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

School hoping to buy time for building project

By Alice Waugh

The School Committee has asked for more time from the state and more money from the town in hopes of salvaging almost $21 million in state aid promised for the school building project, which earlier this month failed to garner enough voter support to move forward.

School Committee chairman Jennifer Glass and Superintendent of School Becky McFall sent a letter on November 15 to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) to formally report on the failed town meeting vote on Nov. 3 and ask if the town could have more time to achieve resident buy-in before the state-funding window of opportunity closes. The MSBA had committed to providing $20.9 million of the $49 million that would be needed for major renovations and additions to the school if voters had approved the project by a two-thirds majority at town meeting and a simple majority at the polls on Election Day.

Glass and McFall asked the MSBA to give the town until the end of February 2013 to “determine whether we believe the project can garner sufficient support from he Town, and whether and to what extent revisions of the project will be necessary.”

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Welcome to the Lincoln Squirrel!

Welcome to the very first post in the Lincoln Squirrel, which will feature news, photos, events and other stuff about Lincoln, Mass. For more information about this site, click on “About / Contact” in the row of links at the top of the page.

This is a work in progress, so there will be new features and gizmos from time to time. I’ve put in some past stories that I wrote for the Lincoln Journal, which you can also access here:

I’d love to get your feedback about the content on this site and what you’d like to see here. I also welcome your news tips and calendar submissions for events that are open to all Lincoln residents. Shoot me an email at lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com or give me a call. Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you!

AKA Bistro one step closer to cocktails

(This article was originally published in the Lincoln Journal on October 12, 2012).

By Alice Waugh

A recent thumbs-up from Board of Selectmen moved AKA Bistro one step closer to having an all-alcohol liquor license, meaning the restaurant could be serving cocktails by the end of the year.

The board unanimously voted to approve the change in license at the close of a public hearing on October 1. Once the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (ABCC) issues final approval, the town will issue the license to AKA. The ABCC is expected to act within “a few weeks” and town will then act “very fast” to issue the license, said Selectman Peter Braun.

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New faces at Lincoln School in 2012-13

Maurisa Davis

(This article originally appeared in the Lincoln Journal on September 27, 2012.)

By Alice Waugh

Among the new faces at the Lincoln School this fall are three teachers, a school psychologist, and several instructional assistants and tutors. The faculty features a pair of new fifth-grade teachers, Maurisa Davis and Lauren Sonalkar.

Davis taught fourth and fifth grade in Amherst for five years before coming to Lincoln. “I grew up in Amherst from the age of 13 and have only lived in western Massachusetts since, so this is a complete adventure for me,” she said. An English major who focused on creative writing, she described herself as a “voracious reader and writer,” an avid shopper, and “a bit of a coffee snob.”

In addition to learning new philosophies and approaches to education, Davis said she looks forward to “expanding my horizons and challenging myself. That’s something I’ve always tried to instill in my students.”

Lauren Sonalkar

The second new fifth-grade teacher is Lauren Sonalkar, who taught fifth grade in Whitney Point, N.Y. for the last two years and worked in kindergarten and second-grade classrooms in Virginia before that. A native of Lexington, she enjoys cooking, hiking and digging clams on the Cape.

“I know Lincoln is a great school district and cares about the whole child,” she said. “My goal is to tap into the knowledge base and really learn from my colleagues and improve my [teaching] practice.”

Alissa Nageotte is a new second-grade teacher this year, though she’s worked at the Lincoln School since 2008 as an assistant, long-term substitute teacher and reading tutor, as well as coaching the middle-school girls’ soccer and basketball teams. The Connecticut native enjoys watching UConn basketball, traveling and cooking.

“I’ve really enjoyed working in Lincoln. I like that the school is a tight-knit community and that I’ve been able to get to know many of the kids throughout the grades,” Nageotte said. “A highlight for me is watching a child that has been struggling with something have that ‘aha moment.’ It’s so fun to watch how excited they are when they achieve something they’ve been working so hard at. I hope that at the end of the year, [my students] can look back and tell me what they learned and that they had fun along the way.”

