School Committee OKs Grade Reconfiguration At Schools In 2023

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Photo: The Chenery will be seeking a new name when the new Middle and High School opens in 2023.

With construction beginning on the new Belmont Middle and High School in less than a month, Belmont School Committee voted unanimously at its Tuesday, May 21 meeting to approve changing the grade configuration at each of Belmont’s six public schools.

When the Middle and High School opens in the fall of 2023, the district will place grades K-3 in the four elementary schools, grades 4-6 at the Chenery with grades 7-12 occupying the new school building on Concord Avenue.

The recommendation came from the Reconfiguration Working Group, one of the groups formed as part of the District Configuration Education Plan.

The reasons the working group advocated the changes include:

● There is no conclusive research that one configuration is better than another; rather, the research speaks to the need to ensure smooth, positive transitions from one school to the next. In addition, the grade groupings of K-3 and 4-6 are similar developmentally while the working groups believes 5th and 6th grade students will benefit from being with a younger grade.

• The change will both free up space for other uses including additional classrooms at the five lower schools – Burbank, Butler, Wellington, Winn Brook, and Chenery – and allow the removal of the modular classrooms at the Burbank and the Chenery.

● There will be increased opportunity for teacher collaboration among 4th grade teachers, and vertically with teachers in grades 5 and 6.

One consequence of the changes will require a name change for the Chenery as it will no longer house the middle school. One suggestion that came during an earlier School Committee meeting for the new moniker is the Chenery Upper Elementary School.

Belmont joins the city of Boston in reconfiguring its school district. Boston is eliminating middle schools and creating two major grade configuration to reduce the number of times students switch schools with lower-grade schools ending after sixth or eight grade.

Thesis, Capstone, And Change At Belmont High School [Video]

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Photo: The 2019 award recipients of the Blacker Prize: (from left) Alexander Park (third place), Abigail Mohr (first place), Cameron Anderson (second place).

It’s one of the anticipated events of the school year as the Belmont High School English Department hosted the annual Lillian F. Blacker Prizes for Excellence in Writing on Wednesday, May 15, in the Peter Holland Library.

This time, there was something extra on the afternoon’s agenda: change. Prior to the ceremony was a presentation of the department’s inaugural senior English Capstone projects which will likely be what most seniors in the future will choose as their year-long endeavor in critical thinking.

“It’s going to be a big and exciting change for this community,” said Lindsey Rinder, director of English, ELE, and Reading for the Belmont Public Schools.

In the past 25 years, the capstone project has become the serves as a culminating academic and intellectual experience for students has become the standard in both upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses.

Established last year at Belmont High, the pilot program re-envisions the senior thesis as project-based learning. At the beginning of the school year, 81 students – about 30 percent of all seniors – volunteered to take part and worked closely with English teachers Anne-Marie Fant and Kimberly Masterson.

As with the traditional thesis, the capstone students were required to follow a detailed roadmap that included writing an inquiry question on a topic of their choosing, exploring the question in a variety of sources and forms, and completed a portfolio of writing to demonstrate their final thinking on the topic, as well as their intellectual curiosity, said Rinder.

But unlike the thesis which is entirely written, the capstone students employed a wide range of creative outlets to demonstrate their knowledge. Podcasts, museum installations, video documentaries, poetry collections, artworks and fashion were on display as

Rinker believes “most students will be doing a capstone project instead of a senior thesis,” with the exception of AP English students who will continue producing the traditional written thesis.

A report on the capstone program will be presented to the Belmont School Committee on Tuesday, May 21 and the committee will likely vote on Tuesday, June 4 whether to implement the change in the 2019-2020 school year.

The highlight of the evening was the presentation to three seniors for outstanding writing ability on their senior theses. Each student reads, researches, and writes a lengthy paper investigating a literary topic. English faculty members determine the winners after an extensive reading process.

The 2019 prize recipients are Abigail Mohr (first place), Cameron Anderson (second place), and Alexander Park (third place). 

  • Alexander Park
  • Cameron Anderson
  • Abigail Mohr

Abigail Mohr: The Tyrant and the Scribbler: Creative Truth-Telling in the Works of Salman Rushdie.h

Cameron Anderson: The “Supreme Vice” and the “Red, Red Rose”: The Varied Attitudes Towards Religion in the Works of Oscar Wilde.

Alexander Park: Sine Honore, Virtute, et Gloria: The Evolution in American Perceptions of its 20th Century Wars

Other notable Theses and Capstones can be viewed here.

