Old Colony Elder Services (OCES) is celebrating 50 Years of Care and Collaboration with a special luncheon and awards presentation on May 1, 2024, at Hotel 1620 Plymouth Harbor.
Established in 1974, OCES is the largest provider of in-home and community-based services for older adults and people living with disabilities in Plymouth County and surrounding areas in Massachusetts. The agency has offices in Brockton and Plymouth.
OCES’ 50th Anniversary Luncheon will be held at Hotel 1620 Plymouth Harbor, 180 Water Street in Plymouth, MA 02360 on May 1, 2024, 12:30-2:00 p.m. The luncheon will include an awards presentation; 95.9 WATD Radio Host Rob Hakala as the MC, Life Is Good Playmaker Project creator Steve Gross as the guest speaker; and an opportunity drawing. Civic and business leaders, vendors, and partner organizations, and health care professionals are invited to attend.OCES will present awards to outstanding individuals and organizations whose actions and/or leadership have exemplified Care and Collaboration.
The event is part of a campaign to raise $50,000 to expand OCES’ Behavioral Health and Wellness programs. OCES’ Elder Mental Health Outreach Team (EMHOT) provides behavioral health and wellness support to older adults and people with disabilities who may be isolated or encounter barriers limiting access to behavioral health care.
Thanks go to sponsors for their generous donations: Datalyst, LLC; Best of Care; The OCPC Ombudsman Program; Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts; Law Office of Paula Schlosser; Attentive Home Care, Inc.; Home Health Resources, Inc.; Brown & Brown of Massachusetts, LLC; Citrin Cooperman; Stonewell Care, LLC; Old Colony Planning Council (OCPC); Rockland Trust; Diman Laundry; isolved MP; South Coast Laundry, Inc.; and S&M Transportation.
RSVP by April 15, 2024 for OCES’ 50th Anniversary Luncheon. Registration is required.
For tickets to the event, visit ocesma.org and click on OCES’ 50th Event Page.

When it came time for the School Committee to discuss budget cuts outlined to meet town financial needs, member David Forth forcefully argued that there was nothing to discuss, and everything for students to lose [see related story].
“What we are looking to do is promote student achievement,” he said. “So, by doing this, by reducing our assessments, by cutting these jobs, we are once again bailing the community out [from] their lack of responsibility and they want to blame the schools … when, really, they are not doing their jobs.”
He said there has been a pattern of the towns failing to invest state funds, as far back as education reform in 1993, to help themselves catch up to where they needed to be in contributions to the schools’ funding formula, while the state did.
“[There has been] a lack of investment in our community that has put us in this situation, whether it is the Great Recession, the opioid epidemic, a pandemic, generations of students are suffering,” Forth said that officials’ actions speak louder than words when services and jobs are cut. “I mean, look at me. … I’m glad to be here, but it should be a little bit disgusting that a student feels they have to run to bring change and, furthermore, that the community that elects them feels they have a better opportunity to bring change than the people who are currently sitting in that seat.”
Pounding the table he implored the committee to make a responsible decision for students.
“That’s our contituents,” he said. “Let’s represent them, let’s respect them. Let’s care about them.”
Member Glen DiGravio said he appreciated Forth’s impassioned plea on behalf of students.
“I hear everything you guys are saying,” he said, also mentioning Dawn Byers’ concerns about class size and Hillary Kniffen’s about programs W-H doesn’t have that other towns do have. “David, I love your passion and I love that you care so much about the kids.”
But, DiGravio noted, they are not elected only by the parents of students, but by elder couples on fixed budgets and residents trying to make mortgage payments.
Member Fred Small had led off the discussion recalling a comment he had made the previous November: “If we want to fix it, we have to fix it right,” he said. “If we needed an override, we needed to have it structured so that it’s not a Band-Aid.”
But he argued that as the budget is now structured, if the town select boards and finance committees have a separate line for an override for the schools’ portion, it is a Band-Aid and the school district is back in the same position without adding the product or the programs it should be doing and let the taxpayers decide.
“They’re the ones footing the bill and its up to us to make the case [that] this is what we should have, this is what we need to have,” he said, ticking off offering such as languages in the middle schools and the robotics program. “But if we’re going to do it, we need to do it right.”
He said his big fear is that people will feel they’ve given the schools money and they’re done for five years.