Anique Lebel

Another new hire is school psychologist Anique Lebel, who previously worked as a school psychologist and team chair at Kingston Elementary School. Lebel has also worked at the Ely Center in Auburndale, helping students with social skills, anxiety management and behavioral strategies.

“I’m thrilled to be working in Lincoln,” said Lebel, who graduated from Acton-Boxborough High School. “The collaborative, inclusive, and dynamic approach of teachers and administrators has been wonderful, and I look forward to a great year.”

In 2012-23, teachers and administrators will continue adjusting the curriculum to align with the Massachusetts “common core” in mathematics and English language arts, or ELA. The newer ELA standards call for a greater emphasis on “informational reading” (in addition to fiction and narrative) to improve students’ competence in learning and expressing information from multiple media and across the curriculum.

This is also the first year that grades 5, 7 and 8 will be using the new standards-based scoring, a system that was piloted in the sixth grade last year. Rather than a traditional letter-based report card, standards-based reports assign numbers (1-4) to indicate whether the child is below, near, at or above the grade level standard for several categories in each academic subject.

Alissa Nageotte

Although they had to learn a new assessment system in 2011-12, “by the end of the year, the sixth-grade teachers said they loved it because it really freed them to teach more creatively, which was my hope,” said Sharon Hobbs, principal of the middle school.

For at least this year, however, eighth-graders will also get letter grades in addition to the standards-based scoring. Most high schools use traditional “A-F” report cards, “and we decided it wasn’t fair to send kids to high school having never seen letter grades,” Hobbs said.

 

deCordova scraps art classes for adults

For the first time in decades, adults looking for hands-on art instruction at the deCordova won’t see any offerings.

(This article originally appeared in the Lincoln Journal on September 7, 2012.)

By Alice Waugh

This fall, for the first time in decades, there will be no semester-based art classes at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. DeCordova has scrapped its school in favor of a greater focus on sculpture and family-based programs. The Lincoln Nursery School, which has rented one of the art-class studios for the past two years, is moving its entire operation into the vacated studios.

The museum school closure, which faculty members were told about last November, has engendered a feeling of loss in many students and longtime deCordova faculty members.

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Watson strikes new note at First Parish

Ian Watson plays the organ at the First Parish Church.

(This article was originally published in the Lincoln Journal on August 23, 2012.)

By Alice Waugh

As a boy in Buckinghamshire, England, Ian Watson was obsessed with the piano and organ—”that’s all I could ever think about,” he said. He began a distinguished musical career shortly thereafter and now, a decade after emigrating to the United States, he’s adding another piece to his repertoire: music director for Lincoln’s First Parish Church.

Watson, a self-described freelance conductor and keyboardist who lives in Hudson, is artistic director for the Arcadia Players, a period instrument ensemble based at the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. For several years, he was also director of music at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Worcester, where he revitalized the choir and started a music festival, and conducted several major concerts a year.

Lincoln will get its own taste of period music from the Arcadia Players on October 7, when Watson will lead the group in a performance of Mozart and Hayden concertos in Bemis Hall (tickets are $20 at the door). He will also play fortepiano, the type of instrument used by those two composers.

The music from period instruments (for example, violins strung with gut and having a flatter and shorter fingerboard) “is beautifully clear and clean,” Watson said. “If Beethoven walked in, he would immediately recognize what we were doing by the style of music and the instruments we were playing.”

At age 14, Watson won a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he was awarded all the prizes for organ performance and others for piano accompaniment. He also received the Recital Diploma, the highest award for performance excellence. His first organ appointment was at St. Margaret’s, Westminster Abbey, at the age of 19, a position he held for 10 years. Watson later held several prestigious positions in London, including organist of St. Marylebone Parish church and music director of the historic Christopher Wren Church, St. James’s Piccadilly.

Until recently, the First Parish had both a music director and an organist, but after longtime music director Malcolm Hawkins retired last year, the music committee decided to look for a candidate who could do both jobs, said committee chair Mary Briggs. “The choir loft looks like it was designed for one person to do both jobs, so obviously it’s worked in the past,” she observed.

Watson’s audition was “fabulous,” Briggs said. “He blew us away with his organ playing —we’d never heard it sound so wonderful, and he got us in the choir to sing better than we thought we could. We’re so fortunate to have this musician with an international reputation joining us. I can’t wait for the beginning of the church year.”