Family and friends established the Blacker Prizes more than twenty years ago in memory of Blacker, a longtime Belmont resident who was a director of the Harvard Medical News Office and very active in community affairs as well as a true lover of literature and language, said Rinder.

Belmont High’s Performing Arts Company Ends Season With Two Improv Shows

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Photo: The Spring Improv Show will take place on Thursday and Friday

The 35 members of the Belmont High School Performing Arts Company’s Improv Troup will be taking to the Little Theater stage to close out another season of the school’s award-winning student theatrical group.

Thursday, May 23 and Friday, May 24
7 p.m. in the BHS Little Theater
FREE for Students
$5 for Adults

Come once or on each night: the improv show is guaranteed to be it’s own unique event, featuring games and scenes all made up on the spot based on audience suggestions.

The PAC Improv Troupe performs twice a year with the spring show featuring short form favorites along with long-form structures.

Blacker Senior Thesis Prizes Will Be Presented Wednesday, May 15

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Photo: Lillian Blacker

The Belmont High School English Department will present the annual Lillian F. Blacker Prizes for Excellence in Writing on Wednesday evening, May 15, at 6:30 p.m. in the Peter Holland Library at Belmont High School. This year, we will honor seniors Abigail Mohr (first place), Cameron Anderson (second place), and Alexander Park (third place) for their outstanding writing. 

Belmont residents are cordially invited to attend.

This year’s ceremony will begin with an exhibition of the creative projects produced by some of the 80 seniors who participated in the pilot Capstone Project. A dozen of those students will be presenting their work, science-fair style, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the library. If the Capstone program is adopte by the Belmont School Committee, it’s likely that most students will move towards creating projects instead of a senior thesis though AP students will still do the traditional thesis.  

Family and friends established the Blacker Prizes more than 20 years ago in memory of Lillian F. Blacker, a longtime Belmont resident who was active in community affairs and was director of the Harvard Medical News Office. She is remembered by the school and the community as a true lover of literature and language.

The Blacker Prizes are presented each year to three seniors for outstanding writing ability on their senior theses.  Each senior reads, researches, and writes a lengthy thesis paper investigating a literary topic. English faculty members determine the winners after an extensive reading process.

At the awards ceremony, the three Blacker Prize winners will read from their papers and discuss the evolution of their ideas. A panel of seniors will discuss their topics and the senior thesis process. Teachers, parents, administrators, and friends are invited. Underclassmen are encouraged to attend the ceremony to learn more about the senior thesis process. Refreshments will be served.

Belmont High’s Empress: Class Of ’81 Alum Graduates to Chrysanthemum Throne

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Photo: Empress Mask, Belmont High School, Class of 1981.

Some high schools can boast of their alums who have become pro athletes, pop singers or movie stars while others point to those who run high tech start ups or prize winning eateries.

At Belmont High, the most noted graduate is part of royalty. Not the Hollywood type of nobility (aka Kardashians) or someone from a tiny island principality. In Belmont, that grad is a proper empress.

Belmont High School alumna Masako Owada, 55, became the Empress of Japan on Tuesday, April 30.

A member of the graduating class of 1981, Owada – who was named Masako, Crown Princess of Japan, when she married Crown Prince Naruhito in 1993 – became empress with the abdication of Naruhito’s father, 83-year-old Emperor Akihito who is stepping down from theChrysanthemum Throne.

Owada’s journey to Belmont was not that uncommon for a child of a diplomat as her father, Hisashi Owada, was sent by the Japanese government to Moscow and New York before coming to Massachusetts as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School for two years.

Living a stone’s throw from Habitat on Juniper Street with her parents and younger twin sisters, Owada spent her junior and senior years at the Concord Avenue school where she was a member of the French Club and Math team. After graduation, Owada didn’t travel far for college, attending Harvard. 

Belmont and Owada would next intersect in 1993 when her engagement to Akihito’s eldest son was announced. A short blast of interest in Owada’s former hometown from Japanese tourists occurred only to subside just as quickly. 

The next question is if Empress Masako will be attending her next high school reunion, her 40th, in 2021.

Schools Budget Tops $60M In Fiscal ’20, Up 6.4 Percent

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Photo: Belmont Schools budget has increased by 40 percent in the past five years.

With some tweaks here and there still to come, the Belmont School Committee was presented with the coming fiscal year’s district budget at its meeting on Tuesday, April 23.

