The Adams School  
P.O. Box 29
27 School Street
Castine, Maine 04421
326-8608
www.adamsschool.com

Todd R. Nelson - Principal

ADAMS SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
APRIL 27, 2007

 

Yet Another Endangered Species

 

Courtney and Meredith want to save their school. So just before April vacation, they drafted letters to Senator Susan Collins. As I was helping these seventh and sixth grade girls compose their final draft, I had an epiphany: we are an endangered species.

Courtney and Meredith wrote sincere, well-reasoned, effective letters to our senator on behalf of the small rural school they have attended since they started school. It is also the same elementary school that their parents attended. Enrollment is down since their parents’ era, but vitality and quality of learning are up.

The girls hope to enlist their senator’s help in fending off the potential consolidation of our town school with neighboring districts in Governor Baldacci’s drastic “cost-saving” plan.  And, though they are young, they “get it” on fairly sophisticated levels: as economic and political strategy, as well as the emotional and social level on which they lead their daily lives.

Street-level for middle level students means losing identity—their own, and their town’s—as teacher-student ratios increase, and the classroom life they read about in fiction looms as potential real life changes for them. Bullying becomes a spectral eventuality, or it is the loss of an education that feels personal.  They both like knowing, and being known by, their teachers. Ditto from their teachers’ perspective.

Here at Adams School, learning has intimacy and vibrancy. And for this, the town has been willing, historically, to stomach a high per-pupil cost. There’s only so much economic efficiency you can achieve when the student enrollment dips to 53. But there is an emotional and intellectual enrichment that one would have to say is “priceless.”

Call it cultural capital or local control, the economies of scale and cost centers approach to creating social and institutional value are not universal solutions. Cheaper is not always better, regardless of Walmart’s vision. Rolling back the per-pupil cost of education saves money in some communities, but causes pain and cultural loss in others.

In their letters, the girls invited Senator Collins to visit their school when she comes to town in May to deliver the commencement address at Maine Maritime Academy. They enclosed photos of the whole school arranged on the front steps, as we do every September for the all-school portrait—as has been done for generations. And then they sent this package off to Washington, D.C. with a classmate visiting the capitol during spring break. They await a response.

The girls detailed the show-and-tell possibilities in an on-site visit. Students would give Ms. Collins a tour, show her our quaint little school building, and the kinds of worldly curriculum activities on which we pride ourselves—the nature center, the new playground, the art projects on the walls, the hands-on science and math experiments, square dancing in music class, the laptops in use by 4-8th graders.  Stay for homemade lunch, Senator Collins!

“We’d like to show you our classrooms and our Right Whale project,” wrote Meredith. She speaks of the Calvin project, developed by their science teacher, Bill McWeeny. They’ve been working on telling the story of an orphaned whale named Calvin as a curriculum for saving the species, and teaching about endangered marine mammals in general. They’ve even presented their work at the Right Whale Consortium, and impressed seasoned scientists.
                                                                                                          

As the letter was written, it struck me that they were in fact drawing attention to another endangered species: the small rural school. Our students are as motivated about saving Right Whales from ship strikes and habitat encroachment as they are about defending their school—and town--from political encroachment.

Are the issues similar? Shrinking habitat, ship strikes, fishing gear entanglement, dropping birthrate—it’s hard not to see ourselves in the fate of the other mammals. What ends we go to in order to protect the off-shore species! The kids, at least, can connect the dots when they lead back on-shore. The governor’s budget feels like a ship strike to our little school.

I hope Senator Collins can spare a few minutes to get an up-close look at the Adams School pod of concerned whales—while they’re an endangered, but not extinct, species.

—Todd

 

Editor’s note: The letter worked! Senator Collins will visit Adams School on May 5th, following her address at MMA graduation….noonish. Various Adams School students will greet her and make short presentations. Their theme: “Creativity is Born Here.”

 

GSA Parent Association talk: “It ain’t cool to like school: Why boys are underachieving and what we can do about it.” Moderated by Layne Gregory, Executive Director of Boys to Men. Monday, April 30 at 7:00pm…Esther Wood Room at GSA.

 

Performing Arts School at the Grand: Theatre camp at the Grand…programs for students from 8-18, including acting and stagecraft. Teen session (ages 14-19) June 25th to July 14th; Youth Session (10-13), July 1`6-August 4; Junior session (8-10) August 6-18th. Cost: $375. Deadline: June 15th. Call Pam Perkins at 667-9500.

 

Clean, Green, Supreme: Special thanks to Hannah Flood, Liam and Granty for picking up trash outside wherever they found it: the common, the schoolyard, and even the neighbors yard. Said Hannah: “It’s not our property, but the owners will be glad we did this.” That’s the spirit!

 

GSA Girls Soccer Skills Clinic: Saturdays starting May 5th, 8-10:00am, GSA Varsity Field, until June 16th. For girls grade 5-8.  Questions: Steve Bemiss, 667-5895.

 

Tennis for grade 4-8: Our spring tennis “club” will begin on May 10th. Please sign and return the permission slips handed out on Thursday. Dale Sweeney is the coach.

 

Once upon a term, in a certain kingdom, in a certain land, in a little village by the sea, there lived members of the Adams School Readers Theater Troop who loved to learn about far away places and long ago stories and share them with others, Oh Best Beloved.

 

A fable!  A fable!  Bring it!  Bring it!

(so say the Kanuri)

Want to hear the fables?

Want to know about the Kanuri?                                          

Come enjoy a multicultural morning with us at The second annual

MULTICULTURAL STORYTELLING FAIR will be hosted at the Adams School on Saturday, June 9th from 9am-noon.

 

Readers Theater Members and Parents:

            The Readers Theater Troop is again gearing up for the annual multicultural storytelling fair!  Students will be learning about the cultures found on the continents of the world through traditional games, crafts, food, music and stories.  This opportunity is open to all students, even students new to Readers Theater!  Readers Theater will meet on Wednesday afternoons from 2:10-3:30. On Wednesday, May 2 at 3:30, there will be an informational meeting for parents.

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ADAMS SCHOOL MENU      April 30th – May 4th

 

Monday – Chicken & Cheese Quesadillas, Tortilla Chips, Salsa, Sour Cream, Salad, Pineapple, Milk

Tuesday – Chop Suey, Rolls, Green Beans, Cookie, Milk

Weds. – Ham & Cheese Italians, Chips, Baby Carrots, Brownie, Milk

Thursday – Fish Sticks, Mashed Potato, Corn, Peach Cobbler, Milk

Friday – Pancakes, Bacon, Yogurt, Juice, Milk

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Calendar Update:

May

 

1          New Playground Balls arrive!

2          May School board meeting, 7:00pm.

3          Big Brother/Big Sister party, 11:00am.

4          K-5 to Grand for Flamenco guitarist (K stays all day)

5          MMA Graduation…Susan Collins visits Adams School!

8   MMA TV State of Maine departs harbor on cruise 2007.

9    Early Release day (11:30) for teacher in-service.

10   Tennis club starts....MMA 2:30-4:00.

23   Kindergarten screening for 07-08.

24   Dennett’s Wharf Teriyaki dinner--8th graders waiters.

25   Early Release day (11:30) for teacher in-service (make-up for Feb. 14th snow day E/R day)

27-30   8th grade class trip to Boston.

28     Memorial Day--No School

30   GSA spring concert, 7pm.