The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

schools

Cafeteria manager Hillson wins national award

Sandra Hillson

Sandra Hillson of the Lincoln School has been named Northeast Regional Manager of the Year by the national nonprofit School Nutrition Association (SNA). Considered the highest honor a school nutrition manager can earn, the award recognizes a cafeteria manager who has demonstrated dedication and ingenuity to improve his or her school meal program.

A seasoned cafeteria manager, Sandra Hillson takes great pride in her staff’s ability to prepare healthy and appetizing school meals from scratch. Working in a small one-oven kitchen, Hillson excels in time management and menu preparation and is known for collaborating with staff to develop new recipes and present healthy food options in a way that students will be encouraged to try, the SNA says. She utilizes foods grown seasonally in school gardens and locally sourced produce from area farms as part of Lincoln school district’s Farm to School program. Hillson was instrumental in organizing a recent collaboration with local apple and peach growers.

Hillson is well versed in catering to specific dietary restrictions, even working with students who might have aversions to certain appearances or food textures. She and her staff have developed special menus to accommodate students with allergies, cultural dietary restrictions and more to ensure all students feel welcome in her cafeteria.

School nutrition professional development and education is important to Hillson, who is Serve Safe certified, CPR certified and Allergen Aware certified. She takes the time to train staff on daily paperwork and production sheets so they’re aware of the work done behind the scenes as well as their own responsibilities. She ensures that all staff complete the district’s annual mandated training and steps in during training days so that her staff can attend Epi-Pen, Heimlich maneuver, fire safety, and school lockdown training.

“Sandra Hillson’s dedication to her students’ safety, health, and satisfaction is an example to all in the school nutrition field,” said SNA President Gay Anderson. “She goes above and beyond her duties, advocating for children’s health and constantly seeking out additional opportunities for professional development.”

Hillson will be honored at the School Nutrition Association’s annual national conference in St. Louis in July.

News acorns

Help build Lincoln’s “profile of a learner”

What skills and knowledge will our children need in the future? In an educational system that hasn’t changed in over 100 years in a world of Google, how can our schools evolve to give children the critical skills and knowledge they’ll need? How do we then task and support our faculty to teach these skills? 

Join Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall and Assistant Superintendent Jess Rose for a chance to help construct a “Profile of a Learner” for the Lincoln Public Schools. on Wednesday, April 24 from 8:15–9:45 a.m. or Thursday, April 25 from 7–8:30 p.m. in the Hartwell multipurpose room. This event is for parents, caregivers, and community members of all ages.

More dates may be announced for late spring or early fall. Anyone with questions may contact Janice Gross at jgross@lincnet.org or 259-9409.

Events on special-ed issues

The Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) will host the following three sessions on special-education topics for parents. All events are free and open to the public. Check the SEPAC calendar for details. Please RSVP to lssepac.info@gmail.com to make sure there are enough materials for everyone.

  • “Tips for Managing ADHD at Home and at School” with Brendan Mahan of ADHD Essentials — Monday, April 29 at 7 p.m., LSRHS Conference Room B.
  • “Strategies for Parents of Teens with Mental Health Disorders” with author Deborah Vlock — Thursday, May 16 at 7 p.m., LSRHS library classroom.

New summer program for kids at Birches

Birches School in Lincoln is offering a summer program at its Bedford Road campus taught by Birches School faculty. Kids will enjoy nature-inspired fun through yoga, art, forest explorations, biomimicry, engineering, water play, vegetable gardening and more. Open to rising K-6 students. Weeklong programs ($525 a week) run on August 12-16 and August 19-23 from 9 a.m.–3:30 p.m.; sign up for one or both. Early and after care is available. Click here for more information and to register.

News acorns

Celebration of the life of Lucretia Giese

Lucretia Giese

The family of Lucretia Hoover Giese will host a celebration of Lucretia’s life on Thursday, May 23 at 3 p.m. in the Pierce House (see obituary, October 15, 2018). Among her many accomplishments, Lucretia was professor of art history at the Rhode Island School of Design, an expert on the paintings of Winslow Homer, chair of the Lincoln Historical Commission, and co-founder of the Friend of Modern Architecture/Lincoln. Please RSVP by Monday, April 15 to Henry B. Hoover, Jr. (hbhoover@aol.com).

L-S Jazz Night on Thursday

The L-S Music Department presents Jazz Night on Thursday, April 4 at 7 p.m. in the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School auditorium. The concert will feature students from L-S and Curtis Middle School; L-S groups include the Symphonic and Concert Jazz Ensembles as well as the Jazz Warriors and Select Jazz Combo. The groups led by Thomas Grandprey, Director of Instrumental Music, will perform jazz literature from the Great American Songbook as well as funk, and Latin genres. The concert is open to the public and admission is free.

