There will be a CANDIDATES NIGHT on Tuesday, February 16, 2016,
at the Northwood Town Hall. It will begin at 7:00 PM.
This will be an opportunity for all voters and interested people
to meet those running for Northwood offices in the March
elections. It will be moderated by former Moderator Robbie
Robertson and all candidates will have an opportunity to speak
briefly and answer questions from the audience. This event
is sponsored by the Friends of the Northwood Library and the
Harvey Lake Woman’s Club.
Congratulations to NHTI Women’s Soccer
player, Emily Blad, of Northwood who has been named to the 2015
YSCC Fall All-Academic Team by the conference office. To be
honored, an individual must have achieved a grade point average
of at least 3.2 for the fall semester and completed. Athletes
recognized must have completed their season of competition in
the fall semester.
CBNA To Offer College Credit For
Entrepreneurship
Dr. JoAnn Zylak, a faculty member at Coe-Brown Northwood
Academy, has successfully completed the BizInnovator Teacher
Certification and is now able to offer high school juniors and
seniors University of Iowa college credit for completing the
Entrepreneurship course, which can be transferred to other
secondary educational institutions as necessary.
Developed by the Jacobson Institute
for Youth Entrepreneurship at the University of Iowa,
BizInnovator is a comprehensive online entrepreneurship
curriculum that enables educators to teach the entrepreneurial
mindset, encouraging creativity, innovation, critical thinking,
and problem solving—and also to prepare students for success in
their chosen career path.
This program is a key element in our initiative to promote
Entrepreneurship to students at the local, state and national
level. The University of Iowa tuition fee (over $1,000 value)
has been waived and students simply pay a course fee of $150.
The program is ideal for students who have a passion to pave new
paths, create new things or solve problems. The Entrepreneurship
course and Innovation software provides students with a
framework to apply these interests to the world of business.
Local economies depend on an ongoing creation of successful new
businesses. BizInnovator is a proven curriculum to provide
our youth and young adults with the knowledge and confidence to
be innovators for our community.
Another top priority is to boost student interest and
achievement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics
(STEM). The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that
jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) will
grow 17 percent by 2018—nearly double the growth for non-STEM
fields. By 2018, the U.S. will have more than 1.2 million
unfilled STEM jobs because there will not be enough qualified
workers to fill them. STEM is where jobs are today and where the
job growth will be in the future.
BizInnovator compliments the STEM
initiative, giving students the know-how to take achievements in
STEM to market.
For more information about BizInnovator, please visit
www.bizinnovator.com. Students seeking information about
registering for the next Entrepreneurship course at CBNA, should
see their Guidance Counselors or email Dr. Zylak for more
information at [email protected].
Letter To The Editor
To the Editor,
DEATH AND TAXES. I see in the paper
today that Jeanne Shaheen says the “attacks” on Planned
Parenthood should stop. I submit if she wants to talk
informatively about attacks, she should visit a Planned
Parenthood office as an unborn fetus. Oh! I’m sorry, was that
not politically correct?
Property taxes have been a big topic
for discussion this year. Complicated. I received a call from a
gentlemen on Lucas Pond thanking me for his lower taxes. Then
the calls started coming in from those on Northwood Lake whose
taxes skyrocketed. Every five years, by law, we have to
re-evaluate your property. That is based on numerous data such
as sales around you and the cost of building materials. Home
values by and large went up, land went down. But people are not
buying and building in Northwood, the overall town value is down
3%, therefore the tax rate per thousand value of your property
went up.
A similar issue impacts the school.
Clearly our school population is way down, about a hundred
students and sinking. We get grant money from the state based on
the number of students, some special education students and
other data. That is way down.
So, if the budgets stay the same but
we get less help from the state, there are fewer to spread the
load to, then your taxes are going to go up. What to do, what to
do. It is really easy to say, be more attractive with a better
school, improve the towns infrastructure, be fair to people and
businesses wanting to move here and work to improve things.
Tim Jandebeur
Northwood
Letter To The Editor
Northwood Children Need Your Support
Northwood children need your support
for full day Kindergarten. As a school that ranks 122nd out of
198th in the state of NH, we owe it to our children to make
progressive changes to help prepare them for their academic
experience at Northwood School and beyond.
Research continually confirms that
full day kindergarten leads to academic and social benefits
throughout primary school. These benefits include social and
emotional stability regarding willingness to approach the
teacher, and less display of frustrations such as anger and
shyness.
Full day kindergarten is not an agenda
to overwhelm our youngest students with common core curriculum;
it’s quite the opposite. It gives flexibility for more movement,
creativity, small group interactions, and increased social time
between peers while allowing the children to absorb the routine
and social dynamics of a classroom before the more challenging
curriculum of 1st grade and beyond.
I sincerely hope the town can come
together and put our children first. We need to give the future
generation an opportunity to be prepared for first grade and
beyond; socially, emotionally, and academically. Our children
deserve a full day kindergarten program where the teachers and
students have enough time in the day to master the social and
behavioral dynamics of the classroom, with a developmentally
appropriate pace and environment to foster a love of learning.
