Winchendon Weekly News -- February 16, 2023
From the Desk of Dr. Goguen - Superintendant's Update February 16, 2023
Watch the February 16, 2024 Student-Produced Blue Devil Weekly!
Murdock Middle School Offers Band, Choir and Guitar Club
Band, Choir or Guitar Club is now available for all middle school students!
Band: Monday/Thursday
Choir: Tuesday/Friday
Guitar Club: Wednesday
For more information, contact: Mr. Freitag, Middle School Music Teacher at: kfreitag@winchendonk12.org
Rickelle Divoll-Tieu named to the dean's list at Tufts University
MEDFORD, MA (02/20/2024)-- Rickelle Divoll-Tieu, Class of 2027, of Winchendon, was named to the dean's list at Tufts University for the Fall 2023 semester. Dean's list honors at Tufts University require a semester grade point average of 3.4 or greater.
Tufts University, located on campuses in Boston, Medford/Somerville and Grafton, Massachusetts, and in Talloires, France, is recognized among the premier research universities in the United States. Tufts enjoys a global reputation for academic excellence and for the preparation of students as leaders in a wide range of professions. A growing number of innovative teaching and research initiatives span all Tufts campuses, and collaboration among the faculty and students in the undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs across the university's schools is widely encouraged.
U/Mass Amherst Releases Fall, 2023 Dean's List
The following Winchendon students were named to the Dean's list at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for the fall 2023 semester.
In order to qualify, an undergraduate student must receive a 3.5 grade-point average or better on a four-point scale.
YangYu Chen
Hannah Demanche
Jadyn Andrew Fletcher
Alexandra Lee Hartwell
Sabrina Lapcheske
Kevin Yen Lin
Tiffany Lin
Alexandra L. Martell
Jonathan Polcari
Julio Augusto Rodriguez
Lillian Rose Skawinski
Cronin, Kushmerek Ask State to Intervene, Implement Fair Admissions Process at Monty Tech
Senator John J. Cronin and Representative Michael Kushmerek asked Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Commissioner Jeffrey Riley to immediately intervene to implement a fair admissions policy at Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School this week.
"Monty Tech uses a private school admissions policy to systemically deny kids from low-income households access to our region's public trade school. The result is an admissions regime that admits college bound students first and fails to deliver the skilled workforce in the trades our local economy needs to thrive and grow," said Senator Cronin. "Worse than that, Monty Tech's administration is denying hundreds of kids growing up in poverty in North Central a pathway to the middle class and a high paying career. That's an indefensible policy for a public school."
The letter asks DESE to intervene in Monty Tech's current admissions cycle to implement an admissions lottery, rather than rank ordering applicants by selective criteria--grades, attendance, discipline, and interviews--which the school has used over the past two decades. These practices, according DESE data, discriminate against low-income applicants.
In the last year of publicly available data, DESE documented huge opportunity gaps between protected and non-protected applicants at Monty Tech. Approximately 45% of eligible 8th graders in Monty Tech's sending communities come from a low-income household that interacts with a safety net program. During the 2022 admissions cycle, 38% of applicants from low-income households that applied were offered admission. Monty Tech admitted more than 65% of students from non-low-income households.
These numbers mirror trends from the previous two school years, where low-income students were admitted at far lower rates than their more affluent peers. Statewide data showed similar discrepancies in admissions, where 71% of non-low-income students received offers of admission compared to under 54% of low-income students.
In 2023, Cronin and Kushmerek filed legislation to mandate an admissions lottery for all the Commonwealth's vocational schools, the same standard used at charter schools for the last 30 years. The bill received a favorable report from the Joint Committee on Education this month, teeing it up for potential legislative action this session.
In 2021, Cronin was the original sponsor of a new line item for Innovation Pathways in the state budget, which creates more vocational capacity across the state by providing work-based learning programs for juniors and seniors in comprehensive high schools.
Spring Exhibition at the East Wing Gallery at MWCC Highlights Printmaking Artist Liz Bannish
Liz Bannish: 12 Years of Printmaking Exhibit at MWCC East Wing Gallery.
Photo courtesy of the Center for Contemporary Printmaking.
GARDNER, MA - February 16, 2024 - Mount Wachusett Community College welcomes Liz Bannish "12 Years of Printmaking" exhibit through March 8th at the college's East Wing Gallery.
A resident of Norwalk, Connecticut, Bannish works as a Printer and Studio Manager at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking where she prints for artists and teaches workshops. Bannish earned her BFA in Printmaking and Art History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2011, winning 2nd best in show in her class for her senior thesis. She is a member of the faculty and teaches workshops for her alma mater.
Following university, Bannish interned at Zea Mays Printmaking, bringing their research in non-toxic printmaking to SGC San Francisco in 2013. She began working as Printmaking and Photo Technician for Smith College in Northampton, MA in 2015, running their printmaking studio, letterpress studio, photo darkrooms, and OSHA compliance programs for five fun and challenging years. In 2020 she moved to Connecticut and her current position, where some of her first duties were to help sustain the small nonprofit studio through the COVID-19 pandemic; creating procedures, building partitions, and reinventing how a community studio operates.
Bannish has trained with masters Barry Moser (Pennyroyal Press), Peter Pettengill (Wingate Studios), and Liz Chalfin (Zea Mays Printmaking). Her personal work spans the media of sustainable and traditional printmaking and includes relief, etching, lithography, and alternative photography.
The "Liz Bannish: 12 Years of Printmaking" will be on display until March 8th, concluding with a closing reception on Friday, March 8th from 5 to 7 pm. The East Wing Gallery is open Monday through Thursday from 8 am to 8 pm, and Fridays from 8 am until 5 pm, except for holidays, as well as during all Theatre at the Mount performances.