Salem Observer : Education

Salem School Board dumps 8th-grade graduation

Salem Editor — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:18:00 GMT

It may be a promotion, completion or accomplishment, but the School Board won’t be callings eighth-graders “graduates” at their June ceremony this year.

On Tuesday, April 15, the School Board unanimously agreed to forego the eighth-grade graduation ceremony in exchange for a less formal way of showing recognition on June 17.

School officials have looked to possibly eliminate the pomp and circumstance of a formal graduation for more than a year while viewing the occasion as more of a celebration of transition rather than accomplishment.

“I think it’s important that we come up with something to recognize all the students. I don’t think it necessarily has to be a graduation ceremony,” said Woodbury Middle School Principal Maura Palmer.

Since the School Board first mentioned plans in November 2006 to change the format of the event, parents have been outspoken on the need for a graduation ceremony.

Last June, about 40 parents turned out to a meeting called to keep the graduation ceremony to recognize accomplishment, Palmer said.

Since then, Palmer said school staff put out a Web survey for parents to give more direction on what to do with the ceremony.

The survey, which received responses from 312 parents of the school’s 1,200 students, received comments that were 61 percent in favor of keeping a graduation ceremony.

“It’s difficult to read into the results because who’s responding?” Palmer said, recognizing that both parents in a single household could sway the survey results.

“I don’t think anyone disagrees that there should be some ceremony of accomplishment,” Superintendent Michael Delahanty said.

Delahanty advised that an informal gathering for breakfast and a recognition ceremony would be more appropriate.

“Having an eighth-grade graduation, having a diploma is a very dated concept,” he said.

“You need to have something different from a normal ceremony and an outing at Cedardale,” board member Robert Bryant said, speaking of the increase in glamorous outfits students and family were wearing to the events.

Land deal struck for high school

Salem Editor — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:38:00 GMT

By Darrell Halen

The Pelham School Board announced recently that it has entered into an agreement to buy two parcels totaling approximately 43 acres for $3 million on which to build a new high school.

The announcement was made at the board’s Wednesday, Nov. 28, meeting. The land is located off Windham Road.

The land deal is subject to voter approval in March.

In addition, the school board plans to present voters with a $44,665,000 warrant article to spend $41,411,000 to construct and originally equip the new school and $3,254,000 to renovate the current high school.

A separate warrant article for $3,116,000 would fund the construction of an auditorium at the new school.

During the meeting, architects Frank Marinace and Tobias Farkas reviewed their designs for the new school.

A road would circle the school and there would be three areas for parking with space available for future parking spaces to be build.

Designs include a baseball field, soccer field and two softball fields overlapping a field hockey field.

Testing discovered no soil contamination on the property.

“We’ve been looking at the land for a while, before you made the announcement,” Marinace said. “It’s as good a site as we’ve seen for building a school.”

According to assessing records, one parcel is 8.7 acres and is owned by Richard A. and Karen J. Sutton. It is located at 36 Windham Road and has a log cabin on the property.

The other parcel, 34.5 acres in size, is owned by the heirs of Harry and Carrie Atwood, according to assessing records.

Kindergarten mandate - State says it should be part of ‘adequate’ education, but funding still in question

Salem Editor — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 23:18:00 GMT

BY MATT HERSH

Though state legislators agree that kindergarten should be included an adequate education, bringing a kindergarten program to Salem is still a matter of funding and space.

Late last month, the House voted 226-132 to approve a definition of adequate education that includes a mandatory halfday kindergarten.

Though the definition still has to be approved by the Senate, and legislators have to come up with a funding plan, Salem officials are already contemplating its implications.

Salem is one of only 12 school districts in the country which does not offer public kindergarten, all of them in New Hampshire. The other towns are Pelham, Windham, Auburn, Chester, Derry, Hudson, Lyndeboro, Greenville, Mason, New Ipswich and Milford.

School board member Peter Morgan said bringing kindergarten to Salem has long been a goal of town educators, but doing so could be a difficult process.

Since there are about 350 children who would be eligible for kindergarten in Salem, the district would have to provide about 14 additional empty classrooms, which they currently don’t have.

Morgan said a kindergarten committee explored the possibility of expanding the town’s six elementary schools but concluded adding space wouldn’t be possible.

More likely, a new building would have to be constructed, but Morgan and members of the kindergarten committee said they wouldn’t want the young children isolated from the rest of the school system.

Rather, the new building would become an upper elementary school for grades 5 and 6, which would leave room in the elementary schools for kindergarten students.

Still, the state has yet to determine how they will fund adequate education and Morgan said this will be a key component for Salem.

The state Supreme Court ordered legislators to define adequate education, determine its cost, and fund it by July 1.

“Everyone knows that if we try to pass a bond article (for a new building), it probably won’t pass on the first try,” Morgan said. “We would have more success with that if we said the state will pay for 90 percent of it.”

While Salem officials wait to hear back from Concord about funding, they said they hope to complete a facilities master plan by the end of the year to assess the feasibility of building additions or a new school.

Even though the process is still complicated by several unknown factors, Morgan said he ultimately hopes kindergarten will become a part of Salem’s standard education. He’s not alone in his opinion.

“I have, for a very long time, been an advocate for public kindergarten,” said Laurel Redden, Salem resident and member of the kindergarten committee. “I am hopeful but a little leery of being too optimistic.”

Redden, who moved to Salem in 1997 with a young child and another on the way, said she was shocked to learn the town didn’t offer public kindergarten.

Instead, she paid to have her two children attend private programs.

When school officials asked community members to take part in a kindergarten committee, she stepped up and started doing research on the benefits of having kindergarten.

“What we found was that kindergarten has become such a standard part of the education system that they’ve stopped studying it,” she said.

Redden agreed with Morgan, saying the issue will become one of finances and practicality.

“I think everyone is supportive in general, but once you start talking dollars and cents, it becomes mired in the discussion of whether (kindergarten) is a luxury or not,” she said. “If the state sent us a mandate with 100 percent funding, kindergarten could happen overnight, but the question would be implementation.