education

Lunenburg student awarded scholarship by Unitil

June 6, 2023 by pkzadmin

Five high school seniors pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering or math have been awarded $5,000 in scholarships each by electricity and natural gas provider Unitil.

Among those students awarded scholarships is Cassidy Walton of Lunenburg. After graduating from Lunenburg High School, Walton plans to study biology at San Diego State University. Eligible students for the scholarship are from Unitil’s service territories in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.

“We look forward to awarding these scholarships every year, because it so exciting to see young people pursue a career in one of these areas, whether it’s in science, technology, engineering, or math,” said Unitil External Affairs Manager Alec O’Meara in a press release. “We wish them the very best at college and all their future endeavors.”

According to Unitil, $390,000 in financial support has been awarded to students “who demonstrate exceptional potential for careers in STEM” since the scholarship program started in 2011.

The 2023 students awarded scholarships are:

• Cassidy Walton of Lunenburg, a graduate of Lunenburg High School, who plans to study biology at San Diego State University.

• Matthew Ryan of Somersworth, New Hampshire, a graduate of Saint Thomas Aquinas High School, who plans to study bioengineering at the University of New Hampshire.

• Grace Bergeon of Kennebunk, Maine, a graduate of Kennebunk High School, who plans to study computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

• Theo Grandmaison of Somersworth, New Hampshire, a graduate of Somersworth High School, who plans to study mathematics at Gordon College.

• Grace Qiu of Concord, New Hampshire, a graduate of Concord High School, who plans to study data science at Wellesley College.

As part of the program, a sixth student who is the child of a Unitil employee was also awarded a scholarship. Hazel Cormier of Braintree, a graduate of Archbishop Williams High School, who plans to study nursing at Regis College.

More information about the Unitil Scholarship Fund can be found at unitil.com.

Keystone Educational Collaborative fundraising for robotic gait trainer

June 4, 2023 by pkzadmin

SHIRLEY — Witnessing her five-year-old daughter walk for the first time with the aid of a robotic gait trainer was monumental for Kayla McGann, a milestone she will never forget.

Keystone Educational Collaborative student Mia McGann, 5, is learning to walk at the Shirley special education school with the help of a Trexo Robotic Gait Trainer. (COURTESY KEYSTONE COLLABORATIVE) — Keystone Educational Collaborative student Mia McGann, 5, is learning to walk at the Shirley special education school with the help of a Trexo Robotic Gait Trainer. (COURTESY KEYSTONE EDUCATIONAL COLLABORATIVE)

“Watching Mia take her first steps was something I never thought we would experience,” the mother of two shared. “It was a feeling beyond words filled with joy, excitement, and pride.”

Mia has been a full-time student at Keystone Educational Collaborative since February after being chosen to do a five-week summer program there last year. The nonprofit educational organization’s primary mission is to provide high quality programs for students ages pre-K through high school with special education needs.

“I fell in love with the facility,” Kayla shared. “I choose Keystone over public school since Keystone is better equipped to meet the needs that [Mia] needs.”

The smiling little girl has several medical issues that Keystone is able to address, including a missing 4P16.2 chromosome, with only one other person in the world missing this chromosome. She also has hip dysplasia, club feet, failure to thrive, and microcephaly, and Kayla said they are working with “several specialists to discover” other diagnoses.

Learning how to walk with the help of a Trexo Robotic Gait Trainer has been a joy for both Mia and her mom.

“Being at Keystone has assisted her in more ways than I think of, especially this Trexo,” Kayla said. “They are supplying the tools and knowledge to progress in life.”

Kayla McGann and her 5-year-old daughter Mia, a student at Keystone Collaborative who is learning to walk with the help of a Trexo Robotic Gait Trainer. The Shirley special education school is fundraising to be able to continue utilizing the gait trainer. (COURTESY KEYSTONE EDUCATIONAL COLLABORATIVE)

The school is raising funds to keep the Trexo around as the one-year lease they were gifted with by the Canada based company is coming to an end this month. Keystone Lead Physical Therapist Amanda Costello said the total purchase cost is $75,000 and there is also a lease to own option for about $20,000 per year for five years.

The robotic gait trainer is an exoskeletal walking aide that attaches to the user and moves their legs through the gait cycle.

“In a typical therapy session, myself and another therapist will position a student in a gait trainer and get on the ground and manually move their legs through the gait cycle,” Costello said. “This is physically very taxing and normally we are able to help the student take 50 steps. In a twenty-minute session with the Trexo, our students are taking upwards of 500 steps. There is simply no comparison.”

