Thursday, May 30, 2013
Welcome to "About Town with Mark Snyder," a column that will keep you up to the minute with what's what, who's who and what's going on around town. If you see or hear something we could use here, let us know by sending an e-mail to pmpco@aol.com.
TOWN MEETING, NIGHT III: Town meeting picked up Wednesday night, May 29 where it left off following the May 22 session - with debate on a motion by the school department to add an additional $308,000 to the education budget ($237,708 for the Stoughton Public Schools and $70,292 for Southeastern Regional), making the total budget $40,707,147. On May 22, there was over an hour of debate on this motion from the Superintendent of Schools, Dr.Marguerite Rizzi. On the 29th, School Committee Chair Deb Sovinee gave a 12 minute presentation to open up the meeting. She reminded members that Stoughton was 235 out of the 351 towns and cities in Massachusetts in total per pupil spending. After that, the debate continued. Janice Lindwall of Pct…
Monday, April 29, 2013
Welcome to "About Town with Mark Snyder," a column that will keep you up to the minute with what's what, who's who and what's going on around town. If you see or hear something we could use here, let us know by sending an e-mail to pmpco@aol.com.
STOUGHTON'S SAT SCORES RANKED IN BOTTOM 10 PERCENT OF REGION: The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released the combined SAT scores of all of the 351 Towns and Cities in Massachusetts. According to a chart put together by the Boston Globe comparing SAT scores and home values south of Boston, of the 48 schools in our regional area, Stoughton High students finished 43rd, with a combined score of 1417. Sharon was first with a 1775. The only places with lower scores than Stoughton were Avon (1304), Brockton (1289), Randolph (1309), Holbrook (1292), and Wareham (1375). Other neighboring scores included Braintree (1612), Canton (1573), Easton (1601), Foxborough (1595), Norwood (1464), Quincy (1450), Weymouth (1494) and Walpole (…
Friday, April 26, 2013
The four candidates agree that better communication is needed by the school department.
The four women vying for two positions on the Stoughton School Committee came together to debate Wednesday night. Incumbent School Committee member Joyce Husseini joined challengers Carol Brown, Debra Cote and Patricia MacNeil in the community room of the Stoughton Police Station to answer questions relating to the position and the state of Stoughton Public Schools, less than a week before the town's April 30 election. This is the only contested town-wide race this election cycle. The forum, dubbed the 'Definitive Debate,' was moderated by columnist Mark Snyder, with questions asked by Stoughton Patch editor Jeffrey Pickette. While the candidates disagreed at times one question they all found common ground on was that they would like to …
Monday, April 22, 2013
Stoughton students recently took to the stage for the "Stoughton's Got Talent" competition. Madison Peck was the winner in the junior category and Jack D'Addieco won the senior category. Check out photo/video highlights from the show in the media gallery.
Article by Mike Carroll; photos and video by Stoughton Patch editor Jeffrey Pickette *** Some of Stoughton's finest performers got to show off thier talents April 12 when the Stoughton Public Schools Music Department and Parents of Performing Students (POPS) sponsored the first ever "Stoughton's Got Talent" talent show at the Stoughton High auditorium. Twenty-two acts took to the stage singing, dancing, playing instruments, doing karate or gymnastics routines. The Junior category placers were Madison Peck (1st), Janae Beauliere (2nd), and Mirabella DeMarino (3rd). The senior catergory was the winner of the Mr. SHS pageant, Jack D'Addieco (1st), Michaela, Briana and Daniel Sullivan (2nd), the band Catch-22 (3rd) and David Elmowitz (4th…
The four candidates for two seats on the Stoughton School Committee - Joyce Husseini (incumbent), Carol Brown, Debra Cote and Patricia MacNeil - will be participating in a live debate Wednesday, April 24 at 7 p.m. at the Stoughton Police Station.
BE AN EDUCATED VOTER! On April 30th, you'll be able to get two separate ballots in the venue where your precinct votes. One of those ballots is the party primary for U.S. Senate. The other, a local ballot, will enable you to most importantly elect two members of the School Committee. The other races on the local ballot are all uncontested. Incumbent School Committee member Joyce Husseini will be seeking reelection. She will be joined on the ballot by Carol Brown, Debra Cote and Patricia MacNeil. Former School Committee Chairman, and current member, Tom Colburn is not running for reelection. Colburn has served three terms on the School Committee. Husseini, a former Chair, and the current Vice Chair of the School Committee, is the former…
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
The Stoughton Public School system is close to going to one-to-one computing – one student, one computing device - using mobile technology, School Committee Chair Deborah Sovinee said.
