Newtonite ◆ Friday, Feb. 12, 2010 • Volume 89, Issue 2
Non-profit org. US postage paid Newton, Mass. Permit no. 55337
Newton North High School, 360 Lowell Ave., Newtonville, Mass. 02460
Board discusses proposal for vote REBECCA HARRIS o advance the course assessment proposal that the Student Faculty Administration is currently discussing, senior Ezra Cohen and English department head Tom Fabian will develop the letter that is to accompany it. If the proposal passes, the SFA will send this letter via email to all teachers at this school, encouraging them to issue mid-year course assessments to students. Distributing the assesment to classes would be optional to teachers, according to Cohen, the SFA’s student co-chair. The email would also include a sample course assessment, which Cohen described as “fairly adaptable.” Teachers could change it however they wanted to fit their classes’ needs, he said. Principal Jennifer Price said that she thought the board needed to see a proposal in writing before they could vote on it. She said that the proposal will be more likely to continue in future years if it is written out. The board also needed to work out the logistical aspects of the proposal, such as who would issue the email, she said. In a straw pole vote, the majority of the board voted in favor of Cohen’s proposal. Additionally, the SFA discussed the transition to the new building, which faculty co-chair Gregory Drake said should be the board’s focus right now. Librarian Kevin McGrath said that the librarians are working to develop a “learning commons” in the new building, which would combine traditional library services with ongoing events and presentations. “It’s a totally different concept,” McGrath said. “I’d be very interested in working with you to figure out how to do it.” Also, Riley housemaster Mark Aronson said that the SFA could draft a proposal to limit signs and fliers to a specific part of the building, as opposed to all over the building. “I think it would be great if we created kiosks where signs and notices would be,” he said. Sophomore Gabe Dreyer said that the board might be able to find a way to put signs and flyers up on electronic screens as a way of saving paper. BY
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Teddy Wenneker
Jambalaya: Sophomore Jessica Broussard serves jambalaya to history teacher Tom Barry last Friday in Pilot’s annual event.
Committee seeks nominations for names of places in new school HILARY BRUMBERG ome areas of the new building will keep their current names, while others will be renamed, according to history department head Jonathan Bassett. Bassett, the head of the committee, said the committee is currently collecting suggestions for names of parts of the new building. Only names of people or geographic locations will be considered. The submission cannot honor a person currently employed by the City of Newton. Anybody who would like to suggest a name for a part of the building should email Bassett at Jonathan_Bassett@newton.k12. ma.us with “Naming North” in the subject line. The Naming Committee will meet again in March or April to consider the submissions. At that time, they will recommend the best names to the School Committee, Bassett said. “If we get six entries and they
all seem really good, we’ll send all of them,” Bassett said. “But if we get 600, then we’ll weed through them and decide which ones are worthy of being recommended.” The School Committee will then hold a public hearing and have a public vote. Instead of having the School Committee select all of the names in the new building, it authorized the creation of the Naming Committee. The Naming Committee’s 11 members include students, current faculty, former faculty, parents and parents of alumni. “We can probably make better recommendations for names than the School Committee if they had to do it all by themselves,” Bassett said. “Their members are elected from all over the city, and they don’t know the school like we do.” The committee hopes that recent members of the faculty as well as those who influenced Newton High in the past will be honored, according to Bassett. However, the current student
body only “knows people that have been here recently” and are “not necessarily the best group of people to decide on names of people who may have had a lasting impact, but were not here recently,” Bassett said. To remember the significance of past faculty members, former principal Jennifer Huntington and a parent of a graduate from the ’90s are on the committee. Athletic director Tom Giusti and fine and performing arts department head Todd Young are also on the committee, because they have several spaces in the new building that need to be named, according to Bassett. This includes the theatre, music wing and tennis courts. According to Bassett, Theatre Ink students have suggested naming the theatre after Gary Elliott, the director of Theatre Ink in the ’80s and ’90s. For the first time, the School Committee is considering selling naming rights, according to Kurt Kusiak, chair of the fundraising
subcommittee of the School Committee. This involves “putting a company or person’s name on a field or a gym” to make a profit, he said. The Newton Schools Foundation would use the money to start a fund to “support teaching in the Newton Public Schools by developing a 21st century classroom,” Kusiak said. This involves buying “first-rate” technology for all classrooms, not just at this school, so teaching “can be enhanced by the technology available to us,” he said. The Newton Schools Foundation is in the interview process to hire a professional fundraiser to help sell the naming rights of parts of the school, Kusiak said. “We’re having a difficult time with the budget. We’re suffering under a large financial deficit,” he said, referring to the 2008 tax override that did not pass. “The state funding has dried up to a degree because of the poor economy.” ◆SEE EDITORIAL ON PAGE 2.
Cacace said. This is the first time Pilot has orchestrated a collection. The program collected $1,000 as of Monday, Feb. 9. Because the deadline was extended, Pilot hopes to get more this week and today, Cacace said. When starting the collection, Pilot created a “thermometer” to chart donations, Cacace said.
It was initially drawn with a $500 maximum. However, they had to add an additional two sheets of paper to make the thermometer grow as more donations came in, according to Cacace. The donated money will be sent to the American Red Cross once collected. Pilot chose the American Red Cross, because “they are a very
well-established organization that we can trust with our donations,” Cacace said. All Pilot students are involved in the collection, according to Cacace. They made flyers and distributed them to each homeroom teacher Tuesday, Jan. 26. The students also created posters and made an announcement in homeroom.
Cacace said that the students plan to send thank-you notes to all doners once the collection is over. According to Cacace, there might be a presentation of the donation after vacation. Anyone who would like to contribute should bring money to the Special Education office or 441 today.
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Pilot extends deadline for Haiti relief fundraiser HILARY BRUMBERG ilot extended the collection deadline for donations to Haiti to today, according to Pilot teacher Katie Cacace. Right after a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti, senior Jibrie Sylvester and junior Dan Winograd “were concerned about the people of Haiti and wanted to do something,” BY
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See Deaf Culture Day — Pages 6 and 7