assumes his new position as assistant superintendent of schools in July.

Jill Cotreau will be the new principal at Indian Head School in Hanson. She was introduced to the staff last week. A new Duval School principal was expected to be hired by Friday, June 8. There are still vacancies for assistant principals at Indian Head and Whitman Middle School to fill.

Indian Head Principal Dr. Elizabeth Wilcox is taking a new job in Hingham and Duval Principal Julie McKillop is taking a position in Scituate.

“We had several search committees,” Gilbert-Whitner said. “We had wonderful people helping us with those.”

Szymaniak also lauded the search process.

“I think we have fantastic people in place right now,” he said. “The staff reaction to the folks that are here has been extremely positive, they were accessible and answered questions.”

Cotreau thanked the search committees for the opportunity.

“I’m so excited to be part of Indian Head and part of your school district,” she said. “I’m excited to jump right in and get started and for the opportunity to show you what we can do.”

“I hear great things about W-H and I really look forward to stepping into this position and taking it to even greater heights than it already is,” Jones said. “Thanks for the opportunity.”

Grable joked about the famously casual nature of Ferro’s attire — generally featuring cargo shorts and, occasionally sandals — at some past School Committee meetings.

“I just want to apologize for the way I’m dressed,” he said of his khaki slacks and black polo shirt. “I just found out I was going to be introduced tonight. I think George was a little excited to go on [the eighth-grade trip to New York] and he forgot to tell me.”

“I am very excited about my new position,” Grable said. “I can’t wait.”

“He didn’t forget,” Small joked.

“He’s got pants on,” Cullity quipped about Grable.

Special Education Parent Advisory Council co-chairman Tina Sidstone and co-chairman Jim Fitzgerald reviewed the SEPAC’s past year and plans for the 2018-19 school year.

Sidstone said they had taken a relatively inactive PAC and revitalized it, holding eight meetings and doubling participation to about 24 parent members. A representative from each school has also attended and SEPAC has also surveyed members about potential programs.

“We are very excited for the next school year,” Fitzgerald said. “Back in September I didn’t know what the SEPAC was and now I’m the co-chair.”

He said the group will be producing informational brochures and he and Sidstone will sit down for an interview with the Whitman-Hanson Expressover the summer to help raise awareness of the group. There are 10 SEPAC meetings slated for the next school year, starting in September.

SEPAC is also planning what is intended to be an annual family picnic day as an opportunity to meet first responders and hopes to build on speaker programs with a resource fair in the early fall.

Small suggested School Committee members could find it beneficial to attend SEPAC meetings as well.

CES grads take different path

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The harder one has to fight for something, the more it generally means to achieve it.

For the 14 graduates of the W-H Community Evening School’s Class of 2018 that certainly seemed to be the case as they crossed the stage at the Dr. John F. McEwan Performing Arts Center Thursday, May 31 to receive their diplomas. Acknowledging the pride their families take in the accomplishment, many selected parents to hand them those diplomas. For others, CES Director William Glynn or English teacher Keryn Cordo did the honors and Charles Sampson-Williams asked his U.S. Air Force recruiter Sgt. David LaPlant to do the honors.

The evening was also a moment of proud passage for W-H Principl Jeffrey Szymaniak and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ruth Gilbert-Whitner.

Szymaniak, who will take the post of superintendent on July 1, got his start teaching alternative education students in Plymouth, moving on to teach five subjects in one classroom “to some angry freshmen in Abington” and U.S. history in a non-traditional day program in Scituate.

Gilbert-Whitner, who is retiring after 24 years with the W-H Regional School District has been dedicated to the “Every Child Every Day” mantra as superintendent.

“Evening School graduation is very special to me,” Szymaniak told he graduates. “In 2000 — the year many of you were born — my principal allowed me to create my own program.”

That full-time, non-traditional day program helped students who needed an alternative pathway to a diploma.

“I totally get it that traditional high school isn’t easy for some of you, and sometimes not a good fit for anyone,” he said. “That’s why you, the students on stage tonight, are very special to all of us and me.”

He said that, while the path to a diploma hasn’t always been easy for them, their parents or guardians, and each student’s grit got them through.

We are all very proud of you, each and every one of you,” Szymaniak said, taking the liberty to speak for their families and teachers. “You did it. You made it and no one can ever take that away from you.”

Gilbert-Whitner, who noted that her 50th class reunion would be held on Saturday, June 2 and added she would be 117 when the Class of 2018 celebrated their 50th reunion.

She said that, when she sat in their place and listened to graduation speakers, “It was very evident that I didn’t know what I didn’t know.”

That included becoming a school superintendent, or that any woman could achieve that and that she had learned that four key attributes become valuable as one goes through life. By using their head to ask questions, think things through and keep learning; their heart to show empathy and seek understanding; their heads to do the hard work required and their gut to trust their instincts and believe in themselves.

Then, as usual at CES graduations, Glynn stole the show, so to speak, with an irreverent take on graduation advice.

“I’m going to ramble about three things,” he said. “First thing, be you — be honest as you can about you, be the finest version of you as you can.”

Secondly, he advised them to work hard.

“The world is full of people who think avoiding hard work is the way to go. These people — wait for it — are fools,” he said. “Third thing: altruism.”

Glynn asked the graduates to live a life of doing things for other people, expecting nothing in return.

“How can we make our mark in the world? Altruism,” he said. “If you can do [all three] and do it with a little bit of style and flair, I think everything else will take care of itself.”

School Committee Chairman Bob Hayes spoke to the class, as he did with the rest of the W-H graduates, the following night, about the importance of life-long learning — as well as putting down the smart phones once in awhile to interact directly with others.

“Every single day you need to learn something about life, it’s the most important thing you’ll do,” he said. “When you have discussions with other people, you learn many, many things and find the world is rich with experiences — but you have to ask for it.”

Graduates were: Justin E. Cole, Samuell A. Delgado, Alec J. Denver, Regan H. Goode, Lucas M. Goss, Laura A. Hardy, Zachary E. Hunter, Travis C. Lawrence, Brittaney A. Milley, Kyle R. Perkins, Amelia R. Quintero, Hailey M. Ralph, Charles A. Sampson-Williams and Matthew R. Wilson.