Editor's Note: The Stoughton Public School system has been discussing moving towards a one-to-one computing based model where each student would have their own mobile device, like a tablet, to use during the school day, possibly in place of a paper textbook, or to supplement the textbook. There is no item in the FY14 budget requesting the purchase of mobile devices, so the implementation of a one-to-one computing model is still some time away, but there is a subcommittee looking into this issue, and how to best go about bringing one-to-one computing to the schools, where all students would eventually have their own mobile device. There are several programs currently in the schools which demonstrate the trend towards one-to-one computing…
Thursday, April 4, 2013
A subsidy which significantly reduces the fee of Advanced Placement exams for students eligible for free or reduced school lunches will likely not be available this year due to the Sequester, leaving the Stoughton Schools to cover the cost of the fees.
"Unfortunately the first impact of the Sequester has arrived, and quite suddenly," Dr. Marguerite Rizzi, Superintendent of the Stoughton Public Schools said in a release sent to members of the media. Sequestration went in effect March 1 after Congress and President Barack Obama were unable to strike a deal to avoid these mandated budget cuts. As a result, the subsidy program available to help make Advanced Placement (AP) exams more affordable for students eligible for free and reduced school lunches is in limbo due to these cuts, according to a release sent by Dr. Marguerite Rizzi, Superintendent of the Stoughton Public Schools. However, despite the likelihood that this subsidy will not be available for this year's AP tests in May, Dr. …
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
School Committee Member Dr. Erdem Ural was censured by his fellow members on the Stoughton School Committee March 14.
The following article was originally published March 19 and was updated March 22: The Stoughton School Committee voted 3-1 last Thursday to censure one of its members, Dr. Erdem Ural, for exceeding authority and insulting staff and opening the School Committee to legal liability; creating dysfunction within the School Committee and wasting taxpayer money; and submitting a rogue evaluation of the Superintendent. Included in a lengthy list of concerns and issues spelled out in a case for censure, read during the meeting by School Committee Chair Deborah Sovinee, was the fact that Dr. Ural was "removed...from a union bargaining team because he spoke publicly and gave away the School Committee strategy." This was during the negotiations …
Stoughton Public Schools will have a two-hour delayed opening Tuesday, March 19 according to Superintendent of Public Schools Dr. Marguerite Rizzi. School dismissal will be at the usual time.
Stoughton Public Schools will have a two-hour delayed opening Tuesday, March 19 according to Superintendent of Public Schools Dr. Marguerite Rizzi. School will now open at 9:30 a.m. for middle school and high school students and 10:15 a.m. for elementary school students. Bus pick-up will be two hours later than normal. Lunches will still be served at the regular time. School dismissal will also be at the usual time. With many schools delayed or closed across Massachusetts, the state announced that the MCAS English Language Arts Composition test for students in grades 4, 7 and 10 has been postponed until Monday, March 25. WBZ and Channel 7 both predict the Stoughton area will receive about 4 to 8 inches of snow from this storm before it …
Friday, March 8, 2013
The ALICE program encourages a more flexible response to an active shooter situation. The next step in the process of implementing the program will be to instruct Stoughton teachers about ALICE.
After participating in a training program and making a presentation to the Stoughton School Committee, Stoughton school and police officials took the another step Tuesday in putting the ALICE school shooter response program into operation by holding a forum for parents at the O'Donnell Middle School media center. In the wake of the Newtown, CT shooting in December and past tragedies at Virginia Tech and at Columbine High School in Colorado, different methods of dealing with the unthinkable happening in Stoughton are going to be used. O'Donnell Middle School assistant principal David Guglia and Stoughton High assistant principal Michael O'Neil outlined the program for the parents. Past protocol in the event of a school shooting involved …
Heather
1:17 pm on Thursday, May 30, 2013
Dr. Rizzi says that the food service dept is totally self funded. If this is the case then why when the workers contract was last negotiated Dr. Rizzi and the SC told the stewards from the Union that the amount of any raise had to be the same as what other depts got such as secretaries and custodians. If the dept is self funded then should the raise be dependent on what time of profit is being … more ›