Kleckner Joins Exclusive 1,000 Point Club as Marauders’ Beat Lexington

By Leave a Comment

Senior Adam Kleckner said he had “a few butterflies” when he came to Wenner Field House Wednesday, Feb. 11 for the matchup against Lexington.

It wasn’t the typical pre-game anxiety against a familiar rival. On Wednesday night, Kleckner was on the cusp of joining a rarified basketball fraternity: the 6’5″ Middlesex League all-star was just 12 points from reaching 1,000 points in his four-year high school career.

“It’s amazing that I was that close,” said the senior captain.

With a dozen points, Kleckner would join just a handful of Marauder boys to hit the century mark.

(Belmont’s 1,000 point club includes Steven Pollard (’86), 1,294 points; Mike Costello (’96), 1,264; Mark Mulvey (’93), 1.213; Timmie Barrows (’07), 1,126; Larry Norman (’88), 1,096 and Asa Palmer (’93), 1,055.)

It appeared Kleckner would get to the landmark early, scoring the game’s first hoop in the initial 15 seconds while grabbing a bucket full of rebounds. But when he reached 998 with three minutes to go in the first quarter, Kleckner went surprisingly cold; miscues on a few “bunnies”, having his shots blocked and then missing a pair of foul shots that would have set the mark.

The record would have to wait until midway through the second quarter as Kleckner stood at 999. A foul under the hoop put the senior on the line and the first shot, he buried the shot and entered Marauder history.

Congratulations from teammates and head coach Adam Pritchard, a commemorative ball was produced, and his parents and brothers came out onto the court for hugs, kisses and photographs to mark the occasion.

After the game, which Belmont won 64-49 to go 12-6 (and which Kleckner did not score after his milestone), Kleckner said achieving the mark was the result of “a lot of practices and training.”

“But I could not have made it without amazing teammates who helped me over the past four years,” said Kleckner.

Belmont Schools Face ‘Significant, Negative Impact’ in Fiscal ’16 Budget; Loss of 22 Positions, Larger Class Sizes

By 1 Comment

Photo: Teacher and staff represented by the Belmont Education Association listening to District Superintendent John Phelan present the fiscal 2016 school budget to the Belmont School Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 11.

Belmont students will face “significant and negative impacts” if the Belmont School Committee approves an available revenue budget for the next fiscal year leaving the town’s top-rated schools with an anticipated $1.7 million shortfall, according to Belmont District Superintendent John Phelan.

The current budget would force Phelan to eliminate up to 22 full-time positions including teachers and staff, allow classroom sizes in all grades to exceed the School Committee’s own benchmarks for effective teaching and increase the number of “frees” and study halls for middle and high school students.

“It would be problematic for the district to function as a Tier 1 district under this budget,” Phelan told the Belmontonian Thursday, Feb. 12.

Making the first public presentation of the fiscal 2016 budget before the School Committee and approximately 75 teachers and staff at the Chenery Middle School, Phelan presented an overview of its fiscal year 2016 budget in which the district would run on the best estimates of the available revenue from state and town sources.

Under the town’s estimates, the schools will receive $47.5 million in fiscal ’16 under the current Town Meeting approved 58/42 budget “split” in which the district receives 58 percent of total revenues.

Belmont is already doing a great deal of what it has, said Phelan. Where the average annual expenditure per student statewide is $14,571, Belmont has become an educational destination for homebuyers spending roughly $12,800 a year.

In the presentation, Phelan told the committee the district finds itself facing several “pressure points,” the most immediate is the skyrocketing increase in enrollment. In just the past five years – 2009 to 2014 – the student population in kindergarten to 12th grade has increased by 317 students to 4,222 in October, 2014.

And the forecast is that an additional 408 students will enter the district by 2019, a ten-year increase of 723 pupils. For comparison, the Wellington Elementary School has approximately 440 students.

Phelen said the increasing population has also bumped up the number of students requiring assistance in English Language learning by nearly double in two years, 117 in 2013 to 222 in 2015. Because about 80 of those students are not very proficient in English, the state requires Belmont to hire new staff to provide 2.5 hours of “small group instruction.”

Also in the overall population is a growing number special education students. The major component of the current year’s $500,000 school deficit is nearly $950,000 in unanticipated costs associated with special education. And those costs will increase in fiscal 2016 with the rising number of students entering the district.

When calculating the new costs required to the current “pressure points” and moving the current level of staff and teachers into the new year, the schools will need $49.2 million just to “stay current.”

But with rising costs and stagnate revenue, Phelan said schools will be unable to meet the demands of the residents and students for a top-tier education as it attempts to fill the $1.7 million gap.

