Duval third-grade teacher Danielle Silva and members of her family sounded like they were having a lot of fun as Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak was guiding a tour through the building for five School Committee members and the media on Monday, Aug. 20.

The tour was meant to show what physical changes had been made to four of the district’s four schools — Conley, Duval, Indian Head and WHRHS — following the closure of Hanson’s Maquan Elementary School.

The laughter emanating from Silva’s classroom prompted a visit as she was working to prepare the room for the first day of school on Wednesday, Aug. 29.

“Come on in,” Silva called out to them. “We’ve been here since early, so they’re getting a little tired now,” she said of her son and daughter’s efforts.

As she spoke with the school officials, her kids were filling welcome back goodie bags for her new students and making name cards for desks as her mother in-law, a former teacher in the Bridgewater schools for 36 years, was creating a chart on a flip-pad at the classroom easel.

The goodie bags proved to be an interesting idea to the committee members.

“That’s wicked cool,” said School Committee member Fred Small, who chairs the facilities subcommittee.

“It’s like a little welcome, it has a little poem in it,” she said, explaining that one of her college roommates, now a teacher in Maryland uses the poem as a welcome gift. “‘Sharing is caring,’ is what I say. [The poem says] if they make a mistake it’s OK so you give them an eraser. [There’s] notepaper — stuff like that.”

Silva said she and her husband divide the shopping for their interests seasonally.

“He gets car parts,” she said. “He’s into cars and I’m obviously into school … so stuff comes in boxes for me, they come for him, it works out.”

Small was impressed that Silva’s children were in to help their mom.

“That’s what makes Whitman-Hanson what it is,” he said of Silva’s work. “We’re here and we’re seeing it.”

The tour began at Conley, where Facilities Director Ernest Sandland and Principal Karen Downey talked about the new security doors all three elementary schools were having installed as well as a new addition to Conley’s outdoor classroom, funded by the PAC and a new computer lab funded by the annual talent show.

Classrooms have been cleaned with five coats of wax applied to floors and SJ Services will be moving to hallways and cafeterias before school starts, according to Sandland.

The outdoor classroom will now include a freestanding structure with a corrugated roof to be used as a teaching space, Downey said.

“Everything that has to do with this outdoor classroom is done through our PAC,” she said. “Through our basket auction and our Fun Run we’ve been able to put all of these plants and tables. When we began this two or three years ago, there was nothing in here.”

Landscaping and donated materials have created a space where students can go outside and learn more. So far, “well over $50,000” has been raised and spent on the project, with the new wheelchair-accessible structure alone costing between $14,000 and $15,000 for materials. A mid-September completion is anticipated, weather permitting.

“Kids need to be outside and you can be inspired in a lot of different ways,” she said.

Inside, Downey said the computer lab is another point of pride for the school.

“This is our baby,” she said. “If the outdoor classroom was a spot that our PAC supported and paid for, this spot has a direct relation to our staff.”

Proceeds from between three and five talent shows run by staff volunteers was used to transform the traditional computer lab’s rows of desks to a room where sectional tables on wheels can be used to teach and hold meetings in a variety of ways. It is served by a Chromebook cart for each grade and is adjacent to the school’s library.

“We wanted it to be a collaborative space, a space where you don’t have to just have a computer going but you could use the whiteboards and use the interactive board and tie into the library,” she said.

Duval School

At Duval, aside from the new security entrance and Silva’s work in setting up her classroom, School Committee members also examined the new space North River Collaborative will be using in a space for special needs programs that the YMCA program had used.

“It’s going to be a very nice classroom for them and they’ve got the playground out back,” Sandland said. Bathrooms for the children are in the hall nearby and there will be sinks in the classrooms.

The school’s Rinnai on-demand water heaters will also be the subject of the company test study on how they are used in a school district, according to Sandland. No other school district in Massachusetts uses on-demand water heaters, which save the district money on both water usage and energy.

“It’s going to show that, number one, we’re not wasting water,” he said of the study. “The hot water heaters we used to have, if I’m in here during a snowstorm, they’d be running. If nobody’s here, these units are not being used.”

Indian Head School

Perhaps no school entrance has changed as noticeably as Indian Head.

New security doors open into what had been the assistant principal’s office, where district IT Director Chad Peters was helping connect phone lines at the security window where visitors must check in. The former reception area is being used as an office for the school psychologist and the window will be covered by a shade.