Kayla said being able to have Mia continue to utilize a Trexo “would mean the world” to her and her Winchendon based family, which includes her husband and their six month old son Gavin, Mia’s little brother.

“The fact Mia that has made such an improvement in this Trexo is outstanding,” the mom imparted. “Last summer she initiated it 7% and now she is doing 30% or higher. Anything to get this little girl walking, and to assist her, would mean the absolute world to me.”

Costello said they have three different programs for students within Keystone. The program the Trexo is used in is called the Key Program, “which provides services for students who are medically or physically impaired and children with autism spectrum disorder.”

“Given the size of the Trexo, it was only suitable for our preschool and early elementary classroom,” she conveyed. “We have been able to create profiles for several students who are part of the collaborative and students who are part of our member districts.”

Keystone Collaborative student Myles Leblanc practices walking at the Shirley special education school thanks to the help of a Trexo Robotic Gait Trainer. (COURTESY KEYSTONE EDUCATIONAL COLLABORATIVE)

A story appeared in the Sentinel & Enterprise last fall about Keystone and the Trexo. Mia is just one of many students at the school who have benefited from using the walking aid.

Fundraising for the purchase or lease of a Trexo to have at Keystone permanently has gained momentum after NBC Boston Channel 10 news broadcast a story on May 15 about Mia and fellow student Myles Leblanc utilizing the gait trainer and with subsequent social media shares about the effort. There is a donate option on the Keystone website that directs you to the school’s PayPal link, with all proceeds going towards the purchase or lease of a Trexo.

Costello shared that to date they have raised about $6,000 towards the effort — and that they are hoping to outright purchase one.

“Ideally, that would be incredible,” she said. “However, we are able to lease to own it as well.”

When asked what she enjoys most about her job, Costello, who is in her third year at Keystone, was quick to say, “the students and the people.”

“There is something amazing about the work culture at Keystone,” she said. “My co-workers are passionate and enthusiastic about the work that we do, and it is very easy to sense when you walk through the halls. And our students and their families — we serve a tremendous group of students.”

5-year-old Keystone Collaborative student Mia McGann with her six-month-old brother Gavin at their Winchendon home. (COURTESY KAYLA MCGANN) — Five-year-old Keystone Educational Collaborative student Mia McGann, right, with her six-month-old brother Gavin at their Winchendon home. (COURTESY KAYLA MCGANN)

Costello went on to say that it is hard to put into words what it would mean to the students, families, and staff to be able to have a Trexo gait trainer at the school for now and future use.

“I get asked this often, and struggle to articulate how meaningful this would be,” she expressed. “The Trexo allows our students to develop mobility skills that without it, they may not be able to achieve. Being able to provide our students with access to a device like this is life altering.”

Fitchburg American Legion Post 10 awards scholarships to students

June 3, 2023 by pkzadmin

FITCHBURG — Ten local students have been awarded $500 scholarships each through the American Legion Post 10 Scholarship Program.

Twenty-three local Class of 2023 students earned Citizenship honors and 18 were able to participate in AL/ALA Boys & Girls State last June. They will receive their scholarship at their Senior Awards Program at school.

The students awarded scholarships are:

Liam Buckley – Boys State 2022 – Saint Bernard’s High School – Suffolk University

Morgan Graves – Girls State 2022 – Fitchburg High School – Merrimack College

Kayla McCormick – Girls State Citizen – Groton Dunstable High School – Assumption University

Lily Kenney – Girls State 2022 – Saint Bernard’s High School – Regis College Nursing Major

Mateo Quintero – Boys State 2022 – DAR Good Citizen – Fitchburg High School – Harvard University

Nana Okyere – Girls State 2022 – Saint Bernard’s High School – Boston University

Darnell Woodson – Boys State 2022 – Saint Bernard’s High School – Gordon College

Frank Gallo IV – Boys State 2022 – Fitchburg High School – Dartmouth College.

Maggie Bourgeois – Girls State Citizen – Fitchburg High School – Fitchburg State University

Marcus Kelly – Boys State 2022 – Fitchburg High School – UMass Lowell, Honors College

Mount Wachusett Community College recognizes civic engagement, service-learning

June 2, 2023 by pkzadmin

Mount Wachusett Community College Holds Annual Civic Engagement and Service-Learning Celebration

GARDNER — The Brewer Center for Civic Learning and Community Engagement recognized students for over 70,000 volunteer hours in the 2022-2023 school year at a ceremony on Friday, May 26.

