Asst. Belmont High Principal, Former Melrose Educator Named High School Interim Principal

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Photo: Thomas L. Brow.

The Belmont School District has appointed Thomas L. Brow as the interim Principal of Belmont High School for the coming 2018-2019 school year. Brow currently serves as a part-time assistant principal at Belmont High. 

“We are delighted that Tom has agreed to serve as Interim Principal of Belmont High School for the 2018-2019 school year,” read the press release issued by Mary Pederson, director of Human Resources for the district.

“The depth of his professional experience and his familiarity with the district, specifically with Belmont High School will serve the students and staff well in the coming year. We look forward to welcoming Tom to this new role on July 1, 2018.”

Brow has been working in the Belmont schools since retiring from the Melrose school system in 2015, first as interim assistant principal of Chenery Middle School, then as an interim assistant principal of Belmont High School, and as an instructional leadership coach in the district.

“[Brow] has had a long and distinguished career in education, serving in multiple roles within the Melrose Public Schools over [32] years, including the principal of the middle school for [17] years,” said Pederson.

During his tenure in Melrose, Brow served as interim principal of Melrose High School for one year. Including his times as a principal, Brow served as middle school assistant principal, chair of the social studies department, and social studies teacher. 

Peterson said Brow “has received numerous awards and distinctions and has made a significant contribution to the field of education. During his tenure in Melrose, Tom led multiple school building projects and expansion initiatives.”

Four In Running To Fill Vacant School Committee Seat

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Photo:

Four residents have submitted letters of interest in filling the vacant slot on the Belmont School Committee when Tom Caputo became a member of the Belmont Board of Selectmen in April.

A joint meeting of the Board of Selectmen and School Committee will interview the candidates and select one of the four to join the committee. The meeting takes place on Friday, May 11 at 8:30 a.m. in Town Hall.

The residents on the short list to complete the two years remaining in Caputo’s term are:

  • Mary Boomhower
  • Sarabinh Levy-Brightman
  • Michael Crowley
  • Jill Norton

Below are very brief profiles of the four:

Boomhower has lived on Cutter Street (which is off Beech Street in the PQ neighborhood) for the past three years. Boomhower is not a member of any town committee or board. 

Levy-Brightman resides on Bow Street near the Burbank School. She taught American and world history at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School before heading to the Harvard Divinity School to become the Coordinator for the Religious Literacy and the Professions Initiative.

Crowley is a member and current secretary of the Warrant Committee, the Town Meeting’s financial watchdog. He’s currently a Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. He spent 10 years at the Office of Management and Budget in DC. He lives on Farnham Street.

Norton, the director of education policy at Cambridge-based Abt Associates, and previously a senior policy adviser for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Education, finished third for the two available seats on the School Committee in April’s election. She lives on Clark Street.

Take A Virtual Tour Of New High School Tuesday; Project’s Construction Firm Will Be Picked

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Photo: There will be a virtuality reality tour of the new school.

Residents don’t have to wait five years before taking a tour around a new Belmont High School as they are invited to view a virtual reality presentation of the interior of the proposed building housing 7th through 12th grades as the Belmont High School Building Committee holds a joint meeting with the School Committee at the large community room of the Chenery Middle School, 95 Washington St., on Tuesday, May 8 at 7 p.m.

Also on the agenda will be the selection of the firm to be the project’s Construction Manager. Gilbane Building Co., Skanska, and Suffolk Construction are in the running for the nearly $300 million project.

The night will also include a site design update, discussion of traffic and community comments.

The next community meeting is Wednesday, May 16, at 7 p.m. when traffic solutions will be discussed. The meeting takes place at the Wellington Elementary School cafeteria.

Foundation Honors 2018 Outstanding Teachers May 1 At The Chenery

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Photo: Brian Dunn, the 2018 S. Warren Farrell Award Honoree.