Principal Jill Dore-Cotreau’s office has been finished and she was settling in on Monday.

The added population of pupils in kindergarten through grade two transferred over from Maquan demanded the addition of bathrooms to accommodate the younger children and provide sufficient privacy. Sinks feature motion-activated faucets.

The changes are also notable outside where a new playground — with a spongy rubberized ground surface — has been installed and parking has been adjusted to provide a blacktop play area with a basketball court for which portable backstops will be used that can be stored away for plowing in winter. The spongy playground surface is pitched to permit rainwater runoff, but also absorbs water and runs it off through the bottom, Sandland said.

The old basketball court is now a picnic area with green metal tables and seats.

A tree-shaped climbing apparatus was manufactured in Germany and the support pole is anchored in six feet of cement.

“This was six months in the planning with teachers and the community,” Sandland said. “We had a 12-foot fence here, but we ended up taking it down and cutting the pipes to reduce it to a six-foot fence. If we left that 12-foot fence it would have felt like a prison.”

W-H Regional High School

The moving of the Maquan preschool to the high school has created some dramatic changes inside and out at that school, too.

The new inner ring driveway for preschool parent drop-offs is almost complete, with the boulder unearthed during construction placed in the lawn as the school’s new “pride rock” as Szymaniak calls it. Lines were slated to be painted on the new driveway on Tuesday, Aug. 21 with sidewalk repairs to be finished Wednesday, Aug. 22.

Hanson Highway Department helped move the rock.

“We’re going to paint it,” Szymaniak said. “Different clubs and organizations are going to paint it as an expression of pride.”

Sandland said the rock also dictated where the driveway’s drainage system would be anchored.

Inside, work on the doors separating the preschool from the rest of the building was nearly complete. Card access doors will limit who is permitted into the preschool where identifying signage will be placed.

“If I had known there were so many I would have brought more brushes,” joked a worker varnishing cubbies in the preschool hallway.

Classrooms were ready for furnishings to be moved in and each room’s bathrooms — complete with the shortest toilet one has ever seen — as well as sinks and cabinets have been installed.

Outside the preschool area, a playground is still being worked on.

An alcove lined with trophy cases will be the preschool director’s office, with the trophies — some dating back to 1920 — to be put into storage or display in the athletics department.

Summing up

Sandland said the hardest part of the construction projects proved to be coordinating work schedules and available finances to the scheduling demands of the construction trades.

“It’s not a secret,” he said. “It’s a fact. We’re in a great economy and trying to get people to come out and give you prices in May, when we get the money approved, they’ve already got their work lined up for the summer.”

Once the physical work began the challenge shifted to cutting into wall slabs to install the doors without marring the high school building that has been a MSBA model school for new construction since it was built.

“Making it look like we didn’t cut the slabs,” he said.

And then there was that rock.

“That was just ridiculous,” Sandland said. “Where that rock was is where the catch basin is … so they had to go down further.”

HANSON — Paving crews were at work on part of the parking lot as another work crew was installing new playground equipment outside, while work continued on the new security entrance and her office had just been finished inside, as new Indian Head Elementary School Principal Jill Dore-Cotreau worked in a conference room Thursday, Aug. 9.

Things may still look a bit jumbled, but Dore-Cotreau said, real progress is being made at the school most directly changed by the closing of the Maquan School across the street.

She has been meeting with parents and students and added that classrooms are finished with teachers already coming in to get them ready for the first day of school on Wednesday, Aug. 29. That means the annual open house will go on as usual on Tuesday evening, Aug. 28. A kindergarten pot luck is also planned for Thursday, Aug. 23.

Concerns about the completion work for classrooms had raised concerns earlier in the year that the annual open house would have to be delayed. Work crews have earned Dore-Cotreau’s kudos, however, for getting renovations done quickly to allow teachers to gain access to their classrooms beginning Aug. 1 to prepare for the open house.

This is an educator who values the team approach to educating the youngest students as well as keeping them safe in school.

Born in Peabody, her family — which moved a lot due to her father’s business demands — moved to upstate New York when she was a year old. When she was 7, they moved to Connecticut where she attended Sandy Hook Elementary School. At 14, the family moved to North Carolina, where Dore-Cotreau graduated high school and then earned a bachelor’s in elementary education and music from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

She moved to Junction City, Ky., in 1995 where she taught grade five in the rural community, and “absolutely loved it.”

