Racist, Homophobic, Anti-semitic Graffiti Continues To Be Found At Chenery Despite School-Wide Anti-bias Efforts

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Photo: Chenery Middle School

“Kill gays.” “Kill N——rs.” Swastikas.

These are recent examples of hate graffiti found in the bathrooms of Chenery Middle School, all coming after the district school for the town’s 5th to 8th grade students held a school-wide effort to address hate symbols earlier in the month.

In a Tuesday, Oct. 26 email to students and parents, Chenery Principal Karla Koza said hate writing and symbols were found inside student restrooms in the past week, coming a fortnight after the staff and teachers held a school-wide observance to address hate graffiti in the school. These incidents come the same time a racist message was left in the Belmont High School library during an open house.

“Your teachers, our staff, our administration and I are deeply disappointed that this continues. I know most of you do not want this type of hate speech in our school either,” said Koza writing specifically to her students.

“Please remember that all students belong at Chenery. When we see terrible things on our walls, it makes us uncomfortable, makes us feel unsafe, and does not help us to feel connected as the great school we are,” said Koza.

Hate-filled graffiti has an unfortunate legacy at the Chenery. Three years ago, a bathroom was tagged with racist and homophobic language in an unprecedented attack of hate speech at the school. In response to the act, Chenery Principal Micheal McAllister conducted a school-wide activity to explain what happened and what students can do to begin the healing process.

“[W]e continue to see vulgarities and graffiti that erodes the sense of community and safety for our students,” said Koza addressing parents and guardians, adding “[t]hreatening racial and homophobic slurs have no place at Chenery Middle School and do not align with our core values to provide a safe and supportive environment for all students.”

Koza said she will address the matter at Wednesday’s morning announcements. Moving forward, school leaders “will continue to address this hateful graffiti by investigate the incidents and follow up with students and families as needed.”

The District School Resource Officer has been notified while Chon’tel Washington, the district’s newly-hired Director of Equity and Inclusivity and community liaisons including the Belmont Human Rights Commission will serve as resources to the greater Chenery community.

“We urge families to talk about these issues at home,” Kona asked parents. In addition, students may reach out to any trusted adult at our school for support or clarity while Belmont community members may also reach out to the Belmont Human Rights Commission for support.

Belmont High Administration Responds To Racist Act During Saturday’s Open House

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Photo: The open house at Belmont Middle and High School Saturday, Oct. 23

Belmont High School officials reacted quickly to the writing of racist graffiti during a public open house of the high school wing of Belmont Middle and High School on Saturday, Oct. 23.

“The use of any racial slur is not in line with our values at Belmont High School,” said High School Principal Isaac Taylor in a press release dated Tuesday, Oct. 26. “We are committed to becoming a school community where all people feel welcomed, celebrated, and supported.”

According to Taylor, during the second of three open houses to provide the public a view of the new building’s interior, two students, one BHS and one from another school, entered the building and made their way to an unsupervised area in the library.

“While in the space, the student from another school wrote a message containing a racial slur. This slur was directed to our black and brown students and families with the use of the ‘n’ word,” said Taylor. The pair was approached by a custodian at which time they ran off. The message was removed before students and staff entered the building on Monday. The students movement and actions were captured on camera, which were reviewed by the school administration.

Isaac outlined the actions by the administration to the event which included:

  • Meeting with the Belmont student and their family, where consequences were assigned.
  • Belmont police was notified via the School Resource Officer.
  • The headmaster of the school where the other student attends was notified of his student’s involvement.
  • Contacting and partnering with Chon’tel Washington, the district’s Director of Equity and Inclusion. 
  • Reaching out to the school’s liaisons at the Belmont Human Rights Commission who can serve as a resource to anyone in the community.  

Isaac said the administration will also review event policies and school security to ensure that students cannot gain access to unsupervised areas after school hours. 

“Please know that we are here for you,” said Isaac. “Students, please feel free to reach out to any trusted adult at the high school. Your guidance counselors, teachers, and administrators are here for you. There are also other resources available to anyone in Belmont; you are always free to reach out to the Belmont Human Rights Commission for support.

Breaking: Burbank Principal Resigns After Staff, District Lost Confidence In His Leadership

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Photo: Burbank Elementary School

Seeley Okie, principal of the Burbank Elementary School, was forced to resign his position on Thursday, Oct. 21 after teachers and staff of the school “expressed concerns” to the Belmont School District on his running of the school since September and, specifically, Okie’s handling of a specific event in which a student was restrained during a “de-escalation” incident under his watch.

