RepoRteR The
www.essexreporter.com
essex
DeCeMBeR 10, 2015
Vol. 35, No. 49
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All aboard for this year’s Train Hop Seventh annual event gets locals in the holiday spirit
By COLIN FLANDERS The Essex Reporter The seventh annual Essex Junction Train Hop and Tree Lighting kicks off at 6 p.m. Friday evening, welcoming two new community partners to the event — the Essex Junction Lions Club and Excelerate Essex. The Train Hop has grown since its inception in 2009, from three businesses and community partners to the 19 that are participating this year, according to Darby Mayville, the village's community relations assistant. Mayville said that while the event is free, attendees should bring their wallets as there will be “farmers' market vendors peppered throughout the event as well.” Each business and community partner will host a model train display, or another
train/holiday-related activity. Maps for participating “Hop stations” are provided at each location, where two volunteer “conductors” will mark off attendees “tickets to ride,” explained Mayville. She also lauded the efforts of “train coordinator” John Gaworecki, who volunteers to ensure each location has a model train. “Some people get really excited about getting all their stops in. It’s free, fun and we have something for all ages,” Mayville said. The tree lighting will occur at 6:15 p.m. on the front lawn of Lincoln Hall. Parking will be available at the First Congregational Church and Summit Street School, as well as overflow parking at the Essex Junction Recreation and Parks parking lot. A free trolley will be available to transport attendees, in addition to the Essex Senior Bus for seniors.
The Hornets' Nest will be offering a “Loose Caboose” drink special and The Essex Grill will be offering 15 percent off a bill for anyone who shows their ticket to ride. Mayville also highlighted the Roaming Railroad, which is a little train that will be giving rides in the Lincoln Hall parking lot, as one of the event's most popular offerings. “There’s a little bit of everything,” said community volunteer Jaye O'Connell, who was involved in “dreaming up” the Train Hop and has participated in the event each year since. She said the Train Hop's most rewarding aspect is its ability to unite the community. “Not just the businesses, but our municipal government and services, the town, the people and the children. That’s a real strength when all those stakeholders come together.”
Families ride the Roaming Railroad during last year's Tree Lighting and Train Hop in Essex Junction. FILE PHOTO
For more information, including a full list of participating businesses and community partners, visit www.facebook. com/downtownej and click on the Train Hop event.
Debate over ‘leveled’ courses at EHS continues
Santa’s first stop
Public invited to comment at Dec.14 board meeting By JESS WISLOSKI For The Essex Reporter
Benjamin Cahill, 6, of Essex Junction, ponders his Christmas wish list during his visit with Santa during an open house at the Essex Junction Fire Department on Saturday morning. OLIVER PARINI PHOTOGRAPHY
S
anta Claus kicked off the holiday season in Essex Junction on Saturday with an appearance at the Essex Junction Fire Department. The free event featured cookies, snacks and a drawing for toy store gift certificates. And, of course, the chance to discuss your Christmas wishes with the Big Guy.
Parents will have a chance to weigh in next week on Essex High School administrators’ proposal to do away with tracking — or “leveled”— science courses for some ninthand 10th-graders next year. A “community conversation” on the issue is scheduled for 6 p.m. Dec. 14 in the Essex High School library, before the regular U46 board meeting. The plan came under fire last month as rumors swirled about the school getting rid of its AP and honors courses. Doing away with leveled courses, however, is an idea that is not unique to Essex. Rather, it is part of a nationwide movement in the wake of research that shows that tracking does not serve all students, particularly those in the lowerlevel courses. When EHS Principal Rob Reardon presented the idea of compressing level 100 and 200 courses to make more heterogeneous classes, he believed the school community was ready for such a change, according to the district’s curriculum director, Amy Cole. "A principal came to his teacher leaders, made an assumption — I think justifiably — and laid out a plan that would change two science courses in ninth and 10thgraders,” Cole said. “The reaction to it was so strong that as the leader of the school, he was taking pause. As a leader of a school you can only move as fast as the school can… .” Chittenden Central Supervisory Union Superintendent Judith DeNova echoed the idea that the school might not yet be ready for such a change. "I don’t think there’s any plan at this moment in time. We need to make sure our teachers are prepared to make those changes. I think we need to have a better understanding, and I think Rob’s intention is to slow that goal down until there is a readiness," she said. With or without the leveling plan, school administrators will still have to address ways to close the “achievement gap” between lower- and higher-income students, something that is often blamed — at least in part — on tracking.
State initiatives vs. leveling
The 2013 state education law, Act 77, or Flexible Pathways Initiative, aims to provide choices to students to help build his or her “individual pathway” as it may be shaped by “individual goals, learning styles, interests, and abilities,” according to the state Agency of Education’s website. Flexible pathways, along with the state’s push for proficiency-based graduation requirements for the class of 2020 — locally decided-upon content knowledge that all high-schoolers must demonstrate proficiency in before they can graduate — enforce the idea that “learning happens any time, any place, at any pace,” education official Tom Alderman said.
Essex Junction Fire Department’s Steve Trenholm serves popcorn during the holiday event at the fire station.
– See EHS on page 8a
Keurig Green Mountain sold to investment firm By STANLEY BLOW III Waterbury Record Keurig Green Mountain, one of Vermont’s largest private employers with facilities in Essex and Waterbury, is being sold to a group led by JAB Holding Co., a Luxembourg-based investing group. JAB is buying the company, formerly Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, for $13.9 billion — $92 per share, about 78 percent more than the stock’s closing price on Dec. 4. Company operations will stay in Waterbury and Essex, management is staying on, and no layoffs are planned, according to the announcement. The company makes coffee makers and instant flavor pods. It employs about 6,000 people worldwide — about 2,000 in Vermont. Many analysts thought the company was ripe for a sale. It has a strong business base, but after years of meteoric growth, has
Uglier the better for Karen’s Kloset sweaters By COLIN FLANDERS The Essex Reporter
foundered in the past year. Keurig Green Mountain’s stock price had slumped from $158 in November 2014 to the $50 range, but shot up 72 percent on Monday, when the sale was announced, and closed at $88.89. Stockholders will have a limited time to sell their roughly 150 million shares to the new owner. Keurig had already been moving to repurchase its stock, and had acquired 4 percent of its shares— about $350 million worth — in recent months. The company’s difficulties, in part, come from the problematic rollout of Keurig’s second-generation hot brewer. Consumers were irritated that the new machine didn’t work with other single-serve coffee brands. The company is also facing pressures related to Keurig Kold, its cold-beverage system; critics say the new machine is too
A white sweater hangs in the window of Karen’s Kloset, the face of a watchful reindeer jutting from the garment as it looks out the Park Street storefront. From inside the shop, the backside of the sweater dons a similarly placed adornment — Santa’s bright red trousers — an apropos example of one of the store’s most popular offerings: ugly Christmas sweaters. Karen Alderman, who opened the store in May 2012, said the demand for the unsightly garb has motivated her to stock the sweaters in bulk, scouring online shopping sites along with the help of some friends who will collect and send them to her. “The first year I missed it; I didn’t realize it was a craze. So people came in and said, ‘Do you have any ugly sweaters?’ and I said ‘No, why would I have ugly sweaters? I don’t sell ugly sweaters,’” Alderman recalled.
– See KEURIG on page 8a
– See KAREN'S on page 8a
Karen Alderman, owner of Karen’s Kloset in Essex Junction, poses with some of the ugly Christmas garb the store has for sale. PHOTO | COLIN FLANDERS