“It’s funny, because my student teaching was in kindergarten and second grade and I was [thinking], ‘I don’t know about this fifth-grade thing,” she recalled. “But I loved it, I loved the kids.”

Four years later, she transferred to Perryville, Ky., — within the same school district — to teach kindergarten for a year, before the opportunity to do literacy coaching developed.

“I had always loved reading and writing so I moved into that role and was a literacy coach there for five years and then I came back to Massachusetts,” she said.

Dore-Cotreau was most recently a literacy coach and then assistant principal in South Elementary School in Plymouth for eight years, and then to an elementary curriculum lead in ELA/social studies in Barnstable before seeking the principal’s position at Indian Head. She is married with three children, ages 20, 17 and 9. She holds two master’s degrees in elementary education and instructional leadership from Eastern Kentucky University.

Q: What spurred your interest in a career in education?

A: “Ever since I was at Sandy Hook Elementary in second grade [she knew it was what she wanted to do]. I remember I was riding in the backseat of our little station wagon, and said to my mom, ‘I really want to be a teacher.’ She was like, ‘OK.’ I thought it would be really neat to grade papers. I wanted to get out that red pen, I thought that would be really fun. I have an older sister and she and I played school a lot. Ever since that day — and it was along time ago — that was always what I wanted to do.

“When I went into college, I thought I wanted to be a music teacher, but as I got into the program, that certification is K-12 and I really didn’t feel good about working with older kids. I really liked the younger kids, I’ve worked in a day care and I’ve always liked little kids.”

Q: And yet, you went from student-teaching little people to teaching fifth grade.

A: “I was a little intimidated at first and, of course, I’m really short, so I was thinking, ‘These kids are going to be my height.’ But I still talk to those kids who are now in their 30’s. It’s pretty neat. … That town [I started in] was very rural and I had a lot of troubled kids in my class, and it was very challenging, but I connected with them really well. In fact, the Friday before Mother’s Day, they had a surprise party for me. A bunch of them brought gifts and said, ‘You’re kind of like our mom, because we don’t all have one.’ It was the neatest, most rewarding thing. That was the year I knew this was for me. This is what I want to do.”

Q: How important is a teacher as a role model for at-risk kids?

A: “I think it’s harder [for some kids] than it was when I started. A lot of kids don’t have both parents and they don’t have the role models — and we’re in a troubled world — so I think kids really need us to show them even basic manners and how to handle situations and problem-solve when they are having problems. They need that because sometimes they don’t have the best role models.”

Q: What was it about the elementary experience that hooked you?

A: “For me, I connect with the older elementary-aged kids the most because I’m really silly and goofy and they get it. But when I first started, I had worked in a day care and absolutely loved it. I’ve always loved kids, I babysat a lot when I was younger and just felt connected to them.”

Q: What brought you to W-H?

A: “It was actually this craziness,” she said gesturing to the building around her and the renovations. “I wanted to be a principal and I was looking around for jobs and saw this opening come up. I did research to determine the situation and I felt this was a perfect time to come in, because everything’s new to everybody and, yes, I’m new but the staff is newly together, even though they’ve been in the district. It’s a fresh start for everybody, so I felt this could be a really cool time to start a new school — even though Indian Head’s been here, it’s all new because we’re merging. It’s challenging, to say the least, but I thought that was the perfect place to start because we’re all starting new.”

Q: There are a lot of changes in the schools for the coming year.

A: “It’s almost like a new district in a lot of ways. We have a new superintendent, a new assistant superintendent, and almost all of the principals are new, as well. … I feel like I’m part of the new team and Jeff and George have been working to bring us together as a team and make us all connect and work together, which I love.”

Q: Hanson parents have been very concerned about some of those changes. How are you communicating about that with them?

A: “I haven’t talked to a ton of parents. I’ve already connected with the PTO and we had a meeting the second week that I was here and we’ve been talking about the events for the year. They are awesome. I came from a school with a great PTA but I was amazed at some of the things that the PTO is doing. I [also] had a principal’s meet-and-greet Monday [Aug. 6]. We met with some parents and children and had some goodies for them.”

Q: Where does the traditional open house sit right now?

A: “We’re keeping the open house the same. The teachers were worried about having their rooms ready and, honestly, they did a great job — the rooms are ready for the teachers and they are already setting up. We just felt it was important for the kids, especially with the newness of the situation, that they’re able to see the school and see their teachers. We think it’s going to lower the anxiety for the kids and the families – and I think it helps the teachers, too, to make that contact before the school year starts.”