“The problem isn’t the towns,” he said. “The problem is the state – it’s the way they fund Chapter 70. … It’s a horrible, horrible situation that we’re stuck in.”
Forth said that, while Small made a lot of great points, and reminded the Committee that March 2021 was the only time during his tenure in office that its members unanimously supported the budget after Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak argued that, in the wake of the pandemic as the responsible move. A couple of weeks later, he said, Szymaniak asked “for the sake of partnership” that the committee reduce its assessments by $775,000.
“We took those mental health services – the interventionists – and rolled it into what, at that point in time was ESSER [Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief] II,” Forth said. “State aid, basically.”
That vote failed 6-2-1, and the assessment passed the following week by and 8-2 vote, which Forth opposed because he did not like the idea of using one-time funding to finance the operating budget, knowing the schools would need those positions long-term.
“One of the concerns at that time was that we were putting a Band-Aid on the budget,” Forth recalled.
Last year, the committee voted to roll $500,000 from excess and deficiency over into the budget – another move with which he disagreed.
“I did not show up for that meeting, because it was to my knowledge, and we’ve talked about this publicly that a predetermined deal was made on what that figure should be,” Forth said. “Out of protest, I did not show up to that particular meeting.”
He also took issue with the habit of select boards in particular, to refer to “school overrides” when talking about finances.
“The way I see that is poor public policy on their end and a lack of accountability, because when you’re looking at the excess levy capacity – the 2 ½ that they do not utilize fully – over the last decade, they left – the town of Whitman, in particular – left $4.1 million on the table,” Forth charged. “Even if they collected half of that, we would not be in the position that we are now.”
In 2016, not collecting to capacity led to devastating cuts, and in 2019, 19.2 jobs were cut, leaving teachers crying in hallways and motivating students at the high school to get involved, sending out a district email.
Forth said that none of the School Committee members responded to that email, but a parent did and spoke with the students about the levy, giving the students information they used in interviewing teachers throughout the district.
“The teachers told me they were going on Google to develop their curriculum,” he said. “How quickly we forget it was just a few years ago that teachers did not have the tools they needed to succeed at the earlies levels, building the foundation blocks for our most important assets, our youth – our students.”
While School Committee members are elected by taxpayers and people “old enough to vote,” their constituents are actually the students, Forth said, echoing information underscored to school officials and committee members attended a recent Mass. Association of School Committees meeting.
Forth also spoke about the Madden Report, which is the basis for Whitman’s current budgeting philosophy, and is being adopted in Hanson as well. That report had urged an operational override for Whitman in 2020 or 2021, but that was not done. That override was designed to adequately fund all town departments.
Hanson is not dealing with the need for a $5 million operational override recommendation for the same purpose.
“Next year, when we kick this down the road again, you’ll have no one to blame but yourselves,” Forth said.
Vice Chair Christophe Scriven agreed with Small that it does not make sense to go to an override when “we’re providing a less than level-service budget.”
“It doesn’t make any sense to me to cut this budget and then go and try to fund it through an override,” Scriven said.
“We have difficult decisions to make,” Committee member Dawn Byers said, asking whether the budget aligns with the School Committee’s goals and strategic plan, recalling a report from the previous week when the panel learned that high-quality curriculum had not been invested in from 2001 to 2018.
“We are now faced with going backwards,” she said, noting that when the high school was built in 2005, it was shiny and new but the cracks on the inside – curriculum shortcomings in particular – on the inside were not seen.
She said she also has questions about the budget in terms of finding savings and class size inequity across the district.
“I really want to understand what I’m voting on and what the impact is going to be on the students,” she said, specifically citing which teachers are retiring or facing layoffs.
Assistant Superintendent George Ferro said every principal is responsible for educating students the best that they can, but said the district faces a unique situation with the two middle schools. The staff at Hanson Middle School has teachers in transition – either at the end of their careers or just starting.
That allows a principal, despite the school’s dwindling population, to have veteran teachers teaching more than one subject to reduce class size in grade six. In seventh and eighth grade, split team teaching allows mixing faculty members to also lower class size.
In Whitman, there are high enough student numbers that there are two full teaching teams at every grade.
Scriven noted the committee hires and entrusts a superintendent to work with his staff to make the best decisions they can for the students.