“With enrollments going up, and the number of positions staying steady if not being reduced, I would be hard pressed to say we can continue what we are doing,” Phelan told the Belmontonian.

The cuts would be deep and substantial: 22 full-time positions from teaching, staff and aids would be cut, a further reduction in material and supplies, trimming professional development, forego building maintenance, increase the fees to rent school property and a large increase in student and family fees for sports, clubs and full-time kindergarten.

What isn’t seen in the cost cutting will be more students in each classroom, less programs and idle teens “sitting on benches in the high school and in study halls at the Chenery,” said Phelan.

“This can only negatively impact student learning.”

The solution in Phelan’s eye and, in previous discussions with the School Committee, is to enthusiastically support the proposal outlined last month by the Financial Task Force to request the Board of Selectmen to place a three-year, $4.5 million Proposition 2 1/2 override on the ballot to fund the enrollment issues facing the district.

“That is the solution,” he said.

John Sullivan, a Palfrey Road resident, Belmont teacher and president of the Belmont Education Association which represents district teachers in union negotiations, told the board that despite a highly trained and capable staff, class size impacts the day-to-day experience of students.

“If Belmont wants to maintain a high-quality student experience, one that puts Belmont High in the top 10 percent of high school state-wide, then the fiscal year ’16 budget, and future budgets, need to address the increase in enrollment,” said Sullivan.

Belmont’s League of Women Voters’ Candidate’s Night Set for March 26

By Leave a Comment

The nomination papers are not due into the Town Clerk’s Office until Tuesday, Feb. 17, but the Belmont League of Women Voters has selected the date for the League’s annual Candidate’s Night.
The highlight of the election season will take place on Thursday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Chenery Middle School, 95 Washington St.
The League will conduct the evening following its traditional order: those seeking Town Meeting membership are welcome to introduce themselves to the public – no speeches, thank you – then questions from a League panel for the unopposed town-wide candidates before ending the evening with a series of questions and some debating issues by those candidates in contested town-wide races.

 

Good Investment: Belmont Home Values Increased 25 Percent Since ’05

By Leave a Comment

Photo: A renovated bungalow at 232 Trapelo Rd. 

While you may have made more money in equities since 2005 – the NASDAQ has grown at about eight percent annually – your Belmont house has been a good investment. And unlike stocks, you can sleep in it. 

The average Belmont residential property has appreciated by 25 percent since 2005, a time span which included a historic economic recession in 2008 and six years of a weak recovery, according to data compiled by the Warren Group, a Boston-based real estate analysis firm. 

“Statewide, the median home price in Massachusetts peaked in 2005 at $355,000. Since then, we have seen 46 communities rebound from the crash in real estate prices and record an increase in the median selling price of homes,” said Timothy Warren Jr., the Warren Group’s CEO.

Belmont is one of the top-ten municipalities to see double-digit increases in home values since 2005, according to the report, which included neighboring communities of Lexington (35 percent jump to $950,000) and Cambridge, which led the study with a red hot 80 percent increase in single-family home values, from $667,500 in 2005 to $1.2 million in 2014. 

The current median price for a single-family home in Belmont is $847,900.

Other towns on the list include Brookline, Concord, Newton, Somerville, Winchester and the Boston neighborhoods of South Boston and Jamaica Plain.

“Proximity to good jobs seems to be the common thread among the top communities. Location matters in real estate, and here we see these key communities adding even more in terms of their home values,” said Warren. 

NEW DATE: PJ Wearing Belmont High Students Out to Help Needy Kids

By Leave a Comment

If your child heads off to the high school in their PJs tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 13, don’t worry – in fact, that just might be their daily routine – they aren’t late and in a rush to make their first class of the day.

Tomorrow Belmont High will hold its annual “Pajamarama,” the day for students, the administration staff and teachers to wear their “jammies” to class in exchange for a donation of money or nice, new children’s sleepwear to the “PJ Drive for Cradles to Crayons,” a Brighton non-profit organization, which provides gently-used clothes and gear for needy Massachusetts children.

For this drive, sponsored by the Boston Bruins, the school’s  is collecting both monetary donations and pairs of new, warm pj’s in sizes from newborn to 18.

For students, parents and residents who would like to help, drop off any new pj’s – please keep the tags on! – in the main office by Wednesday, Feb.25.  

Monetary donations – checks made out to Cradles to Crayons – may either be brought to the office or mailed to:

Alice Melnikoff

Belmont High School

221 Concord Ave.

Belmont, MA  02478.