Q: How important is it to have an active PTO supporting the school?
A: “I think they are essential to keeping the community running. It sounds like they have a lot of activities that bring in money, but they are also doing a lot of free things — the fun run, which the kids love and get pledges to do their laps; the October Monster Mash for Halloween and a Sweetheart Dance. They are bringing in a science program for the spring. They’re trying to find ways to help us. They are doing a cookout for the open house and a kindergarten pot luck for Aug. 23. All the kindergartners can come and they are told what color T-shirt to wear so they can know, ‘I have a red T-shirt on, you do, too, that means you’re in my class.’ A magic show and pizza will be provided and we’re asking families to bring some things. It’s a nice way for the kids to come and feel a bit more comfortable and then they can come to open house, but they’ve already been here.

“The PTO president emails me all the time with ideas and questions. They have a Facebook page and added me into that so I can post things to communicate with families. They’ll ask me [about questions posted] so they can respond to it, so it’s a nice communication already.”

Q: What is your favorite part of the school day?

A: “I like it when the kids arrive, being out there to greet them. It gives you a read if someone comes in and they’re upset, so you can make that connection so we can figure out what’s going on or let the teacher know, so they can work with that.

“I also like to do a “citizen of the month” or “star of the month” and have those kids come in and have lunch with me. I used to do that as an assistant principal and — especially as an assistant principal, where you are dealing with behavior steps — it’s a nice, positive way to interact with the kids and reward them for positive behaviors.”

Q: How will you go about putting your stamp on the school?

A: “My philosophy is that I’m all about team. I’m here to make this new team kind of gel and I’m the resource if they’re going to need something, if they need help. If they need to run something by me, if they need to vent, whatever it is, I’m here to provide them whatever they need to help things run smoothly. I want to establish this atmosphere of we’re all in this together, we are a team. We help each other, we build each other up and are there when somebody else needs us. It’s all about community.”

Q: What’s the biggest challenge facing elementary school principals?

A: “Security is a reality to me. A friend of mine, who was a year behind me in at Sandy Hook Elementary School, was the one who reached out to me [that day] and asked if I had the news on. I said no because I was at work … It’s a reality that these things are happening and it seems to be happening more and more, so safety is definitely one of my hugest things. … I love the new check-in system. I think it’s going to be wonderful. Parents and/or visitors can come in the first doors and we have a window where the secretary sits [to determine if the person will be buzzed through security doors]. If they are let in the building, they get a badge.”

Q: What is the most important thing for families should do over the summer to make sure students are prepared for the first day of school?

A: “I think reading with their kids every night, and talking about what they read, that keeps the kids’ minds intact, it keeps them thinking. A lot of times you see kids’ reading scores drop over the summer, but if they keep reading and are engaged all the time, they don’t lose as much over the summer. And giving them experiences — sometimes learn more from doing.”

Hanson talk outlines rise, fall of timber frame building

HANSON — It’s said “they don’t build ’em like they used to” — but there is also an adage that “everything old is new again.”

Both can be applied to timber frame building, according to carpenter and historian of his craft Stephen Kemmett, who spoke on New England timber frame construction during the Hanson Historical Society’s final meeting of the season on Thursday, Aug. 2 at the town’s historic Schoolhouse No. 4.

Timber frame construction, it seems, is on something of a minor comeback among a clientele of means, but Kemmett cautioned that care must be taken in the trade so that demand doesn’t outstrip the raw materials — trees.

It happened once before when, paired with the demand for more economical and faster construction methods, the ancient craft of timber framing nearly died out completely.

“It’s gone 360˚,” he said. “It started off as a tradition of rich people wanting to tell the world about their affluence and their power and it has turned into a building system that’s mostly only available to affluent people.”

Kemmett has worked for six and a half years as an interpretive historian/carpenter at Plimouth Plantation and for the past two years has been learning timber framework techniques in the Midwest.

“These [restored] buildings are worth saving,” he said. “If you have any kind of idea of sustainability … it’s craftsmanship — sometimes good, sometimes bad — but regardless, these are trees that have already been cut down.”

The trees required are big ones.

“There is a serious concern if we become more than 5 percent of the housing market, we’ll deplete all the big trees and that’s something that none of the timber-framers want. … And as a whole, I’ve found it to be a community of people who care about sustainability.”

