One of my favorite birds at one of the bluebird houses I built. Photo from our kitchen window. Unfortunately wrens were already in occupancy and unwilling to vacate. Still nice to see the bluebirds around the house.

Photos taken yesterday evening.

From Patch –

Community Corner

Medfield Lions Present “Heart of the Lion Award”

The “Heart of the Lion Award” presented to Kathleen Thompson, MS, RN, Nurse Leader, Medfield Public Schools.

Colleen M. Sullivan,Patch Mayor

Posted Wed, May 25, 2022 at 3:08 pm ET|Updated Wed, May 25, 2022 at 6:43 pm ETReply

• 
• Nurse Kathy Thompson and Lion Barbara Gips (Photo courtesy of Medfield Lions Club)
• Heart of the Lion recipient, Kathy Thompson and Lion Barbara Gips (Photo courtesy of Medfield Lions Club)

“Heart of the Lion” Awarded to Medfield’s Kathy Thompson

At the Medfield Lions May dinner meeting, the “Heart of the Lion Award” was presented to Medfield resident, Board of Health member and Medfield Public Schools Nurse Leader, Kathy Thompson by Lion Barbara Gips.

Kathy and her husband, Newton were invited to this dinner meeting as guests of the Lions and Kathy was presented with this well-deserved award.

The letter of nomination stated the following:

“I nominate Kathy Thompson for the Medfield Lions Club Heart of a Lion Award 2022.

Find out what’s happening in Medfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Let’s go!

Kathy is the head nurse in the Medfield School District. In her free time, Kathy organized 9 vaccine clinics. Without Kathy’s vision and civic mindedness, these clinics would not have come about. Kathy asked for volunteers to help with the clinics and they happily gave up their time for Kathy’s mission of serving the community and making it as easy as possible to get children vaccinated. A local resident and owner of Birds Hill Pharmacy in Needham brought the vaccine to the clinics. It did take a village, and Kathy would be the first to thank everyone else, but the clinics would not have taken place without Kathy’s leadership.

Parents were so grateful they could bring their children 5 years and older to these clinics. The children would see familiar friendly faces, watch cartoons and be given drinks and snacks after their vaccine generously supplied by Kathy. Kathy’s wonderful husband worked at the entrance greeting and inputting the insurance information into the laptop. The most humble and community orientated couple I know.

It is thanks to Kathy organizing these clinics that Medfield has over 95% of 5 years old through High School kids vaccinated and gave out over 600 vaccines.”

Congratulations, Kathy Thompson!

From Riverside Community Care –

We are sharing information developed by the Riverside Trauma Center on how to help children cope with the frightening news about the Uvalde School Shooting. We hope these resources provide a source of comfort and support during this difficult time. Please feel free to share it with family and friends.   A Personal Note in Response to Uvalde’s School Shooting   After hearing the news of the mass murder of students and teachers in Texas, many of us will experience a range of reactions. This is especially true for children.   Reactions may include emotions (sadness, anger, shock, fear, etc.), changes in thoughts (difficulty concentrating, repetitive thoughts of the situation), physical reactions (feeling sick, headaches, not sleeping well, etc.) and behaviors (returning to older behaviors such as bedwetting, needing physical closeness with parents, fighting more, etc.).   Traumatic events often lead people to feel they have lost control of their sense of safety. Here are resources on how to help children cope with the frightening news and their reactions:   Talking with Children About Traumatic Events Talking to Children About a Shooting (from nctsn.org) Children and Trauma     Be well, Your friends at Riverside

270 Bridge Street, Suite 301, Dedham, MA 02026 info@riversidecc.org  |  781-329-0909  |  www.riversidecc.org Update Profile  |  Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy

Email last night from the Superintendent to parents about the shooting in Uvalde, TX and the Medfield Public School’s preparedness. Who would ever have imagined that in our small town we would ever need to be doing such planning. Medfield is about the same size as Uvalde. –

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

From: Marsden, Jeffrey
Date: Tue, May 24, 2022 at 9:24 PM
Subject: Message from the Superintendent- Reaction to Today’s Event in Texas

Dear Medfield Families,

We are all devastated to learn about the latest senseless tragedy to happen in our country. The details that continue to emerge from the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas are absolutely heartbreaking. We will continue to keep the children, families, and entire Uvalde community in our thoughts during this unimaginable time. 

The safety of our students and staff continues to be our top priority in the Medfield Public Schools. We have worked hard over the past several years to put safety measures in place. We have collaborated with the Medfield Police and Metro-LEC (Norfolk County’s SWAT team) to implement lockdown (safety) drills in each school. These drills have served as risk assessments and as a result,  improvements have been made in each school. Window shades and interior locks have been added and replaced, shelter-in-place areas have been changed, and internal communication methods have been improved. Prior to the pandemic, all teachers and staff participated in a very intense (and uncomfortable) afternoon of active shooter training with Synergy Solutions and the Medfield Police. This training focused on keeping our students safe in the event of an active shooter in our schools. The very realistic training included “live” gunshots and a variety of scenarios for us to practice and react to in real-time. Although many teachers and staff were very anxious about the training, the feedback was positive as our teachers and staff now have new strategies to handle this type of situation. I review the strategies/plans with new teachers at every new teacher orientation in August.

