This Wednesday, May 7 at 7:00 p.m., at Dyke Auditorium at Atkinson Academy, there will be a Public Hearing concerning the Hampstead Area Water Company’s (HAWC) application to drill five additional bedrock walls in Atkinson so as to pump out and sell an additional 648,00 gallons per day of Atkinson groundwater.
Two of those new wells will go on the grounds of the Atkinson Country Club (which already uses many, many millions of gallons during the summer to water its golf course), while another well will go in the center of town on the island in the wetlands east of Wright Farm Condominiums while two more wells will go on Settlers Ridge south of the Commons Condominiums.
The Hampstead Areas Water Company already pumps and sells groundwater to 11 towns: Atkinson, Chester, Danville, East Kingston, Fremont, Hampstead, Kingston, Nottingham, Plaistwo, Salem, and Sandown. Salem has recently noticed the state about its serious water shortages.
Almost two-thirds of Atkinson homes rely solely on private wells while two condominiums each have their own private community well water system. Any further drainage and lowering of our ground water table can have disasterous effects on these homes’ and condominium’s future water supplies and Atkinsonians having adequate water for normal future needs. Atkinsonians being serviced by HAWC should realize that they also stand to lose from any future water shortage caused by more of Atkinson’s limited water being shipped out to other towns. Salem is right on our border and is already experiencing a water shortage.
NH law requires that our Board of Selectmen hold a public hearing to listen to the comments and feelings of our townspeople before they advise the state (DES) on whether the own supports or opposes HAWC’s request to put in more wells and pump out and sell for profit, an additional 648,00 gallons per day of our limited Atkinson groundwater.
Please try to attend this important public hearing and express your feelings on HAWC’s application so the selectmen can adequately represent the townspeople’s position on HAWC’s new application.
Carol Grant Atkinson
To the Editor:
TRHS Block Scheduling a Problem
After only 4 weeks of discussion with the School Board, TRHS Principal Don Woodworth declared in his April newsletter, “With the blessing of the School Board and SAU leadership, we are beginning a focused discussion as we move toward implementing a block schedule in the 2009-2010 school year…We must move the conversation from if to how, and the timetable from someday to now.” Most district parents haven’t even heard of this extreme plan with many potential pitfalls let alone signed up to it’s implementation.
4x4 Block scheduling is a 15+ year old idea that would replace TRHS 7 period 45 min per period day with 4 90 minute periods. The same 4 classes would be taught each day, so kids would have the same 4 classes through each semester. This allows what we think of as one year of a class today to be completed in less than a year. So, what’s the problem with this you ask…
1) AP tests are only given in spring, so if your child took an AP class from September to January, he or she would have 5+ months to forget some of the content before being tested. AP Grades will suffer. This is not just my opinion; the College Boards, the company that produces and grades all AP tests, has published conclusive data showing how block scheduling lowers grades.
2) Sequential classes will suffer: look at classes like science and math where one year’s work builds off the last. If Junior takes Algebra II Sept to January, he may not see Geometry until 9 months later in September. How much of his prior learning will he recall in detail so he can use it immediately?
3) Are freshmen and sophomores in particular, really ready for 90-minute periods in every class? I know my eldest wasn’t, and I doubt my youngest will be either. And how effectively can all of our subjects be taught in 90-minute periods? Certainly it opens up time for longer labs for the sciences – but what about math and social studies? Do the kids and teachers burn out after 50 minutes and fritter the remaining 40 minutes away as a study hall?
4) What happens to the music program? We just finished a $9 million performing arts center; we have NH’s best music program serving hundreds of our High Schoolers with kids routinely receiving the highest grades in statewide competitions. With block scheduling our kids will no longer have the opportunity to devote any part of the school day to music on a year around basis. If they can squeeze one or two 1 semester classes into their 4 years they’ll be lucky. Other schools implementing block scheduling report numbers as horrific as their orchestra going from 100 members down to 4 members within 2 years. That’s not a music program.
5) Today, teachers teach 5 out of 7 periods, seeing +/- 150 kids per day. In blocks, teachers teach 3 out of 4 blocks, and see +/- 90 kids per day. The total number of kids remains the same either way. If we want class sizes to remain constant, we’ll need to hire more teachers. About 5 to 7 more by my reckoning, for an additional salary expense of $200+ thousand per year. And where will they teach? Will we need to expand the school? How much will that cost? Who knows, I certainly don’t, and the SAU Administrators aren’t coming up with numbers: but Mr. Woodworth says that the time for discussion is over, we must act now.