 

Bursting Enrollment Makes Modular Classrooms Likely at Belmont Schools by 2016

By 2 Comments

Photo: An example of modular classrooms in Needham, Massachusetts.

In the past two years, Belmont town and school officials have used the idiom that the school district has been “bursting at the seams” with the rapid increase in student enrollment – 330 more students – since 2009.

Now that figurative phrase is becoming literally true as the number of pupils continue rocketing upward will likely require the district to begin using modular classrooms – single-story prefabricated buildings most notably used in Belmont to house Wellington Elementary students as the new school was being built – to house the surge of children, according to Belmont Superintendent John Phelan.

Phelan made the observation at two recent meeting in January when the executive summary report of the Belmont Financial Task Force was presented to the public and the Belmont Board of Selectmen.

It doesn’t require a lengthy report to realize that with any increase in enrollment, “the need for increased classroom space is inevitable,” said Phelan.

The first steps to quantify the impact on school buildings began more than a year ago under former Superintendent Dr. Thomas Kingston who established a Space Task Force. One of the first actions taken was hiring a local architectural firm to project the district’s building requirements with the space it had and the estimated number of students coming into the system.

The study concluded for Belmont to keep within its appropriate class-size range, the elementary schools will require an additional class from kindergarten through 4th grade.

“This would result in the need for modular classrooms … by September 2016” for the elementary schools, said Phelan.

The report bluntly stated the Chenery Middle School “does not have enough space to support the current level of student enrollment” and won’t be able to fit the large classes funneling from the four elementary schools in the next five years.

The solution “will result in the need for modular classrooms” by the beginning of the 2016-17 school year.

Nor is the situation at the aging Belmont High School any better. The school is currently “out of space,” said the report, with 31 rooms shared by two teachers and four rooms by three teachers.

With the demand for additional class offerings and “the wave” of enrollment increases coming each year,” the need for space at the High School is becoming critical,” said Phelan.

The “wave” Phelan talked about is evident comparing the 260 students who graduated in 2014 with the 354 students who entered Kindergarten that same year. And those numbers are not seen dropping as “[h]istorical enrollment trends indicate there is little if any, net loss of enrollment over the grade spans.”

In its long-term plan to meet the sky-high enrollment issues facing Belmont, the school district will request hiring an additional 20 teachers over three years beginning in the 2015-16 school year, all dependent on the passage of a $4.5 million Proposition 2 1/2 override sometime in the spring.

A major new initiative by Phelan will be to target eight of the new teachers to reduce the chronic issue of student either sitting in large study halls in the middle school and having idle time at the high school known as “frees.”

The Board of Selectmen has yet to approve or set a date for the override as of Feb. 11.

Even with a successful override vote, space will continue to be a glaring handicap for the schools.

“If you want to increase the number of teachers at the middle or high school to reduce the amount of unstructured, non-educational time … the district will struggle with the ability to do so, without adding temporary space or building more permanent space,” warned Phelan.

 

Less Than a Week to Turn In Town Meeting, Town Wide Nomination Papers

By Leave a Comment

The good news, said Belmont Town Clerk Ellen Cushman, is the number of residents who took out nomination papers will result in competitive races in nearly all of Belmont’s eight precincts.

The bad news, see added, is that many potential candidates have yet to turn in those papers with the signature of 25 Belmontians to her.

“They’ve taken them out, and now I’m waiting for them to bring them back,” said Cushman today, Feb. 11.

And the deadline for the papers to be in and certified by Cushman is looming quite large.

“They only have six day, until Feb. 17 at 5 p.m. And when the bell rings, they’ll lose their chance,” said Cushman, pointing to a call bell next to the old-style time stamp machine on the Office’s front desk.

Belmont’s eight precincts will be electing 12 Town Meeting Members in addition to any partial-term seats. Cushman opened a folder for one of the precincts and showed the sign-out sheet with several names of residents who took out papers. Only one had  been turned in.

People should not wait until the last minute to return nomination papers for either Town Meeting or for those with intentions of running for town-wide office, said Cushman, reminding residents her and all town offices will be closed for the President’s Day Holiday on Monday, Feb. 16.

Belmont Fire Log: Idling Vehicle Caused CO Alarms to Sound

By Leave a Comment

Locked out, the series

Feb. 2 – Just before 7:30 p.m., crews clambered to Slade Street to help a resident who locked themselves out of their home.

Water from the attic

Feb. 2 – Just after 7:30 p.m., Engine 1 took off for a York Road single family to investigate a water problem. Turns out a water leak developed in the attic and damaged not only the roof, but also knocked out a hard-wired, second-floor bedroom smoke detector. The firefighters advised the owner to contact a licensed electrician to check the wiring and contact a roof repair company. The homeowner decided to relocate her family at a local hotel for the night.