A ceremony to honor the Foundation for Belmont Education’s recipients of the 2018 Outstanding Teacher and the S. Warren Farrell Awards will be held on this afternoon, Tuesday, May 1, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Chenery Middle School. The award celebration, sponsored by Belmont Savings Bank Foundation, is open to the public.

The teachers, who were selected among nominations submitted by students, parents, colleagues, and community members, were recognized for their excellence in the classroom and for consistently making a difference in the lives of Belmont’s students. The S. Warren Farrell Award for Educational Excellence recognizes a teacher for longstanding dedication and leadership in Belmont’s public schools.

The teachers were informed of their awards with surprise visits in their classrooms on Friday April  from Superintendent John Phelan and FBE President Christa Bauge.

The honorees include:

  • Colleen Cox, Burbank Elementary School, Kindergarten “Learning, discovery and experimentation are sources of joy in her classroom – much more valued than showing what you know or meeting arbitrary standards.”
  • Erin Gillies-Thibeault, Winn Brook Elementary School, Grade 1 “Ms. Gillies-Thibeault instills in her students the importance of trying hard, putting forth full effort, and not being afraid to make mistakes.”
  • Denise LaPolla, Chenery Middle School, Special Education “Denise LaPolla is the epitome of what excellent teaching must be in our world today. It is because of her support, her warmth, and her care for each individual that she is able to promote an atmosphere where a student is driven to learn and to achieve.”
  • Catherine Larkin, Belmont High School, Fine Arts, Ceramics “Ms. Larkin makes every student feel like they have worth and that their individual creativity is remarkable.”
  • Ted Trodden, Butler Elementary School, Physical Education “Mr. Trodden is anything but typical, he’s exceptional. Not many teachers have an impact on every child at a school, but Mr. Trodden has a positive influence on every Butler kid.”
  • Christina Westfall, Wellington Elementary School, Grade 4 “In a large classroom she is able to treat each child as an individual learner and recognize the talents and aptitudes of each.”

The 2018 S. Warren Farrell Award Honoree is Brian Dunn, Belmont High School, Foreign Language, Latin and longtime Girls’ Cross Country and Track coach. “My child would come home and tell me about thoughtful conversations that would begin with Latin, but would grow in magnitude to something bigger – how to treat people, how to be ambitious, how you must try something you’re afraid of or you won’t have the joys that only challenges can bring.”

For more information about this event or the Foundation for Belmont Education, please visit www.fbe-belmont.org or contact ota@fbe-belmont.org.

Belmont Youth Hockey Scores On Proposed New Rink Along Concord Avenue

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Photo: An overview of the proposed new Belmont Youth Hockey rink along Concord Avenue.

They patiently sat on the bench for the past two-and-a-half years since it last was action, but on Tuesday, April 24, Belmont Youth Hockey jumped over the boards to reintroduce itself to the community and the Belmont School Committee with its vision of a new skating rink for Belmont.

The structure will be a sleek single-story rink/recreation center located on Concord Avenue across from the Underwood Pools, creating with a new high school and public library a new community hub for Belmont, according to Belmont Youth Hockey representative Robert Mulroy who, along with Ara Krafian, CEO of Cambridge-based SMMA |Architects who created preliminary drawings of a new rink, who presented the plans to the School Committee.

If all goes to plan, the new rink/center could be up and running by 2020 before major construction begins on the new Belmont High School.

To make the whole thing work, the youth hockey organization is proposing a public/private partnership with the school committee and town which will allow the non-profit to take school property in a 30-year lease at zero cost with the stipulation Belmont High sports teams will have a set number of hours reserved for games and practices. That partnership agreement will need to pass muster from the school committee and Town Meeting.

A new rink that will not need significant public funding will be a small but significant capital expense removed from the town’s significant “wish list” of large projects that Belmont faces paying for which includes as new Police Headquarters, Department of Public Works facility and public library.

While reluctant to say how much the new center will cost as construction expenses have markedly increased, Mulroy quoted a price tag of $6.5 million in 2015. The construction of the new rink – which will require the demolition of both the White Field House and the Viglirolo rink, known as “The Skip”, which was built in the 1970s.