“We aren’t privy, nor should we be, to every individual factor that goes into their decisions,” he said. “We should absolutely continue to advocate for students and the district in general, but we need to understand that we’re not superintendents, or assistant superintendents, we’re School Committee members – and we’re one of a group of 10 and we have to keep that in mind.”
Hillary Kniffen said she finds it dangerous to pit departments against each other, particularly departments that services people who don’t have a voice – which are the kids.
“That’s who we’re representing,” she said. “That’s who we serve.”
She said no teachers were hired to teach with ESSER funds, which were used to fund positions to support kids in the wake of the pandemic that the schools were legally required to hire anyway.
“We’re not asking for an exorbitant budget,” she said. “We don’t have anything extra in our budget to cut.”

Assistant Superintendent George Ferro and Director of Equity and MTSS Dr. Nicole Semas-Schneeweis reviewed the district’s midyear assessment data during the Wednesday, March13 School Committee meeting.
“I can happily say every class, every section we’re doing better in,” he said of the growth areas. “Please remember that as we talk about budgets, as we talk about things that say, ‘What have we accomplished? What did should we do? Is it because of whether it’s an ESSER issue or not.’ This is education, this is what we do and we’re proud of what we do.”
Reading and math assessments include intervention.
“We’re seeing improvement [in reading] from fall to winter,” Said Semas-Schneeweis of the first full year of a new reading curriculum. Ferro said the same trends were apparent in math.
“The trends are there,” Ferro agreed. “The trends are improving. … spending money to help students learn is not frivolous, it is a moral imperative that we should be doing.”
He said regression recovery in W-H following COVID is “moving faster and farther” than on a state or national basis. While there are students who are behind in both reading and math, there are also students who are on grade level.
“Improvement is improvement, and that’s what’s important,” Stafford said.
Committee member Dawn Byers said that should be better reinforced on data sheets, where color graphs show learners in the red zone are three grades below where they should be, yellow is one grade below and green outlines the degree to which a student is at grade level.
“Let’s keep that in mind,” she said.
“We’ve always had kids who struggled, maybe not this level of struggle because we weren’t in a pandemic, but we didn’t have the data to know for sure who they were or what they needed,” Semas-Schneeweis said. “This data points out exacly.”
Going forward Ferro cited the need for reviewing software as a resource compared to its price, that is expensive; continued participation in DESE’s Instructional Prioritization Institute to close gaps for struggling learners and writing support for all levels.
During the Public Forum, Hanson resident Frank Milisi posed a question about the regional agreement in hopes of helping to alleviate the budget situation.
“I’m not sure it’s legal, I haven’t checked with [town] counsel or the state, but is it possible, in the school regional agreement to assign a set increase to the school budget every year that the towns would be guaranteed to have to fund every year,?” he asked.
He provided the example of a 5-percent increase to the majority town written into the school agreement.
“At that point, the school would know exactly the increase that it’s getting in its budget, the towns would know how to budget for that 5-percent increase of the majority town” he said. “It would provide two things: less angst around budget season … and a way to project into the future revenues that are needed to fund the school and town departments and kind of alleviate the budget situation in both towns.”
Szymaniak noted the regional agreement is under review right now and that suggestion could be brought up between the two towns and counsel.

PLYMPTON — The Board of Selectmen reviewed it’s regional clinician position which aids police in diffusing tense situations.
Plympton Police Chief Matthew Ahl addressed the Selectmen regarding a new regional clinician role during the board’s Feb. 12 meeting.
“We’ve been working for about a year or so trying to get the clinician program off the ground, and I give a lot of credit to the Carver Police Department – they’re the holder of this grant and we’re the beneficiary,” said Plympton Police Chief Matthew Ahl, updating the board. The grant which funds the position encompasses Plympton, Carver, Halifax, and Hanson. “Essentially the program is we have a clinician that’s allocated to all four of these departments that rotates through,” He said. “She’s really there to help mitigate all the things that we see in the streets now… it’s a big push. … Her ability to go out there and diffuse the situation, speak with parties that are involved whether it be a domestic incident, temporary psychosis, if she has to issue a Section 12.
“She’s kind of there on the threshold on the forefront to take that onus off of us as a Police Department and be the health proxy to kind of guide us in our decision and make sure that we’re doing the right thing,” Ahl explained.