“The First Parish of Lincoln offers an opportunity to present a wide variety of music, both choral and instrumental,” Watson said. “My intention is to build on what’s here, not to change anything for the sake of change, but to develop and expand it to the best it can be.”

Community center feasibility report issued

By Alice Waugh

If Lincoln decides to create a community center to house the Parks and Recreation Department and the Council on Aging in a single building, the most logical site would be somewhere on the Ballfield Road school campus, but further discussion will be deferred until after the town votes on the school building project this fall.

In its report presented to the Board of Selectmen on July 30, the Community Center Feasibility Study Committee examined the current and future space needs of the two organizations and presented information about seven possible sites in town that might accommodate the Parks and Recreation Department (PRD) or the Council on Aging (COA), or potentially both in one multigenerational facility.

For existing and future programming over the next decade, the PRC needs 14,600 square feet of space and the COA needs about 9,700 square feet, but having both in one building would require only 19,300 square feet (5,000 less than the sum of the two separately) because they could share some of the space.

Bemis Hall, the current home of the COA, “is not well suited for use as a senior center” because of issues with insufficient handicapped access, the configuration of the space in the historic building, and not enough safely located parking. There are a few spaces in front of Bemis that require drivers to back out into busy Bedford Road, and if they park in the church lot across the street, they must cross the same road.

While the PRD “is very happy with its current location” in Hartwell pod C, the pods have code violations and general wear and tear that will have to be addressed even if the PRD stays put, the report said. There’s also uncertainty about the process for future repairs, since the PRD is “borrowing” its space from the Lincoln School Committee. Since they are not being used for educational purposes, there is little incentive for that committee to fund repairs. However, the pods could be formally decommissioned, which would effectively transfer authority over the space.

Similarly, the town will need to spend money on Bemis Hall (which formerly housed the PRD) even if the COA stays there. The town should move ahead with short-term improvements to the building to meet the current needs of the COA and then do a “thoughtful suitability assessment” for the best uses of the building, the report said.

“One way or another, Bemis Hall is going to continue to be used,” Selectman Peter Braun said.

The committee’s report looked at the pros and cons of seven potential sites for the PRC and/or the COA: the Hartwell area (including part of the administration building as well as the pods), part of the old Smith School after new construction is completed, Pierce House, the First Parish Church, the Groves, Farrington Memorial, and Lincoln Woods on Wells Road. For each, the report includes data on the suitability of the location; the adaptability of the existing structures; renovation or construction cost; and access, circulation and parking.

The notion of whether the town even wants a one-site community center needs more consideration by officials and residents, selectmen noted.

“We need to articulate a vision and then see what happens with the schools,” said feasibility committee member Bob Sutherland, referring to an upcoming town-wide vote on the proposed elementary school building project.

“This report is not an attempt to sell the town on a need for a community center,” noted Town Administrator Timothy Higgins. “It provides an objective jumping-off point for future discussions that the town will have.”

Selectman Renel Fredriksen praised the work of the committee and the report’s neutrality, though she commented, “I couldn’t help but walk away with some very definite opinions… and I’d be really surprised if a lot of people didn’t reach the same conclusions I did.”

“This is a fabulous report. You’ve done the town a great service,” Selectman Noah Eckhouse told committee members. Though it was finished later than originally planned, the committee spent only $13,000 of the $45,000 it was allocated for its work, even with the hiring of a consultant, he added.

Historic Gropius House lives on

(This article was originally published in the Lincoln Journal on August 2, 2012.)

By Alice Waugh

The front of the Gropius House on Baker Bridge Road.

In the Lincoln of the late 1930s, Walter Gropius’ home was certainly different. Although the world-renowned architect incorporated a few New England touches into his blocky white modern house atop a hill on Baker Bridge Road, neighbors were skeptical—never dreaming that one day this “lonely little petunia in an onion patch of traditional architecture” would become a national historic landmark.

During a recent “Evening at Gropius,” site manager Wendy Hubbard offered an in-depth look at the house and its designer to a handful of visitors who toured the house at dusk and experienced the dramatic lighting effects he created.

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