Certainly, there are perceived advantages to a 4x4 block schedule. These can’t be ignored:
1) The number of disruptions per day. I have seen how chaotic the halls get between classes – I do sympathize with Mr. Woodworth on this score. There will still be these crazy times, just fewer of them per day.
2) The Administration will tell you, and have put into a presentation already, that in less than a year any given coarse can be covered “in greater depth but less breadth” in 4x4 blocks. What does this mean exactly? Our kids will know more and more about less and less? In the end, our kids need to pass not only their teachers’ tests, but such standardized tests as NECAP, SATs, AP and ACT tests. These standardized tests test a full breadth of learning. They will not take into account the “greater depth” our kids will know about some subset of their breadth. The goal of our schools ought to be to teach at a minimum the curriculum mandated by the state – not to only a portion of it.
3) Less homework will be given per night because only 4 classes per day are held. OK – I understand fewer subjects mean fewer types of homework, but if they’re moving at twice the speed trying to learn more in less time how is it that the amount of homework per class doesn’t double? If it doesn’t double, how can they truly be getting the practice in math skills and writing?
4) Teachers have fewer classes for which to prepare. OK, I see this too…but they need to prepare to teach longer classes each day. This strikes me as a wash.
To summarize 4x4 block scheduling: this system seems to produce fewer disruptions in school per day at the cost of:
1) Poorer standardized test scores
2) Decimated music program
3) Requires an upfront space increase and higher salaries every year thereafter
4) There is a real risk the kids won’t learn the same amount per class
I do not see this as an acceptable tradeoff. I fail to see how our SAU Administrators see these tradeoffs as positive. Many teachers have grave reservations about this approach – and these are teachers who have seen block scheduling fail elsewhere already. Before we accept Mr. Woodworth’s assertion that the time to talk is over, I believe the parents and taxpayers need to have a long, honest and forthright discussion with the SAU. This isn’t just a matter for an isolated School Board meeting or a coffee break with the Principal – we need to jointly determine a path and build a consensus for that path, and that will take many months, not a week or two. Until that consensus is reached, no additional funding for implementing block scheduling should be spent. I know some has been spent already, but do not know how much.
Is the light we see ahead the end of the tunnel, or is it the headlight of a train barreling at us? At this point we just do not know.
Peter Bealo Plaistow
To the Editor:
I would like to take a moment to publicly thank our agency volunteers for their spirit, dedication and compassion. National Volunteer Week is April 27 – May 3 and this year’s Points of Light theme is “Volunteer to change the world”.
The staff of the Home Health Foundation knows that volunteers change the world by doing great things and giving freely of their time. We appreciate and respect the commitment men, women and youth make to non profit agencies such as ours each day. No matter how large or small a volunteer job is, it is of tremendous value to those who benefit. Without our volunteers, we would not fulfill our mission, develop and staff our programs, build our fundraising events or get to those extra projects always piling up on the corner of someone’s desk.
Please join me in thanking all volunteers who serve so graciously. Volunteers do change the world, one person at a time, one program at a time, commitments large and small.
If you are interesting in lending your time and talent to the Home Health Foundation family of agencies, Home Health VNA, Merrimack Valley Hospice or HomeCare, Inc. please contact me at 978-552-4525.
Elaine M. Miller Volunteer Coordinator Home Health Foundation
To the Editor:
We would like to thank the Kingston Veterans Club for the scholarships they awarded us. It really helped during our college courses. I am graduating in May with my bachelors in Accounting and my brother, Vince, is currently enrolled in Wyotech to get his Aircraft Mechanics License. If it wasn’t for the KVC Motorcycle Raffle, the money wouldn’t be available to the Veterans, Auxiliary members and their families. The KVC have been awarded over $6,000 in scholarships due to the raffle.
This year the KVC is raffling a 2009 Harley Davidson Street Glide (a really nice bike). The tickets are $50.00 each and only 500 tickets are being sold. All of the profits from this raffle will benefit the scholarship program which will enable the KVC to continue helping other students with some of their education costs, and you know every little but helps.
We would like to urge everyone to support this raffle this year and every year that they have this raffle. We will be buying tickets this year, who wouldn’t want to win a brand new Harley and support the KVC scholarship fun at the same time?
