Volume 17, Issue 23
Serving Durham, Middlefield and Rockfall
September sounds
Friday, September 17, 2010
Schools and parents adjusting to new student information system By Stephanie Wilcox Town Times PowerSchool is a student information system new to the schools throughout District 13. It replaces MMS, ClassRoll.com and Making the Grade, programs that were causing headaches and garnering complaints from school faculty. PowerSchool saves $5,998, which combines the costs of the three previous programs plus even more programs. It also came with a free lunch system component, PowerLunch, that is “the most visible piece of the iceberg of what’s going on with PowerSchool,” said District 13 Information Technology (IT) director Rich fielding. PowerLunch is a point of sales system where a student is able to buy lunch by ac-
cessing funds in their student account. “It’s very much like a college ID card,” said Fielding, who noted that District 13 food director Mark Basil had been investigating similar systems over the last two years.Students from pre-k through grade 12 now have student IDs with a barcode and their student number. According to Fielding, there was lots of confusion the first few days of school this year as a letter he sent home to parents describing the process for putting credit card transactions online failed to reference that a credit card convenience fee would appear and that using the card to pay for lunch or snack is an option and not the only payment method. See Adjusting, page 3
Record year for Lake Beseck beach passes September features a variety of sounds in Durham — from the mournful call of “Taps” as echoed by Frank Posca (top left) to veteran Robbie Chad’s speech (bottom left), both at the September 11 memorial organized for the ninth time by Karen Kean, pictured with Chad, to the happy sizzle of food cooked in Durham Fair booths (upper right, Gary Paxton in the Little League booth in 2008) to the slap of paintbrushes getting the grounds ready (center right, Maggie Petersen giving the information booths a coat of “cow” in 2010) to the clang of hammers putting up the tent on the green, September is a busy, noisy month.
By Stephanie Wilcox Town Times Volunteers helped raise over $4,000 for the town of Middlefield this summer with their efforts issuing beach passes at Lake Beseck. The beach-going season is nearly over, but some passes are still being sold and will be good until June 30, 2011. A to-
In this issue ... Calendar...........................4 Durham Briefs ..........24-25 Durham Fair ............15-22 Libraries ........................23 Middlefield Briefs .....26-27 Obituaries ......................29 Sports .........................32-35
tal of 228 passes have been sold so far this season. Selling beach passes for Middlefield residents began in 2008 as it became necessary to restrict the beach due to annoyance, trouble and destruction in the beach area, according to assistant town clerk Nancy Davidson. Coincidentally, 228 passes were also sold that first year. Because of the rainy conditions in 2009, sales were down but came back up again this year. Amy Poturnicki, president of Lake Beseck’s Crime Watch group, explained the necessity of beach passes further. Three years ago, the lifeguards hired by the town were going to be cut, and See Beach, page 35