He told the Selectmen that while they are only about two months into the program, it has been “impactful.” The current contract is for three years, though Ahl said he envisions it being a long-term program. Selectman John Traynor asked if she was also involved with the Fire Department. Ahl said that while she was not, she has been willing to jump in and help in situations involving other departments.
Traynor said, “I think sometimes we think of us as such a small community that we don’t have some of the services that the larger towns offer but that’s not true. These regional associations like you have here, we have the opportunity to reach out and really bring top people in to help out.” Ahl agreed referring to the comfort dog program as another example of community collaboration.
“Sounds really good to me; I like the fact that it’s both proactive but it’s also there situational in the event that you needed somebody,” Selectman Christine Joy said. She also asked if something came up in Plympton while the clinician was working in a neighboring town, would it be possible to get her to respond to the incident.
“We have an agreement… if there’s something that’s pressing with our community and say that she’s over in Hanson for the day, then we’re going to collaborate and figure out a means to get her from Hanson,” Ahl said.
Selectman Mark Russo led off the raves talking about the implementation of a community clinician. “I have a feeling this is going to be a cool thing in terms of support at the time of a problem and thwarting more substantial problems later on to the degree that it’s sort of preventative medicine which of course is the best medicine,” Russo said. Joy said her rave was for an article in the Express recognizing three Dennet Elementary boys who put their fire dept. training to use in a fire emergency at home. Plympton’s Fire Dept. honored them as Young Heroes. “What a great story and a fantastic outcome,” Joy said.

The School Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 7 voted to accept Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak’s recommendation to hire former Canton Director of Business Steve Marshall as the W-H district director of business and finance, pending the successful negotiation of a contract.
His official start date would be July 1.
Szymaniak had recently accepted the resignation of Business Manager John Stanbrook, posting the position immediately on SchoolSpring and Indeed employment websites.
Thanking him for putting together the fiscal 2025 budget presentation, Szymaniak said he appreciated what Stanbrook has put together.
None of the viable candidates responding had any certification or experience in school business, so Szymaniak contacted some local superintendents for possible recommendations. School Committee Chair Beth Stafford said that, no sooner did W-H begin searching for a new business manager, a number of other towns also started a search process.
“I found Steve Marshall,” he said. “I shot a text to Steve and said, ‘Would you be interested in sending me your material so I could review it?”
He also asked Marshall if he would be interested in having a conversation with the W-H Central Office team. When Marshall agreed, he was interviewed and the team found him to be “exceptional,” Szymaniak said. Stafford also had a chance to meet with Marshall.
“By Jeff looking to the other superintendents and seeing if there was anybody around, to do it that way, was really the only way to get somebody qualified, who is certified and ready to go,” Stafford said.
“He comes with very good references,” Szymaniak said. “I’m very confident in his ability in municipal – town – government work. We spoke about the learning curve in a regional [district] and I’m very confident.”
Marshall had been director of business for the Canton School District, and W-H will have someone mentor him as he settles into the district’s business routine.
“He’s got the name,” Steve Bois joked about their shared first name.
Committee member Fred Small said he noticed a trend toward two-year periods with past employers on Marshall’s resume, and asked for an explanation.
Marshall replied that he spent about 10 years with Aramark, working with a number of different districts through the same employer as a contracted service provider.
“I did leave [Aramark] and spent some time outside of public schools, working for a startup company that was subsequently sold off, and I came back to public schools,” he said. “At that point, I decided to go back to school, get my MBA and decided I wanted to pursue a business manager position.”
He then spent four years with Newton Schools in the business office, and went for a promotion as the business director and manger in Canton, where he has been for the last two and a half years.
“What assurances could we feel we would have that, two to five years from now, you wouldn’t be giving the same pitch, so to speak, [to another district]?” Small asked.
Marshall reiterated that Szymaniak reached out to him.
“I don’t have to leave my current position,” he said. “It’s not something I’m running from at all, but after meeting an interviewing here, it’s a place that I truly want to be. I think there is a very strong leadership team here that I’m excited to be a part of.”
He also said he lives in a close-by town only a 20-minute drive away and is looking for a professional home.
“I’m really looking for a place to be for an extended period of time.” he said.
