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| Kindergarten Registration for the Franklin Public Schools will be held in the Horace Mann School Cafeteria, 224 Oak St., Feb. 2 and 3, 4 to 6 p.m., and Feb. 4 and 5, 3 to 5 p.m. All children born on or before Aug. 31, 2004, are eligible to register for kindergarten. Bring the following along for registration: 1. Original birth certificate — Original and a copy for school files. 2. Immunization Record — You will not be able to register your child without a physician’s copy of the immunization record. 3. Proof of residence — All applicants for kindergarten enrollment must bring at least one document each from the following categories: Category A: Record of recent mortgage payment or tax bill, copy of a lease and a record of a recent rental payment, landlord affidavit (notarized letter) and a recent rental payment, Section 8 agreement, or a signed HUD settlement statement. Category B: valid driver’s license, valid Massachusetts photo ID card, passport, or other government-issued photo ID. Franklin preschools and day cares will be sending kindergarten registration folders home with your child. If your child does not attend a Franklin preschool or daycare, folders will be available at registration and also at the F.X.O’Regan Early Childhood Development Center, located at 224 Oak Street (rear). Call 508-541-8166, ext. 2938, for assistance. |
Police will likely not charge the 29-year-old driver whose dump truck struck and killed 90-year-old Palma A. Johnson while she was walking to morning Mass on Dec. 11, said Deputy Police Chief Stephan Semerjian.
Accident reconstructionists advised against charging the driver, Norwood resident Derek Hamlin, who was operating a 10-wheel dump truck for Joe Woodall & Son Construction of Franklin after concluding he was driving in a "reasonable manner" and reacted properly, he said.
Johnson was walking on a crosswalk on Pleasant Street at 6:56 a.m., coming from the charter school area, when Hamelin's truck hit her, he said.
"It was a very rainy, dark morning," Semerjian said.
Police reports also stated Johnson was wearing all black and using a black umbrella to shield herself from the rain, said Lt. Thomas Lynch. There have been a number of accidents at Church Square, Semerjian said, speculating that many drivers are coming from the Norfolk direction toward St. Mary's and are probably focused on the traffic lights rather than the crosswalk 40 or 50 feet past the lights.
The accident reconstruction was "pretty exhaustive," Semerjian said.
Police conducted a test of the ambient light.
"At no time did it reach a point where the light measure would have allowed him (Hamlin) to see. (He) was operating in a safe manner in regards to the road conditions," Semerjian said.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here
Rather than Girl Scouts or the other clubs they would normally join, seven students at Annie Sullivan Middle School signed up to spend their time after school helping people and saving the environment.
In their first few months with the school's new service club, Communiteen, the young women have already collected more than 250 coats for kids, a roomful of presents and donations for needy families to open up on Christmas and started researching a new community project.
``I grew up always knowing it's important to feel responsible for other people and to help out other people,'' said Mariel Calnan, an eighth-grade special education teacher at Annie Sullivan who started and runs the group.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here
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Over the past decade, Revere has seen significant statistical drops in the percentage of middle school and high school students who use and abuse alcohol, coinciding with what local officials, parents, and students themselves say has been a shift in attitudes about drinking.
That's no accident. Since 1997, Massachusetts General Hospital and Partners HealthCare have spent $4.4 million to fund a program called Revere CARES, designed to reduce teen drinking and substance abuse in a community where adults themselves abused alcohol and drugs at considerably higher rates than the state as a whole.
....
The data show particular improvement among middle schoolers' behavior in the five years since Revere CARES launched a campaign called the "Power of Know," which included getting more than 1,000 parents of adolescents to sign cards pledging to talk with their children about alcohol, tobacco, and drugs, listen to their kids, and get to know their children's friends and their parents.
Bold for my emphasis
Read the full article in the Boston Globe here
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It is good to walk your route in reverse.
As many times as I have passed this tree, I was always coming the other way and never noticed the fine stone work where a limb once was.
Go the other way for a change.
Enjoy!
“Across Massachusetts, a number of communities have been forced to lay off teachers, police officers, firefighters, and other public employees; close fire stations; shut libraries, senior centers, and recreation centers or sharply reduce their hours; and scale back public school programs. One town even turned off its street lights to save money,” said Iris Lav, the Center’s deputy director and co-author of the report.
According to the report, Proposition 2 ½, which limits the growth in communities’ property tax revenue for all services including education to 2.5 percent a year, has:
- Arbitrarily constrained local revenues without considering the actual cost of providing services. “The fundamental problem with property tax caps is that they don’t make public services any less expensive,” said Lav. ”Costs like employee health insurance and special education are largely beyond localities’ control, and they’re rising much faster than the cap allows. Nor does the cap hold down the cost of heating buildings and operating school buses when oil prices are skyrocketing.” When these things occur, as they have in Massachusetts, other services have to be cut to fit total expenditures under the cap.
A 21-year-old North Attleborough man stands accused of buying rum that was later given to Taylor Meyer, the Plainville teen who died in October after wandering away from an underage drinking party at the old Norfolk Airport, according to police.
Sean P. Flynn, of 269 West St., is charged with procuring alcohol for a person under 21 and is scheduled for a show-cause hearing on Dec. 24 at Attleboro District Court.
"There was no arrest. He was served with a summons," said North Attleborough Police Chief Michael P. Gould Sr., noting the summons was served Dec. 17.
Gould said a clerk magistrate will determine at the hearing whether there is probable cause to issue a criminal complaint and send the case to court.
Flynn stands accused of obtaining two bottles of Baccardi rum for Brian Zuzick, 19, of 6 Red Coat Lane, Plainville, who then passed one bottle on to 17-year-old Taylor Meyer and the second to an unidentified, 17-year-old classmate of Meyer's, police allege.
Read the full story in the Milford Daily News here
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Life in the Barack Obama administration is tough - it's a seven-day-a-week, 15-hour-a-day job, leaving precious little time for loved ones, or really anything else.
But for Franklin native Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, who serves as President-elect Barack Obama's associate director of personnel after working three presidential campaigns, it's all worth it.
"I love what I do. There are so many great parts of my job. To me, the best part is, I get up every morning and do something I believe in," said O'Malley Dillon.
"I really have been lucky - I've lived in Louisiana, South Dakota, Florida, and got to know people from all over the country, and it's been a tremendous experience," she said.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here
Town Council unanimously voted to endorse a five-year open space and recreation plan, making the town eligible for grants.
The long-term plan includes five goals:
* Increasing public awareness of open space and recreation opportunities in Franklin;
* Preserving, protecting and enhancing the town's existing open space resources;
* Maximizing recreational opportunities to meet the town's evolving needs by providing new facilities and programs;
* Protecting the natural, historical and cultural resources to maintain Franklin's New England character.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here