School committee members did raise questions on the impact of traffic along Concord Avenue with a brand new facility and high school just a few hundred feet from other., But Mulroy believes the nearly 180 new parking spaces and traffic pattern changes associated with a new High School project will alleviate the current demand of on-street parking on main and side streets created by the existing rink and vehicle congestion created by those seeking parking. 

Belmont Superintendent John Phelan said youth hockey was asked by the district and school committee to wait to present its proposal until the “footprint” of the new High School was determined, so not to create any interference with the design and location of the 7th to 12th-grade building.

The need for a new rink is evident once anyone enters “The Skip” which is the current home of Belmont Youth Hockey and the Belmont High teams. Built more than 40 years ago, the once open rink has one wall of corrugated steel open to the elements. (Once, a visitor from Calgary, Canada who attended a nephew’s game at “The Skip” on one bitter January night, said he had been in warmer outdoor arenas in his hometown than indoors in Belmont). The mechanical infrastructure is on “death’s door,” said Mulroy. 

“It’s not how long until there is a catastrophic failure. It’s that it will happen,” said Mulroy, whose league currently purchases three-quarters of all rental time at the rink. “But we have the capacity for a lot more,” he said.

A new rink comes as the youth hockey program has seen increased growth in participation and teams – eight developmental programs and 22 competitive traveling teams for boys and girls from 4 to 18 – in the program which started 47 years ago.

The rink/rec center would be located on school property facing Concord Avenue on the parking outcrop between the White Field House and the Mobil service station across from the Underwood Pool. It will be a short walk from Harris Field and will allow for a softball field and soccer/lacrosse pitch to be located in the rear.

The key points of a new Concord Avenue facility include:

  • A 6,500 square foot multi-use athletic/recreation center.
  • A year-round NHL-size rink with above the ice seating and a “half” rink, both can be used for ice hockey, public skating, figure skating, sled hockey and curling.
  • A field house for half the year (where the half-rink is located) for indoor tennis, concerts and a practice facility for baseball, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, and rock climbing.
  • A running/walking track above the field house.
  • 180 parking spaces that can be used by pool patrons and a drop-off area at the rink’s entrance.
  • Eight new locker rooms that can be utilized by teams playing on nearby Harris Field.
  • A team or community meeting room for public meetings or continued learning classes.
  • Exercise/health room for yoga and exercise.
  • Food concession stand.
  • A skate shop

The facility will be funded with a private 30-year loan which requires the school committee to lease the land at no cost to the non-profit, with an agreement that Belmont High’s Boys and Girls ice hockey teams will have a specific number of hours dedicated to practice and games. Phelan pointed out with a rink, the school department would need to allocate more than $100,000 a year on rental fees at other rinks and bus transportation.

Public-private arrangements are fairly common, said Mulroy, including for recreational facilities pointing to a pair of nearby examples: the Beede Pool and Gym in Concord and the Wellesley Sports Complex which will open later this year. 

The rink will be run by a professional management company. At the end of the 30 years, the town will have the opportunity to take possession of the facility or allow the existing management contract to continue under a new agreement. 

The Youth Hockey Association has been discussing an alternative location for the rink at the former incinerator on Concord Avenue at the Lexington/Belmont line. It would be an 80,000 sq.-ft. complex with two full ice surfaces and parking. While the association has been in discussions with officials and town counsel exploring the feasibility of the town-owned location, Mulroy said the clear first option for youth hockey is the high school site.

Mulroy said the next steps will be gathering feedback from the School committee and residents before seeking support from both the committee and Town Meeting to move forward. Once it gets the initial OK, Youth Hockey will release a Request for Proposal to build the facility and finalize the lease agreement. Afterward, the final designs will be done and the financing will be secured. The final step is to go back to the School Committee and Town Meeting for final approval of the lease deal. 

Sophomore Shows The Way To Become A Belmont Idol [VIDEO]

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Photo: Mia Hallet, winner of Belmont Idol 2018.