And fiscal 2020 will see the final number breach the $60 million barrier as the total FY ’20 budget will increase 6.4 percent to top off at $60.6 million, according to District Superintendent John Phelan.

The figure is no surprise to the team creating this year’s “town-wide” budget, which projected earlier this year the schools would come in at $61 million. The total town ’20 budget is forecast to reach $129 million, nearly 12 percent over fiscal 2019, with capital (up 52 percent) and fixed costs (42 percent) skyrocketing.

In the past five years, the schools budget has jumped 40 percent from $43.6 million in fiscal ’15.

Phelan said the schools budget is made up of three parts. The roll-forward section which is made up of existing staff and contractual increases is by far the largest of the three. In fiscal ’20, it increases by 3.5 percent from $56.99 million to $58.98 million.

The segment for strategic plan costs, expenses to maintain Belmont’s strong educational core, came in at $880,500, a 1.6 percent increase. The money will be used to keep student fees stable and increase the number of teachers and staff by 3.6 positions:

  • increase guidance counselors by 1.4 positions so each elementary school will a full-time counselor,
  • add .4 percent of a position to add a middle school foreign language teacher, a high school teacher and an assistant principal at the high school, and
  • create a district-wide English Language Learner Program Director.

Finally, there are out of the district cost divers. One area is a town-wide health insurance increase of eight percent as well as jumps in Special Education tuitions, transportation and services, rising expenses by $786,000.

The schools budget will be presented to the annual Town Meeting for approval in June during the second session of the meeting.

meant to keep K

And The Name Of The New School Building Is …

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Photo: Finally, a name with the face.

Starting with 17 and then whittling the list down to three finalists, the Belmont School Committee unanimously selected a name to place on the $295 million 7-12 school building on Concord Avenue.

And that name is …

Belmont Middle and High School.

The final decision was made at the School Committee’s April 23 meeting as the school district faced a May 1 deadline by the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to have a name ready for next month’s groundbreaking.

The three final names – the other two are Belmont Middle-High School and Belmont Middle High School – selected by the School Committee earlier this month were presented to students and staff and teachers in an online survey over the spring recess.

But according to Assistant Superintendent Janice Darias, a software glitch prevented the results of the students survey to be compiled, leaving only the adults counted.

Out of 159 responses tallied, the clear favorite was the straight forward Middle and High School, garnering nearly three-quarters of those who participated.

While how the students voted is likely to remain in internet purgatory, Lilah Isenberg, a Belmont High sophomore who was the student body’s representative at the meeting, said she believed that most of the students “voted the same way as the teachers did.”

“[The students} think that having the ‘and’ gives more clear that it is a middle and a high school,” said Isenberg.

Belmont School Superintendent John Phelan reiterated a point he made at earlier meetings that students will continue to graduate from “Belmont High School” whatever the name of the school was selected.

“[The new name] is how we will find the building” while maintaining separate schools within the structure.

With the “Middle School” moniker soon to be placed on the new building, a question arose on the future name of the Chenery Middle School.

“I will say out loud that the [Chenery] will no longer be a middle school,” said Phelan, suggesting under the future district configuration of having the town’s four elementary schools housing kindergarten through third grade and the middle school building with fourth through six grades, the school could become an “upper elementary school.”

Long Time Wayland Educator Selected As Next Wellington Principal

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Photo: Dr. Heidi Paisner-Roffman (YouTube)

The Wellington Elementry School has its principal as Dr. Heidi Paisner-Roffman accepted an offer with the Belmont School District, according to a district press release on April 1.

What’s In A Name? Plenty As New School Building To Get A Moniker

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Photo: Could this be the new Hogwarts School, Belmont Campus? 

With groundbreaking for the new 7-12 grade school building just 10 weeks away, there’s one thing still missing from the $295 million project.

What’s it called? And like a newborn, you need to get it right off the bat as you’re not getting a second chance. 

Belmont Superintendent John Phelan told the Belmont School Committee on Tuesday, March 26, the Belmont High Building Committee will accept a name from the Policy Subcommittee for the building by May 1 with students and teachers being asked over the next week to contribute to the list of names and assist in whittling down the hopefuls to a handful.

Collecting and coordinating the naming effort are Belmont High Building Committee members Chenery Principal McAllister and Belmont High educator Jamie Shea.