Before the presentation, Historical Society Co-president John Norton announced that a donation of a volume “The History of Plymouth County,” circa 1880. Norton joked that the hefty illustrated book “looks like ‘Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary’ but includes some valuable genealogical data on Hanson.

“You’d have to know what you’re looking for because the thing’s about 4,000 pages,” he said of the old book, which is in delicate condition.

A pharmacist’s scale once used at Plymouth County Hospital, was also donated to the Society by the David Ryan family.

The scale was a gift to Dr. David Ryan on his retirement and donated by his daughter, according to member Allan Clemons. Norton said the scale, like many of the Society’s artifacts are going to be displayed at the Bonney House when renovations are complete.

Fittingly for a steamy summer evening, the meeting and Kemmett’s talk was capped off with strawberries and ice cream and soft drinks over ice.

Kemmett began his talk with a description of what timber framing is — a building framed with timbers measuring four inches by four inches or larger, with six-by-six being more common.

“You can’t hold it together with just nails,” he said. “You can in some small parts, but generally it’s held together with mortise and tenons.”

The building style came to the New World with colonization, where it is a 3,000 year-old-plus tradition in the Old World with the oldest having been found in Egypt.

“We know that things like Stonehenge were built using mortise and tenons,” he said. “Now, those are stone, but it’s believed that there are more wooden henges far before that and that they led to the stone monoliths that you see in England.”

The early henge-like frames were covered with sticks and woven grasses to make small, low houses that were “comfortable for the times.” Ventilation was also poor.

Invading Saxons brought timber framing to England from Germany. A church built in the style in Cheddar, England between 500 and 800 AD is still standing today, Kemmett noted, providing a wealth of information on the intricate skill involved in the construction method.

But as farming developed economy and permitted specialized labor, carpentry became a skilled craft that created more ornate homes for the ruling classes as well as improvements in housing for ordinary folks.

“As a carpenter, you really can’t survive on building one home every 10 years,” he said. “So they start to find cheaper, easier ways to build these — they make the materials smaller, they find faster ways of hewing — so England develops a vernacular tradition, which simply means other people are doing it including famers building their own houses.”

But, to earn the title of carpenter in England during that era, one had to serve a seven-year apprenticeship to become even a journeyman and work under a master carpenter. The guild system — as a fraternity, social society and entrance to a trade — of that time was more organized and more powerful than today’s unions in their heyday.

With the Norman invasion from France in 1066 came more adaptable styles of framing, involving smaller, modular framing units that revolutionized the trade, Kemmett said.

That was the type of framing that was brought over to the New England Colonies as soon as people could afford it.

“They cut down the trees from here to as far west as they could get, and this really jumpstarts the American timber-framing tradition,” he said. With larger families and the broken guild system, it became easier to find the number of people needed to help build a large house in a shorter time.

Repairing timber-frame housing when rot set in became the bread-and butter of many carpenters of the era.

“There’s a tendency to view traditional houses as all craftsmanship,” he said. “In truth, they had no more an eye toward craftsmanship than any human being throughout the rest of history has ever had toward it. If they need to get a building up cheap and easy, that’s how they do it and, if somebody is willing to spend the time and money to build a nice house, then they do it.”

The saltbox style, which originated in America, combined the traditional English hall-and-parlor house with added storage space. More two-story houses followed and in the South, large airy rooms helped keep houses ventilated in humidity.

Agriculture, including horses and oxen, became vital to the logging industry to supply the demand for timber in New England and the Midwest, giving rise to sawmills. The river system of the west led to a construction and settlement boom. Railroad construction, especially, depleted trees.

“Then they start running out of timber,” he said. “They’ve clearcut everything that’s available, the only big trees are on the mountains and all that’s left is the spindly stuff.”

Builders refused to frame houses with it. And the seven years required to build timber frame houses also contributed to the decline of the trade.

Today, less than 1 percent of houses being built are of timber-frame construction, including log homes. By the 1960s and ’70s there were only four or five people left with the skills needed for restoration work. Most work involved tear-downs.

But that spurred an interest in restoration, especially of antique barns. Through a trial-and-error learning curve, several barns were destroyed, but the skills were relearned.

“You’re starting to see revival of the form, but they were just copying,” Kemmett said. “It’s an industry that’s growing because there’s something about that classic craftsmanship both for the person that’s building it and for the building itself.”

HANSON — Board of Health and Conservation agent Matthew Tanis has resigned from his positions in Hanson effective July 31.

He has accepted the position as health agent for the town of Raynham.