For Mia Hallet, being up on stage performing is “where I’m supposed to be.” 

The Belmont High School sophomore proved that statement was on point as she wowed the audience and judges at Belmont Idol 2018 to walk away with the title on Friday, April 6. 

The dance ensemble Dance the Music made up of Yolei Chen, Dinara Mardanova, Kamila Mardanova and Nitya Sharma placed second with three-time contestant Krasma (Stefan Ingesias, Eamon O’Connor, Andrea Russi) coming in third. 

Performing solo accompanied by her gorgeous orange-stained Gretsch Electromatic Hollowbody guitar, the long-time singer let loose a rendition of BØRNS’ “Electric Love” to the receptive audience in the High School’s auditorium and three judges made up of local professional musicians.

With a father was in a band in his younger days and she has been singing since elementary school, Hallet first picked up the guitar two years ago with the idea of playing first before her classmates and then a wider audience. 

“My goal is to perform on stage, to make a living as an artist,” she said. “And this is a step towards that.”

New Belmont School Committee Meets … And Needs One More Member

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Photo: The new School Committee: (from left) Lisa Fiore, Andrea Prestwich, Susan Burgess-Cox, Tara Donner and Catherine Bowen. 

The first meeting of the newly-constituted Belmont School Committee after the town’s election on April 3, was quick – just a little bit more than a half-hour long – as the committee’s big vote was to select its new leader.

For the next year, Susan Burgess-Cox, who won re-election for another three-year term in last week’s election, was unanimously selected committee chair by the five members. She succeeds Lisa Fiore who takes on a one-year term on the board. The committee also welcomed newcomer Tara Donner, who was elected to the other three-year seat. They join Andrea Prestwich and Catherine Bowen on the committee.

Yet there is unfinished business on the committee; namely, it’s missing one member. With Tom Caputo’s election to the Board of Selectmen, the committee has an unfilled slot for the remainder of Caputo’s term, ending April 2019. To rectify the empty seat, the committee will fill the position by an appointee chosen jointly by the School Committee and the Board of Selectmen.

Anyone interested in filling this vacancy can submit a letter of interest to Cathy Grant in the Superintendent’s office by Thursday, May 3 at 4 p.m. via email to cgrant@belmont.k12.ma.us or U.S. mail to Cathy Grant c/o Belmont Public Schools, 644 Pleasant St.

The two boards will meet jointly on Friday, May 11 at 8:30 a.m. in the Board of Selectmen’s meeting room in Town Hall to interview applicants and to vote to appoint the new member of the School Committee.

Rinse, Repeat: Belmont High’s Principal Search Back To Square 1 With Interim Head For Next Year

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Photo: Belmont High School

They got the candidates they were looking for but like the belle of the ball, everyone wanted to dance with Jonathan Bourn to Belmont’s chagrin. 

While Wellington Elementary has found the right person to lead the school, the search for the educator to succeed Dr. Dan Richards at the helm of Belmont High School – and lead it possibly into its new building in 2022 – goes back to square one as Bourn, the current principal of Norwood High School since 2015 and sole candidate selected by the search committee turned out to be a popular candidate for many communities other than just Belmont. With a good reputation as a youngish educator who can connect with staff and students (but who also rubbed some school committee members the wrong way when he pushed and succeeded to move the school from the Bay State to the Tri-Valley athletic conference), Bourn was sought after to become high school principal in both Medway and Braintree, where he was the only candidate selected from 25 finalists.

Something was amiss when Mary Pederson, the district director of human resources, sent an email on Tuesday, April 10 an “update … on the status” of the high school principal’s search rather than an announcement on a new hire in the opening paragraph.  

Bourn, who resigned as principal of Norwood High School in mid-March, met with Belmont High students, staff, parents and administrators on April 2. But despite passing over a number of qualified candidates to only go forward with Bourn, Pederson said, “after a thorough review and thoughtful consideration of all information gathered through this rigorous process, the decision has been made not to move forward with Mr. Bourn as the next Principal of BHS.”

