Hard work and generous gifts helped schools prep for Sep. 1
Published on September 1st, 2004
STONEHAM, MA -After all the bad-blood surrounding last June’s override vote, all the worrying about how their schools could provide the best education possible for the town’s children, optimism and hope now dominate the mindset of Stoneham’s administrators.
“I was wondering whether people would approach the school year positively or down in the mouth because of the issues this spring,” admitted Stoneham High School Principal Dr. Thomas Ryan. “But I think this spring’s issues are history. Not one teacher or person mentioned it today.”
According to Ryan, the hard work of the town’s Superintendent and School Committee over the summer has helped to restore many pivotal positions and programs to the high school.
And although Ryan believes students will notice a small jump in some class sizes, Ryan welcomes a veteran school staff with few new faces.
“I think the only change for individual students that will be noticeable is some classes will be larger. I think if we had lost the nine teachers we thought we were going to lose in the spring, things would be different - we may have seen class sizes well over 30,” said Ryan.
“We’ve only had one new staff member come here this year. And because of the financial conflict, it’s nice to have that stability. It’s been unusual for this to happen in the past six to seven years where you’ve had 10-20 teachers turning over,” the high school principal added.
Detailing yet another light in what has proven to be a somewhat dark and troublesome spring and summer, Ryan welcomes back a plethora of extracurricular activities that were placed on the chopping block June 15.
“I’m sure some people thought this shouldn’t have had to be done, but I’m glad this was done to bring back these programs. I would say upwards of $25,000 was raised by groups and parents [to bring back] freshman football, boys and girls soccer, golf, and volleyball,” Ryan said, who added that despite the great news, other programs such as the high school band and student newspaper were not restored.
Also showing gratitude for what has been restored to the middle school, Principal Jim Andreottola still worries about how his students will fare this year.
With educating tools such as the middle school team concept eliminated and elective courses such as health, computer applications, and family/consumer science no longer offered, Andreottola stressed that students will encounter a very different educational experience than those before them.
“Honestly, the unfortunate part is we’re unable to offer a comprehensive middle school educational program. The structure of the middle school will be similar to what existed years ago. It’s a more departmentalized concept,” said the middle school principal, adding that class sizes for science and social studies will drift towards the high twenties and low thirties.
Andreottola also explained that due to mandated time on learning requirements — which require that each student receive a set-amount of instruction from teachers — class periods will jump from 47 to 56 minutes of instruction to absorb the lack of positions.
“Because we’re offering less courses, we’ve gone from class periods of 47-minutes in length to 56-minutes in length. But there’s a plus to that because teachers will now have a longer block of time to work with,” Andreottola said optimistically.
“And just a couple of weeks ago, we restored the art and music programs. So there is a glimmer of hope. I think we’ll get through this and it will only make us stronger as a school community,” Andreottola added. On the elementary school level, South School Principal Nick Leonardos and Robin Hood School Principal Alice Reilly welcomed back art, gym and music programs. But both remained extremely concerned with the lack of teaching aides and large class sizes.
“My greatest concern would be the class sizes at the fourth and fifth grade levels. Right now my fourth and fifth grade classes are at 25 and 30,” said Reilly. “As far as student to teacher ratios, that’s really not advantageous. We do a lot of hands on, small group sessions and it would be my wish to see class sizes decreasing instead of increasing.”
“I would consider the class sizes in grades one and two to be far from ideal. We have class sizes of 25 and we’d really like to keep them at twenty,” added Leonardos in a separate interview, explaining that the low class sizes at the first and second grade levels were important for teaching students how to read.
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