Selectmen accepted his resignation as conservation agent with regret at the Tuesday, July 24 meeting. Selectmen are not responsible for hiring a health agent — that is the purview of the Board of Health, which had already accepted his resignation — so the board did not have to vote on that letter.

“This position has given me invaluable knowledge and experience, and for that I am very grateful,” Tanis wrote to Town Administrator Michael McCue in his letter of resignation as Health Agent. “Please know that this decision was a very difficult one to make. I value the time I have spent working for the town of Hanson and the friends I have made during my tenure.”

He explained that he had left the conservation role July 9 because the extra duties, including open space management, required more than the 20 hours per week he was contracted for, but McCue said he had spoken to Tanis about working in that role until his July 31 departure as well.

Selectman Matt Dyer requested that an exit interview be conducted with Tanis to determine whether there is enough support for the health and conservation departments. He also asked that the results of that exit interview be shared with the board.

“When you lose one employee in a two-person department, [you don’t want them to feel overwhelmed],” Dyer said.

Tanis has been setting up arrangements with individuals who can perform perc tests, restaurant inspections and other services until a new Health Agent can be hired.

“I think we’re going to be alright in the short term,” McCue said.

“He was an asset and I’m sorry to see him go,” Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I do wish him the best.”

Also submitting resignations — from the Hanson Housing Authority — were Joseph Weeks and Benjamin Fletcher, both citing personal reasons.

With only three members left on that board, FitzGerald-Kemmett asked what Selectmen could do to help fill the vacancies. McCue said it would be on the Tuesday. Aug. 14 agenda as there are also things, as far as ensuring that proper election protocol is followed, that have to be addressed. Both positions are elected so, while Selectmen votes to accept were not required, he said it would be a good move to make.

In other business, Whitman-Hanson Community Access TV Executive Director Eric Dresser provided an update on progress on activities and equipment updates at the facility.

“We’re in a really great place right now,” Dresser said, noting that back-reporting has been caught up and an annual inventory had been conducted with outdated equipment sold off, recycled or otherwise disposed in order to free up space for more modern equipment.

New windows have also been installed to ensure better energy savings and in-studio sound quality. An editing lab has also been installed, creating more opportunities for community members to work on video projects as well as for WHCA to bring in more interns for continuing education opportunities.

“We’re a lot like the library that way, where all of our equipment can be checked out and used,” Dresser said.

Making WHCA camera equipment available to the community is aimed at “finding its way to the channel” rather than for personal projects, because Comcast bills finance the equipment, Dresser explained.

“There’s certain things that end up, as we say, on the cutting room floor and we understand that,” he said. “It’s not that everything has to end up on the channel but we’d like some things to come onto the channel for the people of the community to enjoy.”

FitzGerald-Kemmett said the WHCA staff is very helpful in showing people how to use cameras and editing equipment.

HANOVER — It took four ballots on Wednesday, July 18, but Hanson representative Christopher G. Amico was elected as chairman of the South Shore Regional School Committee for the 2018-19 school year.

Two representatives — Robert L. Mahoney of Rockland and John T. Manning of Scituate — of the eight member communities were absent.

Through the first three ballots, Amico and then-Chairman Robert L. Molla Jr., of Norwell were tied at three votes each.

“This is a first, you know,” Whitman representative Daniel L. Salvucci said during the fourth round of voting.

“Do we play rock, paper, scissors after this?” Amico quipped in reply.

On the final ballot, Amico received three votes and Molla two with Molla himself abstaining to decide the matter.

After the meeting Molla, who has been chairman off and on during his 41                                                                       years on the School Committee, said he abstained to break the tie and congratulated Amico on his win.

“I’d like to say thank you to Bob Molla for the last several years serving as chairman,” said Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey. “It’s been a pleasure to work with you [in that capacity] … We’ve done a lot of great things in the past few years.”

A second ballot was required for the vice chairmanship, despite Robert P. Heywood of Hanover receiving four votes, because Mahoney and Manning were tied for second place with a vote each. Heywood was then elected unanimously.

Secretary-Treasurer James Coughlin reported the school district received $10,000 more in Chapter 70 aid than was expected as well as $244,000 as the year’s final installment of regional transportation aid as it closed the books on fiscal 2018.

“With that regional transportation receipt, we are over our budgeted number by about $124,000,” he said. “Overall, the revenue was strong for this year.”