Additional safety measures have been added throughout the district including a School Resource Officer, capital investment in security cameras, restricted access to buildings, and others that most people, by design, would not even notice. On the advice of law enforcement, we never share our plans publicly or post them on our website. Last summer, the Medfield School Committee and I met with Chief Guerette to review, assess, and update our emergency plans. The security in our district is always evolving and the “plan” is never complete. 

In addition to security measures, our focus on social-emotional learning is equally important. Our schools have teams of counselors, teachers, and administrators in place that meet regularly to support students and work with families that need assistance. The addition of counseling at the elementary level, school adjustment counselors at the MS and HS, and a Director of Social Emotional Learning has helped us provide greater support to students and families. Our Social-Emotional Task Force has worked over the past several years to make recommendations for various improvements for the children and adults of our school district. Our new MHS schedule and revised homework policy are tangible improvements that emanated from this group.

The images and news reports over the next few days will be difficult for us to watch and hear. Even if your child does not watch the news, if they carry a smartphone, they could be inundated with information about this horrific event. Please refer to Talking to Children About Violence: Tips for Parents and Teachers and How to Talk to Kids About School Shootings to assist you with these difficult conversations. As always, our dedicated and talented staff is available to support your children during this difficult time. Please reach out to any of us if you need any support assisting your child with processing this event. Please remember the safety of our students and staff will always be our number one focus.

Sincerely,

Jeff Marsden

Jeffrey J. Marsden, Ed.D

Superintendent 

Medfield Public Schools

508-359-2302

Follow me on Twitter @JeffreyJMarsden 

#medfieldps  #medfieldpln

From Nicole Silvestri Hall –

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. Please join us as we honor his life, remember the grave injustices we witnessed that day, and acknowledge the many ways we continue to experience and/or witness racial injustice today. Show up to stand up against hate, intolerance, bias and racism in all forms. 

Hope to see you there! 

Candlelight Vigil 

Wednesday May 25, 7:30pm

First Parish Church  

26 North Street Medfield

See attached flyer for more details. Please forward this invitation to your personal networks if you can.

From the Moderator –

TOWN OF MEDFIELD
Scott F. McDermott
Town Moderator

An Open Letter to Friends and Neighbors in Medfield

May 6, 2022

This is a note about coming together. As a town, and more importantly as a community, we have very important reasons to do just that. One reason to come together has immediacy, and the other reasons to come together are strategic to the future of Medfield.

On the ‘immediate’ front, this Monday evening, May 9, at 7:00PM, we need to come together as a quorum of voters to conduct our Annual Town Meeting. This is important. As you likely witnessed or heard, last Monday night we gathered in the high school gym and failed to reach the required quorum of 250 voters.

So we will try again on Monday night. Your participation is what makes our local government work. Much of the annual town meeting is about conducting the business of the town. We come together. We try to be efficient; we almost always complete our town’s annual governance responsibilities in one evening. This Monday, I assure you, we will complete our 2022 annual business in a couple of hours. In that time we will address the town’s FY 2023 operating and capital budgets, zoning articles, personnel matters, and certain financial appropriations and transfers. And, important to all, we will again address the process for the appointment of our next School Building Committee.

Please join us on Monday the 9th at 7:00PM at the high school gymnasium and cafeteria. I look forward to welcoming you and a quorum of our friends and neighbors. Please spread the word. Bring a friend. And come and enjoy the flavor of direct, participatory, democratic self-government.

Note: Covid health concerns continue. I believe the town has been highly effective over the last two years in the ‘balancing tests’ of managing through a pandemic. For Monday evening, the gymnasium will be ‘mask optional’ and the cafeteria will be ‘mask required and socially distanced.’

On a ‘strategic’ dimension, we need to come together as well. In the long life of a town, not all times are equal. Not all times are as dynamic and strategically important as the moment we are in today. As early as next month, we will be making a decision regarding the development of a portion of the land we own at the site of the former Medfield State Hospital. And, after a somewhat bruising 2021, we know the time is now to pick ourselves up, come together, and re-focus on our elementary school building needs. These are big responsibilities for a community. We face decisions and actions of great opportunity and long term consequence. We will do better with these decisions and actions if we come together as a community.

In addition, we need to look at how we self-govern. How do we preserve the core values and virtues of an open town meeting? And how do we stimulate changes to maintain those values and virtues as we head deeper into the 21st century? I will recommend that we move quickly to appoint a citizen commission to consider these questions and help to advance civic engagement and volunteerism in the key activities of our local government.

Very truly yours,

Scott F. McDermott
Town Moderator
TOWN OF MEDFIELD
Scott F. McDermott
Town Moderator