Appointee to library board sought

The Lincoln School Committee invites and encourages any town resident with an interest in connecting the schools and the library to submit a short statement of interest as the committee’s appointee to the Lincoln Public Library Board of Directors. The School Committee thanks Martin Dermandy for serving in this capacity for the past six years, during which time he started the Local Heroes program and worked to connect the library and the schools, building on what the librarians had already developed.

The statement of interest for this three-year term should be sent to schoolcomm@lincnet.org by Friday, April 5. There will be interviews of all candidates in an open meeting of the School Committee on Thursday, April 11 at 7:15 p.m. in the Hartwell multipurpose room on the Ballfield Road Campus. Please address questions to schoolcomm@lincnet.org or to Jacquelin Apsler, chair of the Library Board of Trustees, at jgu.lincoln@gmail.com.

Wednesday “Crafternoons” at the library

The Lincoln Public Library is starting a new children’s program called Crafternoons every Wednesday at 2 p.m. Participants will get creative with crafts that emphasize reusing and recycling household items. All materials will be supplied by the Friends of the Lincoln Public Library. Intended for grades 1 and up. No registration required. Call the Children’s Room for more information at 781-259-8465 x4.

Lincoln seniors can work off $1,500 in property taxes

Lincoln residents 60 and over who own and occupy property on which they pay taxes and are listed on the title may apply now to be part of the town of Lincoln’s Senior Tax Work-Off Program. Through the program, seniors work for a town department for up to 125 hours at $12/hour and receive an abatement of up to $1,500 on their May property tax bill.

Jobs may include administrative, outdoor, computer, programming, or other work and can be completed in any town department or the schools. Seniors may work fewer than 125 hours if they choose. Their schedule is up to them and the department they work for. For more information or to apply, call the Lincoln Council on Aging at 781-259-8811 and ask for COA Director Carolyn Bottum.

Two-part series on French history

The Friends of the Lincoln Public Library and the Friends of the Lincoln Council on Aging are offering a two-part presentation on French history on Saturday, April 13 at 2 p.m. and Wednesday, May 15 at 7 p.m. in the library’s Tarbell Room. Retired teacher John Gardella will give an overview of the French Revolution at the first session and the age of Napoleon at the second. The series will serve as a stepping stone to the library’s trip to the Museum of Fine Arts on Saturday, June 8 for a private tour of Toulouse-Lautrec and the stars of Paris (details TBA) Come to one or both sessions; both are free and open to people of all ages and no registration is required.

FinCom releases tax hike figures for school project

A table showing the tax increase for the median taxpayer with a tax bill of $14,008 in fiscal 2019, compared to earlier projections (click any image to enlarge).

The tax impact until fiscal 2024 under three borrowing scenarios.

The tax impact of all the borrowing for six different property values.

Once all the borrowing for the school project is done, Lincoln property owners will see a tax increase of 14.5% compared to fiscal 2019—significantly less than the 20% that some had feared.

As announced on February 26, winning bidder Citibank offered an interest rate of 3.379% on the $80 million bond. The Finance Committee had been using sample interest rates of 4% and 5% in projecting the tax increases from the $93.9 million school project. But as the town solicited bids on the bond, “we definitely benefited from the equity market volatility that happened in December,” FinCom chair Chair Jim Hutchinson said at Wednesday’s School Building Committee meeting.

From this $80 million bond alone, the median property tax bill would have increased by 14.5% next year. But the fiscal 2020 budget coming up for a vote at Town Meeting is “lean and mean” and, if there were no borrowing, would actually result in a 1.7% tax decrease, Hutchinson said. Taken together, the bond and the budget decrease will mean a $1,780 tax increase (12.7%) tax on the median tax bill.

In about two years, the town will do a “cleanup” bond of up to $8.5 million for the remaining expenses. That will mean another tax increase of about 1.8%, for a grand total increase of about $2,000 or 14.5% compared to the bill for fiscal 2019, Hutchinson said. 

Addendum

Background information on funding for the school project has been added to the February 26 story headlined “Town gets good news on school borrowing costs“:

Voters in December approved borrowing a total of $88.5 million for the school project, which will cost a total of $93.9 million. The initial bond is for $80 million; the rest of the funding includes $4.4 million from the town’s debt stabilization fund and $1 million from free cash.

Town gets good news on school borrowing costs

The stack of bonds awaiting selectmen’s signatures at their meeting on Monday.

The impact on property taxes from the school project won’t be quite as bad as many had feared. The interest rate for the lion’s share of the bonds that the town will issue to fund the project is 3.379%, compared to the 4% and 5% projections outlined by the Finance Committee in November.