Sincerely,
Shirley Glennon
Letter To The Editor
The Case for Full-day K
I want to thank Tim Jandebeur and Mike
Faiella for making the case for expanding our current half-day
kindergarten program into a full-day program in their letters to
The Sun last week.
Tim made the case that the half-day
program is not very effective, and has as much as said that it
is no better that no kindergarten at all.
While I would not agree with the
latter assertion, knowing that a statistical analysis of the
data would be inconclusive at best and misleading at worst, I
would agree that the half-day program is not as effective as a
full-day program would be.
Mike, on the other hand, cautions
against the demands for academic achievement driving out play
and creative activities. This, of course, is more likely to
happen when children have only a half-day program.
Writing in the journal of the National
Association of School Psychologists, Dr. Mary Ann Roth writes:
“Small group and individualized teacher-directed activities, as
well as child-initiated activities, are essential to successful
kindergarten programs. High quality programs recognize the
importance of play and view teachers as facilitators of
learning.”
She concludes, “The focus of the
classroom is on the development of the whole child, not just
academic readiness.”
This approach is reflected in the
curriculum developed for Oyster River’s full-day program that I
presented in my last letter. And I’m sure that Northwood School
will follow their lead.
Let’s vote to give them the resources
they need. Like justice, education delayed is education denied.
Tom Chase
Northwood
Corporal Preve, with K9 Thor, accepts a check for $1000.00 for
the Northwood Police K9 program donated by the Northwood
Bean Hole Bash Committee. Presenting the check for the committee
are President Greg Bane, right and Vice-President Mike Smith,
center.
Letter To The Editor
Settled Science?
Are the benefits of all-day
kindergarten really settled science, as some would maintain? As
Northwood citizens prepare to vote on switching our handful of
kindergartners from part-time to full-time, maybe we should see
how a more ambitious effort has fared.
Some 250,000 Ontario preschoolers have recently made such
a transition. Maclean’s, a leading Canadian newsweekly, reported
on this “vast experiment in early-childhood education” in two
articles: “Why full-day kindergarten doesn’t work,” and
“Full-day kindergarten is failing our children.” Both are
readily available online.
Maclean’s cites a number of previous
studies in the US indicating that full-day academic preschools
don’t produce lasting results but may indeed cause harm. Then
the magazine gives its conclusions about the Ontario program,
based on the official government report.
Some excerpts:
“Early intervention can improve school
readiness for disadvantaged children. For everyone else,
however, the Ontario results ranged from negligible to abysmal.”
“The results for many were lower than
if they’d stayed in the old half-day system. This aligns with
complaints that full-day programs impede the social and
emotional development of some children by removing them from
familial care too early.”
“Special-needs kids did particularly
poorly.”
“Even those gains identified for some
kids are likely to be temporary, a phenomenon that’s been
identified in numerous other studies. Any positive academic
effects arising from full-day kindergarten are largely gone by
the end of Grade 1.”
“Full-day kindergarten does nothing to
permanently improve academic performance. It may stunt the
emotional and social development of many kids.”
“It appears that Ontario’s
$1.5-billion-a-year full-day kindergarten experiment is a grave
disappointment, from both pedagogical and financial
perspectives.”
“It defies common sense and financial
reality to provide this to all families on a universal basis.”
On March 8th we decide whether to
conduct our own experiment in Northwood.
Michael Faiella
Northwood
Letter To The Editor
Woebegone Thinking
I hate to pick on someone just because he always wants to spend
taxpayers money on ill thought out projects. Well, maybe I
don’t. I and others have already pointed out in the limited
space here the foibles of kindergarten AS IT IS PERPETRATED IN
THIS AND OTHER COMMUNITIES. The over hyped miracle that is
claimed will happen is by the same people that have no
demonstrable interest in fixing the following 8 years after
kindergarten. This is an ongoing fact reaching back decades. Why
is it that only kindergartners matter? What about the other
children?
Tom Chase and others seem not to care
about all the “gaps” he postulates ignoring the over $20,000 for
each student we spend now in our relatively modest means
community. Setting aside his misapplication of the “famous” bell
curve, he makes up “levels” to suit his imagination. If in fact
anyone is concerned about the “disservice” we do to the children
there would be a h...ll of a lot more effort being made on
behalf of children passing through a mediocre educational
process. Again I will emphasize this is not to be placed at the
doorstep of good teachers, a broken system and the lack of
enthusiasm to fix it is the culprit.
Joseph McCaffrey,
Northwood
Letter To The Editor
Support Full-Day Kindergarten
I am writing to the Northwood
community to ask that you vote in favor of full-day
kindergarten. It’s my hope that Northwood can do what’s right
for the children and parents of the community this year.
Three quarters of the US and NH
already have full-day kindergarten. The same people who railed
against it last year are doing the same this year; I’m not
surprised. I find their reasoning disingenuous and I’m almost
certain it wouldn’t matter how beneficial we could “prove”
full-day kindergarten was-they still wouldn’t want to pay for
it.