With the countdown starting for when the five-year project commences in late May, Phelan said the Massachusetts School Building Authority – which partnered with the School District in building the new school – knowing that signage and written material will need to be ready by groundbreaking gave the Building Committee “complete permission” to come up with a name that “we would be moving forward.”

After Belmont High sophomore Grace Kane asked if the name change would be effective on May 1, Phelan said “out of respect” for the students at the current school will continue attending “Belmont High School” for the remainder of their schooling.

Phelan read out the names that have been collected over the past two years from teachers, students, and resident in visioning sessions held early in the design process.

The current list includes:

  • Belmont High School
  • Belmont Middle/High schools
  • Belmont High School Upper School/Lower School
  • Belmont High School, Lower Division/Upper Division
  • Belmont Secondary School, Upper school/Lower school
  • Belmont 7-12 School, Upper School/Lower School
  • Belmont High School Academy/Belmont Junior Academy
  • Belmont Academy Upper School/Lower School
  • Belmont Academies
  • Belmont Junior/Senior High schools

“They all revolve around trying to capture that Belmont High should be part of the branding but also with the full acknowledgment that we have a middle school that will now accompany the school,” said Phelan. A name should provide “middle school students a name of their own to call where they go to school,” he noted. 

There are examples of how school districts named buildings that house more than the traditional 9-12 grade arrangement. The town of Lee has “Lee Middle and High School.” Carver, located way far away, named its school “Carver Middle High School,” West Bridgewater has a brand new 7-12 “Middle-Senior High School” and the communities of Dennis and Yarmouth is known as “Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School.”

Thinking out of the box, the town of Easton named its high school after the son of the shovel magnate Oliver Ames and Westford kept “Academy” to its high school as it was a private school until the 1920s. 

And why not HSS Academy? Constance Billard-St.Judes School? North Shore High School? And, of course, there’s Hogwarts School, Belmont Campus.

As for Phelan?

“It’ll probably be Belmont High School,” he said to the committee.

Feed Me, Seymour! Belmont High Presents ‘Little Shop Of Horrors’ March 21-23

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Photo: Poster for this year’s musicial, Little Shop of Horrors

Don’t feed the plant!

For its spring musical, Belmont High School Performing Arts Company presents “Little Shop of Horrors” produced and directed by Ezra Flam.

Performances will take place on:

  • Thursday, March 21 and Friday, March 22 at 7 p.m. and
  • Saturday, March 23 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Tickets:

  • ADULTS: $15 in advance, $18 at the door
  • CHILDREN/STUDENTS: $10 ($5 tickets for high school students for the Thurusday Mar. 21 show)

Tickets on sale at bhs-pac.org and at Champions in Belmont Center

All performances will be in the Belmont High School auditorium.

An off-Broadway hit 35 years ago which was turned into a cult-favorite rock/horror/comedy film, “Little Shop” has become a contemporary musical theater classic. The show featured a catchy score inspired by 60’s rock, doo-wop and Motown, written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, the duo responsible for “Beauty & the Beast,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin.”

The show features a giant, talking plant puppet – operated by three students – a chorus of singing and dancing street Urchins and a crowd-pleasing score, including “Suddenly Seymour,” “Somewhere That’s Green,” the Dentist’s over-the-top rock song (made famous in the movie by Steve Martin) and more.

The big test that faced producer and director Ezra Flam was taking a show that orginiated on a cramped stage Off-Off-Broadway and ramp it up to include a cast of thousands (well, nearly 100.)

“One of the fun challenges of this show has been expanding a show that traditionally has a small cast of nine performers, to work for our cast of almost 90,” he said.

“We have widened to world of the show, expanding the trio of street urchins to ten, adding a group of dancers who serve as a bridge between the gritty world of Skid Row and the fantasy of a glamorous life Seymour finds himself in, and filling out the world of Skid Row. Every character in the show has some part in pushing Seymour down his dark path, culminating in a huge finale song ‘Don’t Feed the Plants’ that is sure to be a crowd-pleaser.” said Flam.

“This production showcases what the Performing Arts Company does best: give our actors and stage crew the chance to learn about theater by creating a fully realized production,” Flam noted.

“The set will bring the world of Skid Row to life, and then open up to reveal the inside of the flower show; the costumes capture a colorful 1960s aesthetic; as always, the singing and dancing are sure to be a highlight of the show, especially with incredibly fun songs serving as a creative springboard, and a Pit Orchestra made up of mostly of students, under the direction of Arto Asadoorian.”