Around Town

Watertown-Based Group Advocates for Teaching Media Literacy to Children

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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.

Schools

Outdoor Spaces Planned for High School Project, Committee Wants More Details

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Ai3 ArchitectsThe outdoor space around the new Watertown High School will include an amphitheater west of the school, an outdoor learning area to the east, and a grassy area to the south. Designs for the new Watertown High School are coming together, but the School Building Committee would like some more specifics about the area east of the school. Landscape architects made some changes of the outdoor area along Common Street, said Arthur Eddy of Traverse at the Feb. 16 School Building Committee meeting. “You asked us to reduce paving within the site along Common Street,” Eddy said.

Schools

Scholarship to be Awarded to Watertown Student by Charles River Chamber

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The following announcement was provided by the Charles River Regional Chamber:

The Charles River Regional Chamber will be awarding a scholarship this spring to a graduating high school senior from Watertown. To qualify a student must either live in Watertown and/or attend school in Watertown.  The recipient will have a check (approximately $2,000) sent to their college or university to be applied toward tuition upon successful completion of their first semester. “The Chamber had been offering a scholarships to a high schoolers in Newton and Needham and Wellesley. We’re now adding Watertown to the mix, following our expansion into the community last summer,” said Chamber President Greg Reibman. With the expansion into Watertown, the Chamber has added Mike Albano, EVP & CFO at Mount Auburn Cemetery — who used to lead the former Watertown-Belmont scholarship program — to the scholarship selection committee.

Schools

Committee to Study Vocational Education Finalized, Will Get Help from Consultant

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The ad hoc committee that will study vocational and career education available to Watertown students will have four members of the public, and a consultant will assist members. The Vocational, Technical, and Career Education Options Ad Hoc Committee will have a total of nine members, and will meet monthly from February to June. Ultimately, it will come up with recommendations to the School Committee. The committee was formed after access to Minuteman High School was reduced for Watertown students after the vocational school opened its new campus in September 2019. Watertown is not a member district, but instead pays tuition for students to attend the school located in Lexington.

Lt. Paul Sullivan

Applications Open for 54th Annual Lt. Paul Sullivan Scholarships

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Lt. Paul Sullivan was killed in Vietnam in 1968, and a scholarship in his name has been given out for more than 50 years. High school students are invited to apply for the 54th Lt. Paul Sullivan Scholarship, named for a Watertown resident who was killed while serving in Vietnam. A passage in the program from last year’s scholarship ceremony described Sullivan:

As a teacher, as a coach, and as a soldier, he was a resolute, cheerful leader with high ideals and a firm sense of purpose and conviction, a man of courage and compassion, of determination and dedication, energetic and intelligent, principled and tolerant, vibrant and growing, with a passion both to excel and to improve the lot of others. Paul was, indeed, a magnificent friend, a wonderful man to know. If a valid test of a nation’s worth lies in those personal qualities which it tends to foster in its own citizens, then there can be no finer goal for our society than to encourage those qualities of character and mind which Paul had in such abundance.

Biotech

Watertown Company Developing COVID Therapy, Trying to Inspire Future Scientists

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Charlie BreitroseBryan Goodwin, chief biologist at Enanta Pharmaceuticals, and Watertown High School Senior Phil Centola look at a new microscope donated by the biotech company. Watertown-based Enanta Pharmaceuticals has a potential therapy for COVID-19 ready for human testing, and it also hopes to develop some future scientists with a donation to Watertown High School. On Monday morning, representatives from Enanta presented three new microscopes donated by the company to the WHS Science Department. The equipment can be hooked up to a tablet or cellphone to make it easier to see objects under magnification, and images can even be shared with other devices. The school had one of the microscopes, said Lynsey Kraemer, the district’s Science Curriculum Coordinator for Grades 8-12, but the district could not afford more.

Letters

LETTER: Watertown Father Excited for New Hosmer School

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Editor,

Yesterday (Tuesday) my family and I toured the new Hosmer elementary school. It was so exciting! The school building committee, architects, and construction crews have done a great job. The whole thing was beautiful. I loved the colorful hallways, big open classrooms and warm, welcoming environs all around.

Schools

See Photos from the Opening of the New Hosmer School & Rededication

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Charlie BreitroseParents and students head to the grand opening celebration of the new Hosmer School on Feb. 1, 2022. Watertown’s newest elementary school opened for the public to see Tuesday afternoon, and the bright and spacious three-story Hosmer School wowed those who roamed its halls and classrooms.

Superintendent Dede Galdston welcomed attendees who crowded the courtyard between the two wings of the Eastside school, and noted that it was just four months ago that the City opened another new school. “Many superintendents and city managers go through their entire career never opening a school and here we are opening the second in a year and a third on the way,” Galdston said, referring to Cunniff and Lowell schools. “And a new high school in the not too distant future.”