My son is in the afternoon
kindergarten program this year. I think they do a great job with
the amount of time they have, but a full-day would allow for a
much more relaxed and enriching school day. The first thing my
son does when he gets to school at 11:15 is go to lunch. They
don’t even get class time started until almost noon and then I’m
picking him up at the bus stop at 2:35. Full day would offer
more time for learning and group play, something children should
be doing plenty of at this age.
For those who claim kindergarten is
just day care, I ask that you educate yourself on what is
actually expected of children by the time they enter first
grade. Lots of learning is taking place and insulting early
childhood educators is no way to win support for your cause. I
have endless amounts of gratitude for what Lisa Magnusson and
Beth Boudreau do for our children and so should you.
Like Northwood Community Members for Full-Day Kindergarten on
Facebook if you agree and stay updated:
https://www.facebook.com/northwoodalldaykindergarten
Thank you,
Amy Hanavan
Chesley Memorial Library News
The Moth
True stories, told live. The Moth is a podcast that brings
people together tell different stories from their lives, all
around a common theme. They can be funny, sad, heartwarming, or
anywhere in between. For Coe-Brown senior Meredith Roman’s
senior project, she will be holding a Moth-based storytelling
night with the theme of “Love.” The event will be held at the
Chesley Memorial Library on Thursday, February 11, from 5:00 to
7:00 pm. Donations will be accepted to help support The Moth
podcast, and everyone is welcome to come watch, listen, and tell
stories. If you would like to tell a story, please contact
Meredith at [email protected].
Hope to see you there!
Movie Matinee/Chocolate Fountain
Enter a world of pure imagination! Watch “Willy Wonka & the
Chocolate Factory” at the Chesley Memorial Library on Saturday,
February 13, at 1:00 p.m. Enjoy the original classic on
the large screen and enjoy a special treat to pair up with your
movie experience: a chocolate fountain! There will be a
wide assortment of items for your dipping pleasure so bring your
family and celebrate Valentine’s a day early Sit ‘n’ Sew Learn
paper-piecing the Carol Doak way! Local resident Pam
Williams and fellow seamstress from Lyndeborough, Carol Wright,
will be at the Chesley Memorial Library on Thursday, February
25, from 12:00-3:00 p.m. to teach you how to paper-piece the
easy way using Carol Doak’s patented method. Using this method,
you can easily create quilt blocks which can then be joined
together to create beautiful quilts or smaller projects such as
wall hangings, trivets, tote bags, coasters, and more. The
advantage to using Carol’s method is that points are more easily
attained, a tricky undertaking in the more traditional way of
piecing. The library has some Carol Doak books available to
check out and Pam will bring some of her other books for you to
review. We will demonstrate with the “Introduction to Paper
Piecing Pattern” which is available for free on Carol’s website
(www.caroldoak.com) and is
the only one we’re allowed to use for teaching purposes. If you
own a Carol Doak book, please feel free to print your own
foundations on newsprint (or other thin paper) and bring them
in, along with your choice of fabrics if you would like to
create another block with your own fabrics. Two extra sewing
machines will be available for people’s use and all materials
will be provided. No registration required; no fee. Ages 10 and
up.
Maker Play Days
Drop in for our “Maker Play Days” any Thursday! We will be
featuring Ozobots in February, one of the maker play program
kits from the New Hampshire State Library. What is an Ozobot?
It’s a tiny robot, measuring one inch in height, which comes
with a photo sensor array for recognition of patterns, lights,
colors, and codes; automatic detection functionality for
physical and digital playing surfaces; and color sensing
technology. Just ask at the circulation desk and you can
sign the kit out for thirty minutes on a first-come, first-serve
basis on any Thursday during our regular hours. Have fun
creating!
Storytime
Join the fun at Chesley Memorial Library’s Story Time program!
Story Time for preschoolers is held on Wednesday mornings at
10:30 a.m. Children can listen to a story and make a craft
to take home. No registration required!
Senior Café
Meet your friends and neighbors at the
Chesley Memorial Library Senior Café! The Senior Café
meets every Monday from 1:00-2:30 p.m. Are you looking for a
chance to get out and make new friends? Would you like to enjoy
some home baked goodies and a cup of coffee to warm you up?
Visit our Senior Café!
Lego Club @ Your Library
Have fun with LEGOs! LEGOs are out every Wednesday from
12:00-6:00 pm for your enjoyment. We have LEGOs for all ages so
drop in and let your imagination be your guide. LEGO creations
will be on display until the next session so bring your family
and friends back to see your masterpieces!
Book Discussions
The Evening Book Discussion Group will meet in Nottingham on
Wednesday, February 24, at 7:00 p.m. to discuss “Eleanor & Park”
by Rainbow Rowell. The Afternoon Book Discussion Group will meet
at the Chesley Memorial Library on Wednesday, March 2, at 2:00
p.m. to discuss “Rin Tin Tin” by Susan Orlean. The Junior
Book Club will meet at the Chesley Memorial Library on Thursday,
March 3, at 5:00 p.m. to discuss “The Island of Dr. Libris” by
Chris Grabenstein. New members welcome!