The town received eight competitive bids and a glowing bond-rating report, Town Administrator Tim Huggins reported to the Board of Selectmen on Monday night. The town will also retain its AAA bond rating, which he added is unusual for a town taking on this level of debt.

“The property tax impact will be significantly lower than the most conservative of our forecasts were showing,” Higgins said. Officials had been predicting a tax hike of 18–20%, but it now looks like it will be more in the 14–16% range, depending on the interest rate for a second, relatively small “cleanup” bond that will be issued towards the end of construction once the exact final costs are known.

Voters in December approved borrowing a total of $88.5 million for the school project, which will cost a total of $93.9 million. The initial bond is for $80 million; the rest of the funding includes $4.4 million from the town’s debt stabilization fund and $1 million from free cash.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation by Selectman Jonathan Dwyer indicated that the 3.379% interest rate could save the town half a million dollars a year compared to the higher rates that were projected earlier.

The favorable interest rate is largely due to the prudent financial management and planning efforts of current and former town officials, selectmen agreed. “We know [the debt is] going to be burden that all of us have to take on, but it could have been a whole lot more painful. Kudos to all those before us who paved the way,” Selectman James Craig said.

The Finance Committee will present revised tax-impact figures at the School Building Committee meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. in the Hartwell multipurpose room.  

News acorns

Lincoln Through the Lens updated

The Lincoln Through the Lens page on the Lincoln Squirrel website has been updated to include all photos submitted by readers in 2018. Browse through pictures of people, places and wildlife in Lincoln all year round, or submit a photo of your own.

Events for 8th-graders headed to L-S

All eighth-grade parents in Lincoln and Sudbury are invited to “An Introduction to Music at L-S” on Wednesday, Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m. to learn more about the L-S Music Department. Join us in the auditorium lobby to meet the L-S music faculty and students without the crowds of L-S parents’ night and tour the music spaces. Learn more about music auditions, music offerings and music electives at the high school. If your student is in chorus, band or orchestra, sings or studies outside of school, or just loves music, we welcome you to attend. For more information or questions, email lsfriendsofmusic@gmail.com, or visit www.lsfom.org.

L-S Eighth-Grade Parents/Guardians Night will be Thursday, March 7 from 7–8:30 p.m. (snow date March 12). The program will begin in the L-S auditorium with an overview of the ninth-grade curriculum and an outline of the scheduling process, followed by an opportunity to visit faculty members of the various departments to ask questions about course selection and curriculum. 

School vacation events for kids at library, deCordova

There is still space in the “Make Some Art” book bag painting event at the Lincoln Public Library on  Thursday, Feb. 21 at 2 p.m. Join Susan from Craft.ed Creative Studio in Concord for a fun afternoon of stenciling and painting a canvas bag to take home! Ages 5+. Registration required; email dleopold@minlib.net or call 781-259-8465 x4.

Click here for other vacation-week kids’ events at the library, and click here for activities at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.

Five Lincolnites exhibiting in gallery show

Lincoln residents Bernadette Quirk, Sarah Chester, Ellen Milan, Ruth Ann Hendrickson, and Dilla Tingley are among the artists showing work in the gallery exhibition “In Love With Color” at @theW art gallery, a pop-up gallery currently located at 60 Andrew Ave. in Wayland. The exhibit will be up until March 22.

Don’t forget to update your directory info and tell new neighbors

Did you drop your land line in 2018? Did your children move out of town? Did you move across town and forget to let us know? Please update your listing in the the Lincoln Telephone Directory as soon as possible. If you have a new neighbor, please share this with them (new residents sometimes are worried we are a scam). To update your information via email or to learn about volunteering or advertising, email LincolnPhoneBook@gmail.com. The Lincoln directory is mailed free to every household in Lincoln. The deadline for updates is March 1.

Magic Garden gets ready to welcome Ducklings and Explorers

Magic Garden staff along with two of its founders get ready to open the new rooms. Left to right: assistant director Susan Scalisi, director Lori Leo, founding parents Barbara Low and Mary Jo Haggerty, Little Duckling teachers Karen Puglielli and Michele Landurand, and Little Explorer teachers Linda Pham, and Ligaya Ferguson. Click to enlarge, and see more photos below.

The sunny rooms are gleaming with brand-new toys, books, cribs, and tiny chairs—all ready for little children next month and a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 9 at 3:30 p.m.

Staff from the Magic Garden Children’s Center are busy preparing for the March 1 opening of two new rooms in a satellite location at the First Parish in Lincoln’s parish house on Bedford Road. For the first time, Magic Garden will care for babies age 2–15 months in its Little Ducklings room, as well as adding a Little Explorers room for toddlers age 15–24 months. Until now, the youngest kids at Magic Garden’s main Hartwell facility were 15 months old.