In a letter to the Burbank community dated Oct. 21, Belmont Superintendent John Phelan said after recently speaking with school personnel and reviewing the incident with the student, Okie was placed on administrative leave on an unspecified date according to district protocol.

After subsequent conversations “we have come to a mutual agreement that Principal Okie will submit his resignation, effective immediately,” wrote Phelan. “[Okie] has been fully cooperative throughout this process and has indicated that this course of action is best for him personally and professionally, for his family, and most importantly, for the school community.”

Phelan expressed his personal thanks to Okie for providing “leadership and stability” through “the significant challenges and uncertainty” of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Okie came to the Burbank as its interim principal in July 2019 after spending seven years as assistant principal at the McArthur Elementary School in Waltham. He was named Burbank’s full-time principal starting in September 2020.

Phelan said the district’s central office and members of the superintendent’s Leadership Team – made up of senior staff and the district’s principals – will work with teachers and staff to “ensure the smooth operation of the school.”

The district will begin “an immediate search” to hire an interim principal for the Burbank. It comes at the same time Butler Elementary Principal Danielle Betancourt announced her resignation after accepting a position in London.

Andrea Prestwich, School Committee Chair During Height Of Pandemic, Stepping Down

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Photo: Andrea Prestwich at the 2021 Belmont High School graduation

Andrea Prestwich, who led the Belmont School Committee during the height of a worldwide pandemic that upended education in Belmont, resigned from the committee Wednesday, Oct. 20, after accepting a role with the government’s leading funding source for basic science research.

“I’ve been offered a position as Program Director at the National Science Foundation and I hope to start next week,” Prestwich said in a letter to Town Clerk Ellen Cushman. “I’m very excited by this new opportunity, but it will be a lot of work and I won’t have the time needed to devote to the School Committee going forward.”

“It has been an honor to serve on the School Committee,” said Prestwich who is the committee’s longest serving member having been elected in April 2016.

“I look back at what I said when I first ran for the school committee, back in 2016, and I said, ‘I’m in awe of the teachers, the administrators and the students.’ And that’s still true. I am in awe of all those people,” said Prestwich at the committee’s Tuesday, Oct. 19 meeting.

“The district really does faces some significant challenges, especially financial. But you guys have the right core values, and are excellent people. And I believe that you can these core values and the right people will sustain the district through difficult times,” said Prestwich of her committee colleagues.

Amy Checkoway, the committee’s current chair, said she and the committee “will miss among other things, your insightful questions, your extensive scientific knowledge, and your honesty.”

Prestwich’s leadership occurred “during an incredibly difficult time to serve on the school committee, let alone be a chair,” said Checkoway. Taking the helm in April 2020 – she was the only sitting member who volunteered to replace the previous chair who suddenly resigned – Prestwich faced a district forced to provide a daily classroom experience remotely which it provided on the fly as the severity of the pandemic brought daily roadblocks to the education process.

Belmont Superintendent John Phelan said he and the central office staff shared a very unique experience with Prestwich “which was a year of Covid challenges” and the efforts to ensure that students would attend “safe school environment.”

“It does feel like we’re battle scarred, doesn’t it,” Prestwich said.

Prestwich led the committee in the district’s contentious phased opening of school starting in remote learning in Sept. 2020 which she said was a good decision, although admitting parents should have been part of the process in developing the plan. She championed district-wide Covid testing and increasing education spending in future budgets to provide needed additional instruction just as a populist austerity faction in town raised questions on funding.

With her stances, Prestwich became a convenient target for parental critics on social media platforms including many particularly personal attacks alleging a “hidden agenda” to grab control of the district. Detractors went so far as to suggest starting a recall effort which quickly petered out.

In a December 2020 interview, Prestwich explained that both she and the committee appreciated the anxiety of parents whose children remained out of the classroom.

“I completely understand the level of frustration in the community with our schools,” Prestwich said. “Not one of us on the School Committee is happy with the current situation. We would all like for school in Belmont to be back to normal. As School Committee chair, I’m the natural target for the frustration.”

“I remember very vividly a phone conversation I had with Andrea at some point last school year, when she described how heavy this role felt every day,” said Checkoway, who took over Prestwich’s role after she stepped down from the chair’s position in early April.

Prestwich ran in 2016 promoting later school start times especially for high school students, pointing to the overwhelming scientific evidence that maturing teens – She and her husband, Steve Saar, are parents of teenage twins – more sleep to effectively tackle the school day.