Committee member David Forth said he appreciated Marshall’s attending the meeting, asking about his experience with the MSBA in middle school projects noted on his resume.
Marshall noted he was serving as Natick food service director when that district built a new high school and was part of three building projects in Newton – one state-funded and two locally funded.
Canton – just getting into schematic design – is looking to build a 1,000-student middle school, which current cost estimates put at $230 million.
“Steve is very familiar with that [process],” Szymaniak said. “He can maneuver right into working with MSBA and our architect.” AO3 is also working on the Canton school project.
Forth also asked about how the budget process had been reworked in Canton.
“It’s absolutely phenomenal – the best budget book I’ve seen since I’ve been here,” Forth said, of the work Stanbrook had put into the fiscal 2025 presentation, asking about how Marshall might restructure the budget process at W-H.
“There were some fantastic documents shown here tonight,” Marshall said. “I think it’s been a very transparent process,’ he said of Canton’s budget process] … there was many community members and a lot of outreach that the process might not have been as transparent as it should have been. … It can be more easily understood by the general public, which is important.”
He noted there is work to be done on the financial software, in the wake of the hack to central office computers last year.
Committee member Glen DiGravio asked Szymaniak about an ETA on the software.
“It seems like it’s a very stressful thing,” he said.
“We’re actually getting really frustrated with MUNIS – customer support for us – we’re a small district,” Szymaniak said. “We’re actually actively looking at two different systems.”
Marshall, who has used the software for about 15 years, said the current MUNIS software is comprehensive software that can do anything, but the more they can provide to users, the harder they are to use.
“It is not the easiest platform to use because of its capabilities,” Marshall said. That said, he noted he is comfortable using MUNIS.
He also granted there is a learning curve involved in moving from a municipal to a regional school district, but there are aspects of a regional district that he has seen in other places.
Newton, for example, holds all its own benefits on the district side.
Committee member Dawn Byers asked about Marshall’s grant-search and writing experience.
“We were managing about $16 million in grants that came from a variety of different sources,” he said, noting that the “grant market is just not as great as what it was in the time I was in Newton.”
He added that a lot of private organizations are struggling with fundraising and the impact of the potential future of the economy and how that plays into grants and private funds.”
He was writing applications for private, state and fedral grants in Newton as that had been his specific charge when he started there.
“The demographics of the district has a huge impact on what your eligibility requirements are for many of the state and federal grants,” he said.

HANSON – It’s always welcome news for the Select Board when a town department can save people money.
The Multi-Service Senior Center saw more than 138 Hanson residents during the open enrollment period ending Dec. 7, 2023 – saving them more than $58,000 all together. One client saved $16,000 when his carrier no longer covered his insulin.
“It’s their money, and if we can save them a little bit …” said Elder Affairs Director Mary Collins, who provided the board with an update on the Senior Center and its services such as Meals on Wheels and Hanson SHINE counselors, state-certified personnel who help seniors enroll in Medicare.
“We’re not making people’s decisions for them,” Collins said. “We’re giving them options.”
SHINE counselors are certified by the state, to aid seniors in selecting Medicare advantage plans without commission from insurance companies, unlike the advantage plan brokerage firms advertised by retired celebrities on TV.
“We’re going to give you unbiased information,” Collins said. “We [also] have the ability to vet people for maybe public benefits that they’re unaware they may qualify for. We truly want them to benefit from it.”
Part-time administrative assistant Roberta Bartholdson schedules Medicare open enrollment and intake appointments. Part-time Outreach Coordinator Linda Mulrey and volunteers Fae Vitalle and Jim Hickey – who were all SHINE-certified last May, assist Collins with open enrollment, as well.
Nutritional services and food donations and help with SNAP and housing benefit applications are always available, too.
“Don’t ever feel that you are in need,” Collins said. “There’s always food available, just pick up the phone, or have somebody you know make the call.”
Over the course of a year, more than 5,400 Meals on Wheels volunteers go out to Hanson seniors. More than 200 emergency meals went out and congregate meals are served at the Multi-Service Senior Center twice a week, will “well over 1,100” served over the past year.
“Throughout COVID – before, after and for the most umpteen years – we have had four groups of people that deliver Meals on Wheels,” Collins said. “There are many reasons why it’s beneficial for people to get Meals on Wheels. Of course, nutrition and [dependable] access to food … people are seen by someone.”
