Newton VOL 1, NO 1
NEWTON’S VOICE
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2016
Newton South High Crushes Newton North in Top School Ratings By Josh Resnek
The Voice
If top high school ratings were stacked up like points at a football game, on first appearance Newton South High obliterated Newton North by several touchdowns in a contest that wasn’t close. Newton South ranked 5th out of the top 50 high schools in Massachusetts, according to a recent study published in Boston Magazine’s September issue. Newton North placed 35th. The study is not regarded as authoritative and the rankings aren’t set in stone, according to the analysts who collected the information for the magazine’s annual tome about which high schools in Massachusetts are best – and by default – which are not. However, the annual listing, which includes a great deal of subjectivism about which statistics are important and which aren’t, produced the expected mixed bag of comments and discussion among parents, high school students, teachers and administrators in Newton. Photo | Rick Ashley The Leventhal — Sidman JCC is a familiar friend to Newton’s residents and many others. It is estimated the JCC serves 50,000 people from all walks of life who converge on the center every day throughout the year for a wide variety of activities. Beginning mid-September and spanning through October, there are opportunities for parents to connect with other parents and their children, from Rock A Baby music classes, to Tai Chi, Parkinson’s classes for those suffering from the disease, fun and fitness and on and on. Go to BostonJCC. org for details. Shown above is the towering Victorian brick turret, recognizable to nearly everyone coming to the 33 acre campus center on Nahanton Road.
Life-threatening anaphylactic shock grows more expensive By Alexander Culafi
The feeling of his throat tightening, and his tongue and facial muscles exploding and The Voice painful until his skin might pop-kind of like If you have a severe allergy and experience a hot dog being boiled and the meat inside an anaphylactic reaction, an injection of expanding into the membrane — is terrifying. epinephrine, otherwise known as adrenaline, And then he can’t breathe! saves your life. For many, it already has – multiple times. ‘What’s even worse now is that if you don’t have $700 bucks, you can’t buy an epi-pen. The Voice publisher Joshua Resnek has had Ergo, you can’t save your own life at the a half dozen experiences with anaphylactic moment you need the medicine. Its just too shock. He’s allergic to aged cheese often expensive for most people to afford. sprinkled innocently into pizza sauce, or onto Its criminal, really,” he said. salads or in vegetable dishes. continued on page 3
Such discussions also took place in neighboring Brookline, whose high school ranked 20th on the list. The matrix used to make determinations of rankings was judged by George Recck, Director of the Math Resource Center at Babson college. He analyzed the results which came from a consortium of places including the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and from some of the high schools themselves. If this was strictly a measuring of highest reading, writing and math scores on the SATS, neither of Newton’s high schools came close to the levels achieved by Boston Latin School, which ranked continued on page 3