The School Committee voted a series of budget transfers resulting from efforts by Coughlin and Hickey to identify savings. Before the surplus transfers were brought for a vote, Hickey provides the opportunity to some departments to overspend a bit in the interest of completing the educational process, Coughlin said, noting the budget process begins in November and must estimate line item costs between 15 and 18 months ahead. That can result in savings when estimates are over actual expenditures.

A “significant” saving of $98,000 in health insurance costs, meanwhile was used to fund deficits in other areas such as the electricity bill, which was up for a few months because Scituate’s solar panels were offline for six to eight weeks.

Those transfers approved July 18 were to:

• encumber $742,319.65 of 2017-18 non-resident tuition to reduce 2018-19 assessments to member towns;

• credit $10,974.24 to surplus revenue for warrants payable for the 2016-17 budget;

• debit $17.49 from surplus revenue to accrued salaries from 2016-17 budget;

• encumber $124,486 from surplus revenue — excess regional transportation funding to fund a regional transportation fund to be expensed in 2018-19;

• encumber $365,000 from surplus revenue for safety and security expenses;

• encumber $383,000 from surplus revenue for maintenance, building and grounds expenses;

• encumber $113,912 from excess and deficiency for instructional technology/vocational equipment and supplies; and

• debit $7,693.43 from surplus revenue for reserve for encumbrances for the 2016-17 budget.

The School Committee also approved a five-year bus lease for 12 propane-powered buses at $238,660 per year from Anderson Blue Bird of Providence, R.I., the same company the district works with on its current propane bus contract.

The lease expires on Dec. 31, 2018, at which time four diesel buses will be traded in and the new buses will be delivered brings the school fleet to 15 buses — 12 propane and three diesel spares.

The buses do not come equipped with seatbelts.

In other business, Hickey outlines summer projects being undertaken at the school, including construction of a new greenhouse for the horticulture program to be completed in late fall, completing renovations on the barn/locker room project, shop and library floor upgrades, upgrades to sound systems in the cafeteria and gym, renovation work in the girls’ bathroom near the gym and removal of the concrete archway at the restaurant entrance.

“I’ll set aside a piece of concrete for each of you for sentimental reasons for those of you needing a paperweight,” Hickey said. “It’s part of the attempt to upgrade the entrance way here, seeing it as both a showcase — for potentially having the restaurant have outdoor patio seating — and also a space for our horticultural program for plant sales and otherwise.”

HANSON — Selectmen on Tuesday, July 10 voted to support several steps toward supporting economic development in town, particularly in the Main Street (Route 27) corridor.

Among those steps is the process of adopting a Tax Incentive Financing (TIF) program. Guidelines adopted by the board will be used as a roadmap for a TIF Committee — which the board approved — for work in the Main Street area. The TIF program would have to be approved by voters at the October Town Meeting.

The board also voted to declare it as an Economic Opportunity Area (EOA). Selectmen also received information about an Economic Development Incentive Program (EDIP) letter of intent application for a project at 1101 Main St., authorizing Chairman Kenny Mitchell and Town Administrator Michael McCue to sign it.

McCue also recommended that the TIF Committee include representatives from the Board of Assessors, Planning Board, Finance Committee, the Board of Selectmen and himself. Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett volunteered to sit on the committee, which McCue said would only meet when letters of intent are received. Selectmen voted to appoint FitzGerald-Kemmett to the TIF Committee.

“Like most things I do, it’s an amalgamation of what other towns have done, to include some experience that I’ve had in the past,” McCue said of the TIF guidelines. He added state guidelines have made it easier than was experienced by past communities in which he has worked.

While she voiced support for the TIF program, FitzGerald-Kemmett expressed concern about applicant criteria.

“One of the things I want to make sure of is that it’s somebody that we’ve done due diligence [on], that they’ve got good financials,” she said. “If they are in Hanson that they’ve paid their taxes, that they don’t have building code violations already — in other words, I don’t want to be rewarding people who, basically, haven’t been good business partners, or partners at all with the town.”

McCue said the TIF Committee will be charged with establishing qualification criteria as is also required by the state.

“I’m extremely excited about this,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “This is the first step of what we need to do in order to get things cracking there.”

“I like this stuff, too,” McCue said.

He also provided the board with a map of the EOA area — the former Ocean Spray property — and assessor’s cards on properties within it. That doesn’t mean other parcels could not be added later “as we get more comfortable with the process,” McCue said.