Dangerous act

Feb. 3 – A few minutes after 10 a.m., fire crews from Engine 2 and Rescue 1 were sent to a Thomas Street house after a carbon monoxide detector began sending an alarm to dispatchers. While the homeowners had just left as the fire equipment arrived, a neighbor let the companies into the house. Inside, the fire personnel did detect elevated levels of the gas. The friendly neighbor said he might know the reason for the spike in the readings: the homeowners had turned on and allowed their vehicle to idle in the attached garage.

Locked in, the series

Feb. 3 – At 20 minutes ’til 11 a.m., fire crews headed off to a location on Agassiz Avenue; a resident was locked-in a vehicle.

Long burn

Feb. 4 – Just about 4:30 p.m., firefighters were sent to check on a person in a building on Trapleo Road. They could find the person either inside or outside the dwelling, but they did discover the electric stove burner on.

Locked out, the series

Feb. 4 – At five minutes past 4:30 p.m., crews were dispatched to Garfield Road to help another resident who was locked out of their house.

Marsh gas

Feb. 5 – At a quarter ’til 6 p.m., firefighters headed out to a location on Marsh Street for a natural gas leak. A neighbor said leaking gas was an ongoing problem. It sure is; two days later, fire crews were dispatched once again to the same address for the same problem.

Solution turns into a problem

Feb. 6 – A little after 1 p.m., the entire fire force was off to a home on Shaw Road for a reported building fire. On arrival, the crews could see flames showing from the roof. As Engine 2 placed a roof ladder on the side of the house, it was discovered the heating wire meant to melt roof ice was on fire. As crews held the fire in check with a Dry-Chem extinguisher, the Ladder 1 firefighters entered the house to shut off the electricity. Once the power was off, the companies extinguished the fire and overhauled the scene. Wire inspectors responded along with the home owner to the inspect the damage.

 

Water Main Break Halts Traffic on Brighton/Blanchard, Repair by 4 PM

By Leave a Comment

A major water main broke around 9 a.m., Tuesday, Feb. 10, on the north side of Brighton Street at the commuter rail tracks, causing the closure of an important cross town thoroughfare.

Belmont Police detoured traffic off of Blanchard Road from Concord Avenue to the commuter tracks and Brighton Street to Vale Road and the tracks to allow Department of Public Work crews to remove and repair the pipe that spewed water onto the roadway for a short time.

“We found a major crack in the pipe so it had to be removed and a new section cut at the DPW yard,” said Mark Mancuso, operations manager of the DPW’s Water Division.

There was some concern from the MBTA the water from the leak could freeze onto the commuter rail tracks, said Mancuso. That problem did not materialize, he added.

Mancuso said the pipe should be replaced and the road reopened by 4 p.m.

 

Belmont Schools Scheduled to Finish June 23, IF No More Snow Days

By Leave a Comment

If – and that’s a big “if” – today, Tuesday, Feb. 10, turns out to be the final snow day for Belmont public school students this school year, the district is scheduled to close shop “on schedule” on Tuesday, June 23, according to Belmont’s school superintendent.

After declaring five “snow” days due to the two weeks of record snow fall, the reason the schools will not be closing with the Fourth of July fireworks in the background is that the school district “pockets” five days into each school year’s calendar for school closures, said Belmont Superintendent John Phelan.

“The district works backwards from the pending final day to determine the actual final day of school,” said Phelan.
“Right now, we are not adding any days,” said Phelan.

The final day, two days into summer, is the latest Belmont schools will close in several years. The last day in 2014 was Friday, June 20.

While parents and students will not have to make changes to summer plans, the most immediate effect of five snow days in the past fortnight “disrupts the rhythm of teaching,” said Phelan.

“It’s problematic for teachers and students to be removed from a planned schedule,” said Phelan, noting that teachers map out an educational program that leads to the February break then “smoothly transitions into seven to eight weeks of teaching until the April recess.”

And if additional snow days are destined for Belmont, don’t expect to see either the state’s school commissioner or the district stray from the 180 days of school required under state law.

Mitchell Chester, the state’s Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, stated in a memo to school officials statewide that, “[s]chool districts may decide to cancel or shorten the April vacation period, convert scheduled professional development days into school days for students, hold school on Saturday, keep school open on Good Friday, or add days later in June beyond the originally scheduled last day of school.”

“We will have 180 days of school in Belmont,” said Phelan.