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The Westfield News Serving Westfield, Southwick, and the surrounding Hilltowns
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“I have never known a man who died from overwork, but many who died from doubt.” — Charles Horace Mayo
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2013
VOL. 82 NO. 290
75 cents
Armed robbers strike
Prifti ‘Park’ another step closer
By Carl E. Hartdegen Staff Writer WESTFIELD – Two thieves who allegedly robbed at gunpoint employees who were closing an East Main Street store late Monday evening missed the store’s receipts when they apparently jumped the gun and struck too soon. A suspect has been identified, police report, and a warrant has been issued. City police report that the manager of the Dollar Tree Store at 301B East Main St., called at 11:53 p.m. Monday to report that he and another employee had been robbed. Officer Francis Gaulin was the first to arrive and was followed within minutes by Officers Christopher Coach, Elijah Wolfe, Ricky Maciorowski and Michael Kane. Wolfe reports that the manager said that he
By Hope E. Tremblay Staff Writer SOUTHWICK – The town is working towards making Prifti Park an actual park. Despite its name, Prifti Park is not actually a park. In order to make upgrades, it must be declared such and come under official control of the Park and Recreation Commission. Park and Recreation Commission Chairman Kelly Magni, Buildings and Grounds Manager John Westcott, and the Board of Selectmen met this week to discuss the progress of the designation of the park. Land surveyor Steve Salvini of Salvini Associates Land Surveyors of Chester and Westfield presented plans recently, outlining his findings regarding the park’s boundaries. What he found is a bit confusing, with private ownership overlapping town land. Two abutting parcels were once owned by a resident named Raymond Griffin, who sold the parcels separately. One was sold in 1954, and then several years later the other lot was sold to the town. The Commission was concerned that an easement at that site could be a problem. Salvini said language in the deed states that the easement on the land, because it was owned previously by the same person, was extinguished. He added that because of a sidewalk there, he believed legally it would be considered a prescriptive easement. “That sidewalk has been there for over 20 years,” Salvini said. A prescriptive easement is an easement upon another’s real property acquired by continued use without permission of the owner for a period provided by state law to establish the easement. Magni was at the selectmen’s meeting for guidance on next steps. “We’ve had it surveyed, it was sent to the town attorney, and we are at the point of where do we go from here,” said Magni.
See Armed Robbers, Page 3
Board approves propane site expansion
Holiday Plants Sean Cassidy, a horticulture student at Westfield Vocational-Technical High School, arranges a table full of holiday plants as part of a fundraiser for the class Wednesday. The plants will be sold from 10:30 am - noon near the school gymnasium. Doors will be open to the public until noon. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
By Dan Moriarty Staff Writer WESTFIELD – The Conservation Commission last night approved conditions to allow a Texas company to expand its propane transfer station on Medeiros Way (Summit Lock Road) requested to accommodate an increase in business. DCP Midstream of Houston initiated the Conservation Commission review in October to allow modification to its facility, located next to a wetland resource area. The company is planning to relocate a fence and install an access road at its offloading facility. Propane is brought into the site next to Brickyard Brook by rail and transferred into storage tanks until it is then pumped into trucks for delivery. Katie Bednaz of Levesque & Associated, presented details of the project at the October meeting. The hearing was continued to last
See Prifti Park, Page 3
See Propane Site, Page 3
Gateway adopts new teacher evaluation model By Peter Francis Staff Writer HUNTINGTON – By a near unanimous margin, the Gateway Regional School Committee approved a modified model by which to evaluate teachers, a measure that is sweeping across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. New evaluation standards as created by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education passed by a vote of 13-0, with one abstention. “It switches us from our current four-year re-evaluation, where you only have to do essentially 25 percent of your staff plus new staff, to fifty percent of our staff every year,” Gateway Superintendent Dr. David Hopson said of the new standards. “It’s going to increase the number of staff we have to evaluate formally each year.” School Committee members were given a 33-item superintendent evaluation, which Hopson informed the committee was set by
the state and is a “complicated, in-depth process” which will become “more complicated and in-depth as the state adds their other issues and items to it.” “This is the basis of which we’re going to build the process that will match or at least meet the state’s requirements for supervision and evaluation,” he said. When asked as whether the new evaluations would require more work on behalf of administration, Hopson didn’t hesitate in response. “It’s much more work,” he said. “Thirty teachers times ten informal observations – that is two a day off the bat.” When asked by a committee member about the state’s intent for implementing the new standards, Hopson proceeded to explain that the new standards add clarification. “The current system was adapted and approved by the school committee and GTA (Gateway Teachers’ Association) probably 30 years ago,” Hopson said, adding that it was based on the “Principles of Effective Teaching”
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that were the all the rage at that time. “But there are fewer principles of effective teaching than there are the 33 items that are (in the new evaluations).” “The state is looking at standardizing the rubric, so before you had ‘prepares lesson plan’, and there wasn’t anything about what a good lesson plan is. This rubric is good, and has better standards and definitions.” He also touched upon differences between the current evaluation structure versus the new standards. “Our current system is, a teacher who is professional status, who’s already got their tenure, is evaluated with three formal evaluation clinical cycles, with pre- and post-observation evaluations,” he said, adding that the tenured instructor then goes into a three year cycle of planning and goal setting of their own. “A new teacher has three mandated clinical evaluations each year for three years before they start a four year cycle.” “The new cycle says you’re on one year and
off one year, so long as you’re making sufficient progress,” Hopson said. When asked how the new standards would be impacted by collective bargaining with the Gateway teachers, Hopson said he and a group of administrators and teachers sat together last year and went through model contract language, and came up with minor changes and now have language going forward which is in compliance with the new standards. Prior to the committee’s executive session, Hopson said the new model will benefit the district’s students. “Having a rubric we can agree on will help us focus on instruction techniques that’ll benefit our classrooms,” he said. Due to the upcoming winter break signalling the end of the fall semester, and thus half the school year, Hopson confirmed in a call this morning that the district would be implementing the new evaluations for the 20142015 school year.
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