Watertown News (https://www.watertownmanews.com/category/schools/page/31/)
Charlie BreitroseWatertown senior Adam Patterson is introduced before the Raiders face St. Mary’s in the MIAA DIv. 3 State Final on Friday night in Lowell. The Raiders need one more win to reach the pinnacle of high school basketball, but in their way is a powerful St. Mary’s team that has steamrolled its opponents on the way to the Final.
Watertown High School will present “Into the Woods,” this weekend. The production is a modern, musical twist on the Brothers Grimm Fairy tales. There will be three performances in the Watertown High School Centennial Auditorium, 50 Columbia St., Watertown. The musical includes the classic tales of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel. These tales are tied together by an original story involving a baker and his wife on whom a witch has placed a curse.
Almost two years to the day after schools shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Watertown students will be able to go to class without wearing a face mask. Monday night, the School Committee approved Superintendent Dede Galdston’s plan to make masks optional and a set of metrics to decide if they will be required in the future. Galston noted that March 13, 2020 was the date that school in Massachusetts closed in the beginning of the Pandemic, and two years later students will be able to choose not to wear a mask. She also stressed that teachers and staff will emphasize that students will be respected and accepted regardless of whether or not they choose to wear a face mask. The change in mask rules will be finalized this week, Galdston said, after the latest student and staff testing results are received.
Arlington Catholic High School recently released the latest members of the honor roll, including a trio from Watertown. The following Watertown residents were named to the second quarter Honor Roll at Arlington Catholic High School:
Andrew Airasian
Matthew Brown
Donald MacMillan
Superintendent Dede Galdston will recommend that the School Committee allow mask wearing for students to be optional, as long as the COVID-19 cases trend continues “in the right direction.” Currently, students must wear a face covering in the classroom at all times, and during breaks and lunch, except when eating or drinking. The presentation will be made at the School Committee’s meeting on March 7, Galdston said in an announcement. She noted that unlike past vacations, the district did not see an increase in cases after February break. “Based on our pool testing and parent/staff reporting, we only have six known active COVID cases in the district,” Galdston said in the announcement.
Ai3 ArchitectsAn illustration of what the outside of the new Watertown High School will look like. The plan to build new Watertown High School passed the last major hurdle when the state approved the project on Wednesday. The Massachusetts School Building Authority voted to approve the project on March 2. The new school will be built on the same location as the current school, and architects projected the cost at $201 million at the Dec. 15, 2021 School Building Committee meeting.
The following announcement was provided by the University of Maine:
The University of Maine recognized 3,102 students for achieving Dean’s List honors in the fall 2021 semester. Of the students who made the Dean’s List, 2,025 are from Maine, 1,009 are from 39 other states and 68 are from 25 countries other than the U.S.
One student on the Dean’s List was Watertown’s Caileigh Sullivan. To be eligible for the Full-time Dean’s List, a student must have completed 12 or more calculable credits in the semester and have earned a 3.50 or higher semester GPA. Students who have part-time status during both the fall and spring semesters of a given academic year are eligible for Part-time Dean’s List. They must have completed 12 or more calculable credits over both terms and have earned a combined GPA in those terms of 3.50 or higher.
A Watertown-based non-profit group seeks to make sure that students learn about the messages they are getting from television, video games and social media, and how they impact their lives. Media Literacy Now was started by Erin McNeill who first became aware of the impact of media on children in 2011. “What really pushed me to do this was I could see what was happening to my own kids, and how much they were influenced by messages they were getting: mostly at that time from television, and then as time went on, video games and now it has gotten more extreme — wall-to-wall messages,” McNeill said. “The messages tell kids who they are and what they should be. They are powerful, parents are powerful too, but multi-million dollar corporations are influencing children.” McNeill knows about the media having worked in the industry, including covering policy and how it is made in the United States while working for Congressional Quarterly.