Her reliance on a fact-based approach as chair and as a member can be found in her own education and day job. A PhD in Astrophysics from Imperial College London, this year marked Prestwich’s 30th anniversary at Harvard’s Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory where she is a staff scientist at the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

And in her final act as a committee member, Prestwich was given the honor of closing the committee’s meeting one last time.

Preforming Arts Co.’s ‘Broadway Night’ To Show Off Belmont High’s New Black Box

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Photo: The finale of BHS PAC Broadway Night (thanks to BHS PAC)

The Belmont High School Performing Arts Company is returning after a year-and-a-half in the virtual sphere to all live performances with its annual “Broadway Night: Musical Theater Cabaret” this weekend, Oct. 22 and 23 at 7 p.m.

To celebrate its homecoming, the in-school group will welcome the audience to its new home: The Black Box Theater on the first floor of the recently opened high school wing of the Belmont Middle and High School. The space has professional lighting and sound as well as flexible seating configurations that will allow for a greater audience experience.

Students artists will perform classic and contemporary works of musical theater consisting of solo/duet/small groups songs which are primarily self-directed which will showcase the acting, singing and dancing talents of the PAC members. And with every year, there will be a final song and dance performed by the entire company.

Tickets are $5 for students/children and $12 for adults. Tickets can be purchased online, and advance ticket purchase recommended: shows, as always, are expected to sell out!

Details about the show and ticket sales at bhs-pac.org

Due to As we prepare to invite audiences back into our schools, here are some guidelines for those who plan to attend theater events this year:

  • MASKS WILL BE REQUIRED for all audience members.
  • Food/drinks will not be allowed in performance spaces.
  • The size of our Black Box Theater means that there is not a guarantee of distancing for audience members. We encourage family units to sit together, but at sold out shows, you will be seated directly adjacent to others.
  • Some students performing on stage for theater events will be unmasked. These students have been required by the Belmont School Committee to be vaccinated.
  • Anyone experiencing symptoms related to COVID-19 should not attend performances. You can reference the BPS Student Symptom Checker here.

School Committee Mandates Student Vaccinations by Dec. 1 To Take Part In Sports, Extracurriculars

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Photo: Students aged 16 and older who which to participate in sports and extracurriculars must be fully vaccinated by Dec. 1

The Belmont School Committee voted unanimously Tuesday, Oct. 5 to require students 16 and older to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to participate in school-sponsored athletics or extracurricular activity.

The mandate, according to the language in the interim policy, was passed to “promote public safety and the safety of students, facility and staff” during the worldwide pandemic that is “causing disruption of the traditional school day.”

“I do think it’s a step in the right direction to continue to create a safer environment as possible for school operations,” said Kate Bowen who heads the committee’s policy subcommittee which wrote and edited the new language.

The policy requires students who are age-eligible according to the Federal Drug Adminstration – current guidelines would impact those between 16 to 19 – have received both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson injection.

The new policy is an effort to spur Belmont’s already high vaccination rate in the 7th-12th grades which currently averaging in the low 80 percent range.

While voting in favor of the measure, committee members Bowen and Meg Moriarity along with Belmont Superintendent John Phelan expressed a worry that it would appear the policy is selecting a group of students based on interest or participation . But each acknowledged that the intent is trying to vaccinate as many students as possible in all settings in order to provide a safer environment.

Chair Amy Checkoway said it is important after the vote to inform families the policy was “going into place and making sure their questions are answered” while continuing to support access to vaccines for students.

The vote comes a day after the Belmont Board of Health recommended the committee mandate a vaccination requirement for all students 16 and up.

I’m in the process of consulting and finding out some more information from our legal counsel about next steps,” said Checkoway. “I think this is obviously a very important issue and something we neeed to discuss.”

All Student COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic at Chenery Middle School, Thursday, Sept. 30

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Photo: Shots for students this Thursday. (Image credit: CDC “Getting Your COVID-19 Vaccine”)

The Belmont School District in partnership with VaxinateRx and Healthcare Family Pharmacy is offering two doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination series to all Belmont public school students ages 12 and up on Thursday, Sept. 30, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Chenery Middle School large community room.

According to Beth Rumley, director of nursing for the Belmont Public Schools, all students will be vaccinated free of charge regardless of insurance coverage. If insured please enter insurance information in the online registration. Once registered online there is no need to bring an insurance card to the clinic. 

A follow-up clinic for second doses will be held on Thursday, October 21, 2021, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., in the Chenery large community room. An additional registration link will be provided to register for the second dose at a later time. Students who have already received their first dose of the Pfizer series at another location are welcome to register for either date to receive their second shot as long as there have been at least 3 weeks between doses. Please remember to send the vaccination card from the previous vaccination and consent form with your student.

IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW

  • Please register your child to receive the vaccine at: Appointment Quest Scheduler
  • After registering you will receive an email with a link to the consent form for vaccination (please check your spam folder if you do not receive it)
  • Please fill out and print the consent form to bring to the appointment
  • For anyone under the age of 18, a consent form signed by a parent/guardian must be presented in order to receive a vaccine
    • Parent/guardian does not need to be present as long as the child has a signed consent form

If you experience any issues with the registration process please email info@VaxinateRx.com  to resolve any issues.

Reminder: Please make sure to print and sign the consent form and have the student bring it to school on the day of the clinic. A Parent or Guardian signature is required for any students under the age of 18.  

Your child will receive a COVID vaccine card at the time of vaccination. PLEASE KEEP THIS CARD IN A SAFE PLACE. Your child will need it for the second dose.

Letter To The Editor: Belmont Needs Common Sense Policy On Student Covid Vaccination Mandate

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Photo: The author believes Belmont should adopt a common sense approach to student vaccinations

To the editor:

In the last year and a half, I’ve made it a point to call my elderly Aunt Helen every week. Our conversations touch on a wide range of topics: politics, stories about my parents I’d never heard before, and regular family updates. Lately, Helen has shared stories that are more personal: experiences with her mentally ill father and her unfaithful husband whom she divorced, and sexual harassment and gender discrimination as a working single mom. Recently, I asked her, “How did you manage to get through all of that?”  Helen laughed and said, “I just thought of the story about the little engine that could and I told myself, I can, I must, I will.”  

Belmont needs a little of my Aunt Helen’s can-do attitude right about now. For the third school year in a row, we’ve struggled to maintain focus on where we want to be in the future and how to get there from a policy perspective. To be fair, the national political and scientific landscape is complex, dynamic, and divisive, and “guidance” from the state has been slow to come and sometimes unhelpful. As a consequence, our small town has become torn about the best ways to keep everyone safe and to return to a “normal life” whatever that means going forward.

We can and must do better. For starters, as it did with the universal indoor mask mandate, the Board of Health should follow the advice of the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics by enacting a policy that mandates vaccinations against COVID-19 among all BPS students who are approved for vaccines by the FDA, presently 16 and older. Based on recent data provided by Belmont Superintendent John Phelan, student vaccinations seem to be stuck at the 80 percent mark, which means that hundreds of students who are eligible for vaccines have not yet gotten them. This represents a significant risk to public health and must be addressed.  

A vaccine mandate for students who are 16 and older will not ensure that all age-eligible students will get vaccinated, but it will send a powerful message to students and families that vaccines are normal and expected for participation in the Belmont Public Schools for all age groups once the FDA determines that the vaccine is safe. The policy can be written in such a way that families will know that they need to prioritize getting their children vaccinated as soon as their age brackets are approved under Emergency Use Authorization because, eventually, all age brackets will be approved by the FDA. This kind of policy will make it unnecessary for the School Committee to make vaccine policy in an ad hoc way every time a new age group gets approved, leaving time to discuss other essential business, such as academic achievement and the social-emotional wellbeing of our students, both of which have suffered in the last two years. 

A vaccine mandate, especially if the policy is enacted with a deadline before Thanksgiving, will not only make schools safer for students and their families by reducing the number of students who will become seriously infected as we head into the winter, it will also be a sign of good faith to our school nurses, the members of the Belmont teachers’ union, and other bargaining units who have agreed to mandatory vaccines that the community cares about their workplace safety.  

More than anything, by using its authority to enact this policy, the Belmont Board of Health will help us take a step in the direction of a future we all want for our children and ourselves, a world in which our children can play and attend school largely without masks and without dread of serious illness and death. As a small town with a strong commitment to local governance, we don’t need to wait for the Massachusetts Legislature, which we heard recently from State Senator Will Brownsberger will defer to the state’s Department of Public Health, to issue this common-sense policy. We can and we must take this important step ourselves to protect our community.   

Jeff Liberty

Worcester Street

School Committee Set To Vote On Vaccination Requirement For Sports, Extracurriculars Participation

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Photo: Sports and extracurriculars could require a vaccine to particpate.

In an effort to increase the number of students vaccinated against Covid-19, the Belmont School Committee is expected to vote at its next meeting, Tuesday, Oct. 5, to require all age eligible students who wish to participate in school-sponsored sports and rostered extracurricular activities occuring outside of the school day to be fully vaccinated.