Coincidently, Braintree announced on Tuesday, April 10 that it would be reopening its search for a new principal as Bourn would not be coming to the South Shore town. Bourn is one of three candidates for the Medway position, which is close to his Walpole home. 

With the ability to hire a principal to manage a highly successful program before the new school year all but nil, Belmont District Superintendent John Phelan is starting a two-pronged approach to run the school. The first is redo a full-fledged candidate search beginning early in the coming school year in the fall of 2018.

But with the reality that Belmont High will not have a permanent leader on board until July 2019 at the earliest, Phelan will appoint by June 1 an interim principal for the 2018-2019 school year from the ranks of retired principals, an internal candidate, or other qualified educational leaders. While interim leaders are in the unenviable position of being a short-term fill in, one needs only look at Belmont’s last interim head, superintendent Dr. Thomas Kingston, whose three-year tenure was celebrated as bringing stability and professionalism to the district. 

Somerville’s Franke Selected Next Wellington Principal

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Photo: Allison Franke (Linkedin)

Wellington Elementary has found its new principal.

“I am happy to announce that Allison “Alli” Franke has accepted the position of Principal of the Wellington Elementary School. Her work in the District will begin on July 1,” said Mary Pederson, the district’s director of human resources. 

Franke takes the school’s reins from Amy Spangler, who left after five years at the school.

Franke is an assistant principal of Somerville’s Capuano Early Education Center, a pre-K, and Kindergarten school, for nearly four years, after working for four years as a literacy specialist at the Franklin Elementary School in West Newton. She’s held numerous posts in and out of elementary education – including two years as a teacher at Boston Renaissance Charter Public School – after starting her career as a kindergarten and second-grade teacher in the Los Angeles schools for nearly four years beginning in 1998.

A DC native, Franke graduated with a computer science degree from Amherst, earned an Ed.M in Language and Literacy from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, and a masters in organizational management from Endicott. 

Three Finalist Up For Wellington Elementary Principal Post

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Photo: Wellington Elementary School.

They have met with teachers and staff, a parents group and administrators. And the selection of the next principal of the Roger Wellington Elementary School is in the home stretch with one of three candidates to be selected to take the reins from Amy Spangler, who left after five years at the school. The finalists will soon meet with Belmont Superintendent John Phelan who will make the final decision in the next few weeks. 

The three finalists are:

  • Martha Wiley of Oxford
  • Jody Day Klein of Newton
  • Allison Franke of Somerville

Wiley is the principal of the Clara Barton Elementary School which is part of the Oxford Public Schools. Wiley has been leading the 3rd- through 4th-grade school since July 2016. She came to her current position in central Massachusetts from the Fitchburg public schools where she spent nearly five years as assistant principal of the K-4 Reingold Elementary. For 17 years, she was an elementary school teacher in the Northborough district.

Wiley has a B.S. in Elementary Education from the University of Colorado at Boulder, an M.A. in Elementary and Middle School Education from Cambridge College and an Educational Specialist degree from Bay Path College.

Klein has been the interim principal of Newton’s Lincoln-Eliot School for nearly two years, after spending a decade as the director of English Language Learning in the Newton School District. She started in Newton as the World Languages Coordinator. Klein is a Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) Administrator Trainer for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. She also works with Research for Better Teaching and is an instructor of Studying Skillful Teacher. 

Klein received her B.A. from Washington DC’s American University, her M.Ed. from Boston University, and a C.A.G.S. in School Administration from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Franke is an assistant principal of Somerville’s Capuano Early Education Center, a pre-K, and Kindergarten school, for nearly four years, after working for four years as a literacy specialist at the Franklin Elementary School in West Newton. She’s held numerous posts in and out of elementary education after starting her career as a kindergarten and second-grade teacher in the Los Angeles schools for nearly four years. 

A DC native, Franke graduated with a computer science degree from Amherst, earned an Ed.M in Language and Literacy from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, and a masters in organizational management from Endicott.