Volunteers included 12 students who contributed over 20 hours, 32 who donated over 40 hours, 3 who donated over 75 hours, and 24 students who contributed over 100 hours of their time.

Mount Wachusett Community College President James Vander Hooven presented the President’s Service and Volunteerism Awards, which are given annually to students who provide 100 or more hours of volunteer service.

“When we do what we can to serve others, we benefit everyone,” Vander Hooven said. “We can come together to meet each other’s needs – and we know that our students and community have tremendous needs. It is a great honor to come together to honor you all for your service.”

Students receiving the President’s Service and Volunteerism Award were:

Haylee Armstrong, Ayer

Tina Brigitini, Brimfield

Chloe Caisse, Baldwinville

Jennifer Davie, North Brookfield

Molly Donovan, Leominster

Anya Ezechukwu, Shirley

Emily Grasser, Westminster

Christina Jeffers, Templeton

Ava LeBlanc, Athol

Jennifer Lowe, Leominster

Rachel Lucia, Gilbertville

Sophia Mahone, Fitchburg

Lauryn Mattson, Templeton

Danielle McDonald-Bourbeau, Phillipston

Michael Mosher, Templeton

Sandy Oser, Ashby

Rafael Peguero, Leominster

Amanda Robichaud, Gardner

Lori Rojcewicz, South Barre

Natalie Solivan, Fitchburg

Molly Sullivan, Oxford

Kikelomo Tetteh, Winchendon

Kaylee Vitols, Athol

Susan Wilson, Gardner

The Newman Civic Fellowship, which recognizes students who stand out for their commitment to creating positive change was presented to nursing student Hanna Shailer. The Green Society was named Club of the Year for their work in engaging the campus in greenhouse activities and raising produce for the campus café and the food pantry.

Maureen Provost presented the Hillary Bartlett Newsome Service-Learning Scholarship, awarded annually in memory of Hillary Bartlett, a dedicated community volunteer and MWCC alumni, to Abigail Floyd of Phillipston. Bartlett was a 2009 graduate of the Mount’s Early Childhood Transfer program who passed away unexpectedly in 2017.

Shelly Nicholson, Brewer Center Director, presented the Faculty Civic Engagement Award to retiring faculty Sue Taylor and a special recognition to Dean Margaret Jaillet for her years of dedicated service to the college and the community.

The Service-Learning Scholarship was presented to Anya Ezechukwu of Shirley, by her Graphic and Interactive Design Professor, Leslie Cullen in recognition of her volunteer work for the city of Gardner’s Centennial Celebration and the design of the Mount Observer magazine commemorating Fitchburg’s Abolitionist Park.

Michel Cocuzza, Coordinator of Civic Engagement, presented The Community Partner of the Year award to the DAV Department of Mass Service Fund Inc. as well as a presentation of gratitude to Paul Valila and Bob Thomas, members of the MWCC Maintenance Team for their support.

The Sharyn Rice Award for Community Leadership Award is presented each year to a student who has a strong passion for community involvement, and was presented by Fagan Forhan, Dean of K-12 Partnerships and Civic Engagement to student Nikki Ramos, for her service to the MWCC community through volunteerism and academics while struggling with a visual disability.

The SLiCE, Student Leader in Civic Engagement, recognition was presented by Michel Cocuzza to Breanna Whittier for her dedication to the Brewer Center and the work she has done through the year in support of students, veterans and the greater community.

Food Pantry Volunteers, Interns, and Student Leaders in Civic Engagement Kelly Culkeen, Hanna Shailer, Gio Toledo, Miranda Monahan, Kikelomo Tetteh, Natalie Solivan, Mina Girouard, and Rachel Lucia were honored by Sue Meagher, Program Aide for the Brewer Center, for the time they spent staffing the Food for Thought campus pantry and working with students in need.

Sizer senior hopes to teach Health someday

May 28, 2023 by pkzadmin

FITCHBURG — The decision to attend Mount Wachusett Community College in the fall was an easy one for Sizer Senior Sierra Leary.

“I chose the Mount as my college because I knew that going there first would really help me begin my path. Also, my amazing mom currently goes there and I know how much she loves the school and how much they support her,” said Leary, of Fitchburg.

And inspiring educators is important to Leary as she plans to one day have a classroom of her own.

“I will be majoring in Allied Health and minoring in Secondary Education. My hope for the future is to use this major to go into teaching. More specifically, I would like to be a high school health teacher,” she said. “I want to teach high schoolers because I feel they are the most moldable, however difficult.”