Many of the Meals on Wheels drivers return to clients after they complete their route for a cup of coffee or tea and a social visit.
“It’s another set of eyes on people who might be frail in our community,” she said.
Leah’s Club, which has taken the place of the Supportive Day Program – forced to be discontinued during the COVID-19 pandemic – on Tuesdays and Wednesdays offers support and activities for people with dimensia.
“The feedback from the families is tremendous,” Collins said.
She is also seeking a $300,000 grant from the Executive Office of Elder Affairs to bring back supportive day programs or estblish new ones to help expand the facility or improve use of space to help make that possible.
Music, dancing, chair yoga and other programs are also available.
Collins also thanked Camp Kiwanee for housing the center after pipes burst last February and Community Christmas for bringing cheer to elders in need at the holidays.

By Tracy F. Seelye, Express editor
editor@whitmanhansonexpress.com
WHITMAN – Changing a speed limit sign is not going to solve the problem concerning traffic along Auburn street police officials say.
A traffic study requested by a resident on the speeds along Auburn Street last year saw the Whitman Police concentrate on four locations along the roadway, according to Chief Timothy Hanlon in a recent report to the Select Board. The locations were along a stretch from Washington Street to the Brockton line.
“We do traffic enforcement all over town,” he said. “Sometimes it’s by request, sometimes it’s by necessity.”
Posted speed limits on that section of road are between 40 and 45. It is not considered a thickly settled district.
He gave a location on Temple Street after an overhead light that “everyone was complaining about,” as an example. “[DPW Superintendent] Bruce Martin got that posted as a school zone and then we went from there and did our best to add those traffic signals that identify it as a school zone and we’ve been doing traffic enforcement up there because it’s changed.”
Hanlon said he was aware that residents were among those asking that the speed limit be lowered on Auburn Street in the interest of pedestrian safety as he reported the study’s findings about the roadway that is also state Route 14, to the Select Board on Tuesday, Jan. 9.
“Often MassDOT is asked to address special speed limit concerns by simply changing speed limit signs,” Hanlon quoted from the mass.gov website. “Research and experience, though, have taught us that changing the posted speed limit alone does not typically change the way people drive – at least, not by itself.”
His conclusion was that state officials would not likely favor reducing speeds in the area.
The last traffic study of Auburn Street was done in 2008-09, Hanlon said.
“They didn’t find much of a deviance,” he said. “The 85th percentile of the speed was 45 miles an hour and, based on what the speed limits are … between 40 and 45 miles an hour, that’s where they want to be.”
Select Board member Shawn Kain said he would like to see something done to help the Auburnville population.
For Whitman Police, that would come down to enforcement.
Hanlon said he had additional questions – about a section of Auburn Street east of Bedford Street, which showed the only real deviation, going from the 85th percentile of 38 miles an hour in 2004 to 45 miles an hour; the timing of previous studies and whether there is a specific threshhold for reducing the speeds along Auburn Street.
“They’re not exactly sure what the cause of that is,” he said. “It could be that the traffic counter was placed in a slightly different spot to register a different speed, depending upon how far down in that area that it was placed.”
Hanlon said the exact placement of previous traffic counters was evidently not recorded.
The earliest study he found was conducted in 2004 and others were done in 2008 and 2009, on traffic in both directions. There was also no specific speed threshold.
“If the cars were going a lot faster, would you want to drop it down, and the answer to that is no,” Hanlon said. “This location does have existing special speed limits and that does make it more difficult to change the speed limit, as the existing state law would have to be repealed first.”
After researching the matter on the ma.gov website, Hanlon found that lower posted speed limits “don’t affect driver behavior that much on their own.”
“It’s in combination with other things, like traffic enforcement, and we really haven’t done any traffic enforcement up there since the construction has taken place,” he said. “There was no need for it up there because the roads were all dug up, and now that it’s done, it’s let’s see how this process is going to play out.”
Whitman Police can, however, make enforcement a priority on their own, according to Hanlon.
“We’ve been running radar in various locations, one of which is Raynor Avenue,” he said. “We can slow people down while we’re there and then, when we adjust as necessary, but we can’t be everywhere all the time, so we have to decide where we’re going to do traffic enforcement and go from there.”