“While [sports and extracurricular] has great merit and benefits,” said Committee member Kate Bowen at the School Committee’s Sept. 21 meeting, they are not required to be provided as they happen outside of the regular school day. For that reason, vaccination requirements lie in the hands of local authorities rather than the state which controls which vaccines students must have to attend school.

The goal of the interm policy’s goal is to promote public safety and the safety of students, faculty and staff will take effect immediately after the vote.

With several hundred students remaining unvaccinated, “[a mandate] is exactly the kind of thing that brings us closer towards normalcy and absolutely to safety,” said member Jamal Saeh.

Under the policy, fully vaccinated is discribed as two weeks after the final dose of initial vaccination, excluding booster shots required by the particular vaccine brand. Students who are waiting vaccination would be required to participate in state sponsored testing at Belmont public schools or submit evidence of indicative COVID-19 tests on a weekly basis for age ineligible students. The policy will remain in place until rescinded by the school committee.

Currently, nearly four of every five Belmont students in 7th to 12th grade are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Belmont School District.

The new policy – modeled after one adopted by Lexington – came close to receiving an up-or-down vote at the School Committee’s most recent meeting on Sept. 21, before it was temporarily pulled. Late changes to the language in a few sections required sending the proposal back to the Policy Subcommittee and the Town Counsel for a once-over review.

One gray area committee members wished to clarify was the age to start the vaccination mandate: OK a 12-16 “emergency” use authorization approved by the state and backed by the American Academy of Pediatircs or stay with the 16-18 which the Federal Drug Administration has backed.

Despite the delay, it appears the policy is well on its way to being adopted as each committee member voiced support for measure at the Sept. 21 meeting.

Belmont MCAS Scores Dip In Covid-19 Year; Performance Exceeds Statewide Results

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Photo: MCAS scores in Belmont and statewide slumped.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the most recent MCAS test scores for Belmont students took a dip as the district struggled to provide a first rate education model during a worldwide pandemic. But with the exception of a sharp drop in the percentage of elementary and middle school students meeting or exceeding in math, the district performance held its own compared to scores for all Massachusetts students.

While the statewide scores showed some large discrepancies from grade to grade, “Belmont did not see the same degree of [downward] shift,” said Belmont Superintendent John Phelan at the Belmont School Committee on Tuesday, Sept. 21. Yet, Phelan said, “any shift is important to note.”

The statewide MCAS test results from the spring 2021 exam released by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on Sept. 21 showed many more students had gaps in their knowledge of math and, to a lesser extent, English language arts, compared to students in the same grades before the COVID-19 pandemic, and fewer students meet or exceeded grade level expectations.

“Each percentage point is very, very important to us because they represent our students,” said Phelan. ”The real important work is to look at how each student … fared with this testing and use that data.”

“We tend to perform higher than the state average in all categories. So we’re thankful for that. But to be repetitive, we do have our own expectation of Belmont. We need to compare ourselves to what our goals are and that’s the work of the district moving forward,” said Phelan.

(The state did not administer MCAS tests in spring 2020, near the start of the pandemic, so the most recent year to compare with this year’s scores is 2019.)

In Belmont, 76 percent of students in grades 3-8 met Expectations or higher in English language arts in 2021, and 67 percent did so in math. Both of these represent a drop compared to 2019, when 80 percent scored at that level in English language arts and 81 percent did so in math. Still, Belmont’s 67 percent is nearly double the 34 percent of statewide students who are in the top two categories.

For 10th grade English language arts, 88 percent of students scored Meeting Expectations or higher in 2021, compared to 90 percent in 2019. In 10th grade math, 85 percent of students scored Meeting Expectations or higher in 2021, compared to 91 percent in 2019. These represent a slight drop when comparing 2019 to 2021. Like the elementary/middle school grades, Belmont high schoolers continue to exceed the scores of their state compatriots.

Phelan said the MCAS data will now be sent to the district’s academic directors and school principals to discuss how to utilize nearly $150,000 the district put aside to supporting students this year.

Having anticipated a likely drop in math scores in the early grades, Phelan said the district has allocated funds from its ESSR account – money sent by the federal government to school districts during the pandemic – to hire a pair of math coaches at the elementary level who will work primarily with third and fourth grade students. They also will be working at the middle school with students who need support.

Phelan said high school students will have less time to make up the drop in scores, the district will be reinforcing the skills all students have to know and be able to do before they leave Belmont High, said Phelan.

“We’ll be working with those students in those content areas moving forward,” he said.