“This is just a start,” he said. “It’s one of the most identifiable potential locations for economic development and it greases the tracks in terms of going before the state to get their approval for any TIFs that we may, on a local level, approve.”

He said it also opens the door for other grants and automatically rolls in benefits, including a credit from the state, to whoever works to develop abandoned or underused properties there.

In other business, Selectmen voted to adopt a fuel-efficient vehicle policy for town departments.

The issue was tabled June 19 after the police and fire department heads expressed concern about their ability to afford continued use of vehicles they now have or purchases of new vehicles in the future. After conversations with the chiefs, McCue said the vehicles they are concerned about were exempted from the policy.

“The real impact will come — and it will — if and when we reach the point where we want to hand a vehicle down [to another department from police or fire], which has been a tradition in town,” McCue said. “However, the benefits far outweigh the detriments in terms of expenses.”

He said Bridgewater has already received $800,000 in various environmental incentive grants over the past five or six years. Cohasset had received $300,000; Easton $750,000; Hanover more than $1 million and Kingston just short of $1 million.

McCue estimated that within the five or six years before he sees Hanson needing to transfer or buy new equipment, the Green Communities grants will “far, far outweigh the expense of picking up a new vehicle.” The fuel efficient vehicle policy and completion of a no-cost National Grid energy efficiency assessment are required to qualify for the Green Communities program, potentially by the end of the fiscal 2019 year.

Selectmen also voted to switch the sponsorship reference of the board as primary applicant of a Plymouth County Hospital/CPC Phase 2 application, which lists the final Plymouth County Hospital Reuse Committee as a secondary applicant. Selectmen will now be secondary applicant with the PCH Reuse Committee as the primary.

FitzGerald-Kemmett, who is the former CPC chairman, said it was the PCH Reuse Committee’s place to come to Selectmen looking for support for their own application to the CPC.

As of Monday, a Hanson man in his 60s remained in intensive care at Brockton Hospital following a near-drowning on West Lake of Monponsett Pond on Saturday, July 7.

A neighbor checked the area after seeing an overturned canoe and pulled the man from the water on the West Lake at Ocean Avenue.

Halifax police and fire were recognized in a thank you via social media Sunday night by Sergeant Sterling of Halifax Police.

“I am very proud of my co-workers, officer McDonnell, officer Acevich and off-duty paramedic Dillon Riley, who were the first ones on scene. Our training kicked in and we worked as a well-oiled machine in our life saving efforts. Huge props to the resident who pulled the individual from the water.”

Hanson Fire Chief Jerome Thompson also commended the efforts of first responders and the individuals who investigated the overturned canoe.

“The actions taken by everyone involved will hopefully be a positive outcome,” said Thompson.

Hanson police officers as well as the environmental police were on scene investigating Sunday afternoon.

“The actions taken by everyone prior to our arrival contributed to our crew being able to transport this patient to the hospital and give him a fighting chance at survival,” read a Hanson Fire Tweet on social media. “Great job!”

HANOVER — The South Shore Vo-Tech School Committee gave retiring Principal Margaret Dutch a warm send-off during its Wednesday, June 20 meeting.

Mark Aubrey takes over as principal with the new fiscal year, which started on July 1.

School Committee Chairman Robert Molla of Norwell presented Dutch with a plaque saluting her “professionalism, attention to detail and commitment to putting students’ education at the center of all your decisions. You’ve been a reliable and caring leader and have earned the respect and admiration of parents, staff and students.”

Dutch, in turn, said she was thankful for the opportunity.

“I’m grateful for the trust that you placed in me and I’ve enjoyed every minute,” she said.

Graphic Communications/Visual Design student Elizabeth Trull, a sophomore from Rockland, was recognized as the Student of the Month for June.

Assistant Princiapl Aubrey, still in his role as assistant superintendent during the June 20 meeting, reported that Trull was selected based on faculty comments that she is a “creative, positive, hard-working and kind” student who is also an “advocate for her peers.”

Trull is a three-sport athlete — volleyball, basketball and softball — a student ambassador, member of SkillsUSA and Business Professionals of America.

Social studies teacher Tammy Glass was honored as June Staff Member of the Month, as nominated by SSVT students. She has been a teacher at the school since 2015 and students lauded her expertise in the subject as well as her willingness to experiment with new projects and assessments to push students to excel. She is also a class adviser and prom volunteer, overseeing the construction of a chandelier designed and built by the shops this year.

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.”