She continued, “Allied Health is how I am going to get all of the knowledge I need in order to be a health teacher. I will be able to learn more about health sciences in general.”

Leary has three siblings, an older sister, a younger sister and a little brother Noah, “who is three and who can always put a smile on my face.”

When she’s not in school, Leary is an artist.

“I spend my time outside of school doing art, whether that be painting, poetry, drawing, or other art related things,” she said.

She hopes to spend most of her summer relaxing and spending time with her family, but she does have a few major goals:

“My current summer plans are to take a summer ASL course at Fitchburg State and get my license once I turn 18,” she said.

Her advice to upcoming seniors?

“Don’t stress yourself out. Take things slow. Obviously focus on your work, but try to also focus on your mental health as well. The year can be really stressful at times and it is important to remember to put yourself first.”

Sizer School is currently accepting applications to the seventh grade for next year. To apply, visit tinyurl.com/SizerSchool. The deadline to apply is June 1.

State eyes more restrictive student cellphone policies

May 25, 2023 by pkzadmin

The state’s K-12 education department is encouraging districts to restrict or ban students’ cellphone use in schools, possibly moving toward a statewide mandate in the future.

Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley announced Tuesday that the department will “likely” create a matching grant program of up to $1 million for districts that pilot a cellphone restriction policy.

This is “not a mandate at this time,” he said, “but we’re certainly interested in piloting more of this.”

Riley invited teachers, administrators and students from schools that have instituted restrictions or bans to speak before the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education at their monthly meeting on Tuesday.

Some school representatives discussed their policies requiring students to give up their phones at the start of class. Other schools restrict phone use in hallways as well.

One school, the Eliot K-8 Innovation School in Boston, requires students to lock up their phones in magnetically-sealed pouches as they come in. Children can carry the encased phones, but the pouches can only be unlocked by a teacher or when students leave at the end of the day.

“Students get to actually feel that there is a phone in there, they just can’t actually open it,” said Eliot Executive Director Traci Walker Griffith. “For us it was this opportunity to build more opportunities for social interaction, both instructionally, academically, but the social-emotional needs that we needed from our students with each other.”

Walker Griffith added that “phones were not always part of school” — prompting an online response from Worcester School Committee member and field director with the Massachusetts Association of School Committees Tracy O’Connell Novick, who tweeted, “There weren’t various kinds of automatic weaponry, either. So here we are.”

The Eliot School director said that in an emergency teachers have magnets in the classroom that unlock students’ phones from the sealed pouches.

Student reliance on devices has increased since COVID-19 lockdowns caused children to look to screens for social interaction and learning, educators said.

Gwyneth Zeeck, an eighth grade student at Eliot, said when school went back to being in-person she did not know how to make new friends, and spent most of her time with people she already knew or retreating into her phone. Zeeck said since the phone ban was instituted she has started interacting with new people and could focus on “figuring out who I was beyond that screen that had been our lives for a year and a half.”

But reducing academic and social distractions might not be as easy as taking away students’ phones — and some on the panel said total bans don’t allow students to learn how to use phones responsibly and practice self control.

“With all these different types of cellphone policies I think that students aren’t given the initiative to, kind of, restrain themselves and learn how to deal with distractions. They’re just being told, ‘Leave your phone there,’” said Alexander Sproule, a student at Concord-Carlisle High School. “I don’t necessarily think that all these students are learning good strategies to focus and study on their own without the distraction, because they’re so used to just being told, ‘Put your phone away.’”

Milford High School student Tessa Scrimgeour said not having access to her phone in class makes her crave more time with her device after school.

“Sometimes I get home I’m like, ‘Oh, I haven’t been on my phone all day. I just had two hours of sports, all I want to do now is lay down and watch TikTok,” she said, referencing a popular social media site.

Zeeck, however, said not being able to use her cellphone during school was “a wake-up call,” and has helped her learn to not be glued to the screen after returning to in-person school.

Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler asked the panelists how other technology like Apple Watches — which are compatible with iPhones and get text message and social media notifications — fit into the phone bans.

Scrimgeour responded that some students at her school bought Apple Watches and MacBooks, which can also receive text messages, to get around the policy. She said schools would need to adapt to new technologies to continue to effectively ban distracting devices.

There was not much discussion about the possible advantages of cellphones in the classroom, though Board Chair Katherine Craven asked if there was “any thought given, though, to the phone as a pedagogical tool,” or “a pathway to more learning.”

Educators responded that teachers have the option to return students’ phones if they want to use them in a lesson.

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