Category Archives: Schools

Town’s spending per pupil from FY03 to FY12

Posted on June 6, 2012 | Comments Off on Town’s spending per pupil from FY03 to FY12

Charlie Kellner, the schools business manager prepared the following figures that show the town’s spending per pupil from FY03 to FY12.

https://medfield02052.blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/20120601-ck-per-pupil-net-of-chap-70.xls

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Posted in Budgets, Schools

Host family sought for Chinese student

Posted on May 16, 2012 | 1 comment

The Medfield High School is seeking one more host family for a Chinese student for next year, but will need to cancel this Friday if a host family cannot be located by then.  This was the email from Superintendent Robert Maguire –

===========================

Pete,

I am reaching out to see if you have any ideas on a problem I am trying to solve and I am running out of ideas or options.

You are likely aware that we have a thriving partnership with a school district in China. The exchange and cooperation between our districts is a nationally recognized model.

As part of the program development we are looking to host students from the Chinese high school for the next school year. Back at the end of March the high school there proposed sending 3 students. They will reside with host families in Medfield. 2 boys and one girl. I began trying to recruit host families and have 2 confirmed now. Despite good effort I am striking out on locating a third family and unfortunately the clock is running out.

I am feeling that it will be disheartening to tell one of the students they cant come so I am pushing to see if I can find a family (or two if they want to split the year) to help.

This program is very simiiar to what the schools here have done for years hosting foreign students through AFS programs. The difference is that this program connects us directly with a school that we have an established partnership with and expands the cooperation between us.

Any ideas or connections that you may have would be greatly appreciated. I
think I need to give the other school the bad news by this Friday if I can’t locate an option. Richard DeSorgher has agreed to work as a liason/coordinator for the program for next year.

Thanks
Bob

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Posted in Schools

Community Reads Day at Memorial School

Posted on March 8, 2012 | Comments Off on Community Reads Day at Memorial School

Thank you to all at the Memorial School for inviting me to read to the children this morning, as part of their celebration of Read Across America (for the birthday of Dr. Seuss last week).  I got to read Marc Brown’s DW the Picky Eater to preschoolers.  My daughter Kristen picked out my book for me.  Good fun event.

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Posted in Children, Schools

MCAP grant proposal

Posted on March 1, 2012 | Comments Off on MCAP grant proposal

This morning I attended a long Medfield Care About Prevention (MCAP) meeting at Medfield High School at which Dawn Alcott, the director of the Medfield Youth Outreach office, and her team presented their plan to apply for a five year $625,000 ($125,000 a year for five years) federal grant to address substance abuse in Medfield.  The goal would be to change the community culture.

The availability of the grant monies was a recent surprise happening, and as a result the team is scrambling to get the grant application submitted within the next three weeks.  This morning the team filled the twelve required slots on the coalition mandated by the grant.  I was asked to be the representative from a “local … agency with expertise in the field of substance abuse,”  based upon my being a Medfield selectman with a twenty year history as a member of the Riverside Community Care board, including five as its president.  During my tenure with Riverside Community Care, Riverside grew from about a $36,000 per year vendor to the state using borrow state staff into a $30 m. per year community mental health center.  In the fifteen years since I left its board, Riverside has doubled in size.

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Posted in Safety, Schools, Teens, Town Services

Medfield Foundation volunteers of the year

Posted on March 1, 2012 | Comments Off on Medfield Foundation volunteers of the year

What a treat last night to attend the meeting where the Medfield Foundation volunteer of the year were selected.  The variety and depth of the volunteer work that people in Medfield are doing is astonishing, and will knock your socks off when you hear about it.

A great innovation this year thanks to Ellen  Bankert’s suggestion that the youth nominees, who are all Medfield High School students, present what they are doing or have done to an assembly at the Blake Middle School, to educate and inspire the middle school kids about opportunities for service.  I crossed paths with BMS principal Nat Vaughn this morning at a meeting and mentioned that idea to him, and he liked it.  We agreed that it would be great experience for both the high school students who present and for the middle school students who listen.  I suggested that we try to institutionalize the BMS assembly as an annual part of the youth volunteer of the year process.

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Posted in Schools, Teens, Volunteers

School enrollment is declining

Posted on February 14, 2012 | 3 comments

The Medfield school enrollment is projected to decline fairly dramatically over the next several years.   The school enrollment should be declining, because the entering classes are much smaller than the graduating classes.  Total school enrollment this year of 2,930 is projected to decline by about a quarter to 2,195 over the next seven years, by 2017-2018.  This should ultimately translate into relief of pressure on the town budgets.

See the enrollment charts at https://medfield02052.blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/enrollment-charts.pdf

3 Comments

Posted in Schools

Nominations are open for Natasha Domeshek Kindness Scholarship

Posted on February 1, 2012 | Comments Off on Nominations are open for Natasha Domeshek Kindness Scholarship

Notice today from Annie & David Domeshek –

We are writing to let you know that the nomination period for the Natasha Domeshek Kindness Scholarship opened today, and will run through Feb. 29. There is a link to the nomination form on the home page at www.angelrun.org; we are directing everybody to that location to submit their nominations.

We met with the senior class at Medfield High School yesterday to inform them about the scholarship and the nomination process. In addition, articles about the scholarship will be published this week in Medfield’s local newspapers (in print and online), in local church bulletins, and through Medfield’s various school-based communication channels (to students, staff and parents).

We are excited to have this process underway, and curious to see the response.

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Posted in Charity, Schools, Teens

Radon

Posted on January 3, 2012 | Comments Off on Radon

I had asked Superintendent Maguire whether the schools had been tested for radon, and he tells me that they all tested below EPA guideline levels for radon in the 1989.

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Posted in Schools

Dale Street School tour

Posted on December 30, 2011 | Comments Off on Dale Street School tour

Ann and I took an hour and a half tour  of the Dale Street School with Bob Maguire and Tim Bonfatti this morning to see the issues that need attention first hand.  Excellent bones to the building, but serious problems with the mechanical systems and space needs for the ancillary programs that we are required to run.  The town is fortunate to have in the two individuals with the interest and expertise to undertake the needed conversation with the state and the town about what is needed and how we can best make it happen.

My favorite piece of information was that the heat is controlled by the head custodian just knowing by experience when to physically turn the boilers on and off – i.e.  there is no automatic control of the temperature via thermostats, as we are used to elsewhere.

Ultimately the Dale Street School will be one part of what is being conceived of as a Town of Medfield municipal campus along Dale Street that will also address the public safety and Medfield Park & Recreation Commission needs.  The Building Committee is meeting next at 7PM on 1/5/12 to proceed with the master plan for that campus idea.

In reviewing the 40 odd pages of materials Bob Maguire prepared about the Dale Street School for the state’s School Building Assistance people, I learned that the school’s address is actually 45 Adams Street, so shouldn’t we call it the Adams Street School?

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Posted in Buildings, Downtown, Planning, Schools