Two longtime teachers from the Hartwell facility—Michele Landurand, a pre-K teacher in the Starburst room for 27 years, and Karen Puglielli, a teacher in the Moonbeam room for 25 years—will staff the new rooms, along with two teacher aides. 

Magic Garden has two rooms of its own in the parish house and will share two other rooms with the church’s education program. The renovations maximize the space with folding and sliding doors, and a wide exterior door was put in place of a window in case of emergency, when teachers will put the infants in one or two wheeled cribs and roll them outside.

One of the shared rooms has a wall-height bulletin board on wheels that can be swung back and forth 180 degrees for use by either set of children. Margit Griffith, the education director at First Parish, will lead Magic Garden’s music class, and there are also plans afoot to involve seniors (“grandfriends”) from the Council on Aging across the street.

Click images below to see larger versions. Photos by Alice Waugh.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”108″ gal_title=”Magic Garden”]

Lincolnites pitching in to help victims of government shutdown

A government employee at the January 10 “Stop the Shutdown” rally in Washington, D.C. (Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Many families in Lincoln are feeling the pinch of the ongoing government shutdown, but town-wide efforts are underway to try to help those who are being affected.

The efforts arose as a result of a rapidly organized community meeting on January 14. At the meeting were representatives of the Lincoln Public Schools, the Council on Aging (COA), the Lincoln Family Association (LFA), Minuteman National Historical Park (MMNHP), and the Lincoln Food Pantry, as well as several other individuals.

Among those affected during the shutdown are 73 Coast Guard families who are housed at Hanscom Air Force Base and all but a few of the 17 employees at MMNHP. (Those in the Air Force and other branches of the military are deemed essential government employees and have not been furloughed, but Coast Guard members, including those who work in Boston and live at Hanscom, are not being paid.) Many people who work for government contractors are also missing their paychecks.

The LFA has set up a government shutdown page on its website where people can find out how to help, or can reach out if they need help themselves. Among the needs that have been identified thus far:

  • Volunteers to stuff already-donated items into kids’ bags for Open Table on Friday, Jan. 18 at the First Parish in Lincoln’s parish house across from Bemis Hall. The bags include healthy food for younger guests of Open Table, which offers weekly community dinner programs and food pantries in Concord and Maynard. The organization will also have a special distribution day for families of unpaid government workers on Saturday, Jan. 19 at 33 Main St. in Maynard.
  • Personal care items including soaps (body, hand, dish, laundry), deodorant, shampoo/conditioner, razors and shaving cream, toothpaste, toilet paper, diapers (all sizes), and wipes. Drop off items in bins at the Lincoln Public Library, the COA, the First Parish, St. Anne’s Church, and the Smith and Brooks school buildings.
  • Donations of nonperishable food at the existing Lincoln food pantry bins in Donelan’s and at St. Joseph’s Church.
  • Cash donations to help families pay for field trips, sports and other activities. Families of some Hanscom Middle School eight-graders may be unable to afford the spring civics/history trip to Gettysburg, Washington, D.C., and Hersey Park, according to teacher Jay Peledge.“I don’t want our kids to be even more impacted than they already are by their military family lifestyle. They already need to move around frequently, learn to adapt to new environments, say goodbye to some friends and work to make new ones. I don’t want them to lose out even more because the sacrifices they already make just aren’t enough in the current political climate,” Peledge said.

Donors may send checks to the new Hanscom Families Support Fund or to the existing Legacy Fund, which serves the same purpose for children at the Lincoln School. Write the name of the fund on the check and mail to Lincoln Public Schools Business Office, 6 Ballfield Rd., Lincoln, MA 01773.

Adam Hodges-LeClaire (left), son of Ruth Hodges and John LeClaire of Trapelo Road, and Donald Hafner gather trash collected at Minute Man National Historical Park (click to enlarge).

Meanwhile, volunteers at MMNHP have already pitched in to collect trash. Last week at the park, a group of historical interpreters in full 18th-century costume (including Lincoln Minute Men Captain Donald Hafner and three other Minute Men) spent a morning collecting and removing about 100 pounds of rubbish from the Battle Road trail along the 1.5 miles from the Hanscom access road to the Brooks Tavern. A few days before, another group did the same along the mile of the Battle Road from the Paul Revere Capture site to the Minute Man Visitor Center.

“As you might imagine, we historical re-enactors are very devoted to passing along the heritage of our nation’s founding, and so for us, the Battle Road is hallowed ground, to be respected and preserved,” Hafner said. Those interested in helping out can email him at hafner@bc.edu.

There are also programs to help furloughed veterans, seniors, Coast Guard members, and others of any age experiencing financial hardship.  For more information on how to donate or to get help, see the government shutdown page on the LFA website or call the COA at 781-259-8811.

Corrections

The original stories and listings have been updated online to reflect these corrections.