News

All Articles Passed at Town Meeting

By Nancy Arsenault

Special Town Meeting convened Monday night attracting a sparse crowd of 125, possibly due to the 5th game of the World Series being broadcast at about the same time. All articles passed with little controversy though a few did provoke comments from voters. Town Moderator David Walrath broke with longstanding tradition and allowed a live broadcast of the meeting on Stow TV.

The Board of Selectmen chose to support two specific Warrant articles, believing strongly that voters should follow their lead, and the voters did just that. They first approved $58,000 to add to the monies already appropriated to upgrade the town water plant, located in Town Building. This upgrade follows a directive issued by the DEP that if the system was not brought into compliance with newer regulations, fines could be levied against the town.

Minuteman Campaigns for Funding Bill

By Ann Needle

With a major building project proposal in the works, Minuteman Regional Vocational High School hosted a legislative breakfast last Tuesday, accenting support of a senate bill that would increase funding for school building projects. Minuteman Superintendent Dr. Edward Bouquillon also took the opportunity to discuss a proposal for changes to their current regional membership agreement with area towns.

The Minuteman session was attended by about 10 state legislators, including Sen. Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton) and some of the bill’s co-sponsors. Last Thursday, a hearing was held at the State House for Senate Bill 228, calling for a 10% to 20% increase in state aide for regional school construction projects.

Substance Policy Proposed for Nashoba

By Ann Needle

Last night, the Nashoba School Committee reviewed a potential policy outlining student expectations and penalties surrounding drug and alcohol use at Nashoba Regional High School. The Committee also gave the nod to a plan for studying the school’s space needs.

Medical Marijuana Vote at Town Meeting

By Nancy Arsenault

Now that 63% of the state’s voters have approved the placement of medical marijuana facilities in communities, will Stow be one of these locations? The Planning Board held a forum last week to gauge public opinion, but with few attendees, they did not come away with much resident input, leaving the regulating process, at least at this point, fully in the hands of town government.

New Report Cards, Tests for Nashoba

By Ann Needle

How to measure success was at the top of last night’s agenda for the Nashoba School Committee. Along with discussion of a new middle school report card came an announcement that the district will participate in a pilot program aimed at replacing the MCAS with national standards.

Scheduled to be in place by next year, the new middle school report card will continue to list traditional letter grades in each subject, according to Patrick Perkins, principal of Lancaster’s Luther Burbank Middle School and one of the new report card’s chief developers. The rest of the report card is devoted to assessing how a student is progressing in the standards set for each subject by the state. For instance, in Math, one of the tasks a sixth grader is expected to grasp by the end of the school year is the ability to demonstrate and apply concepts of statistics. Each trimester, the student can be rated on the standard anywhere from a 1 (not yet progressing) to a 4 (exceeds).

Postal Pantry Counters Government Cuts

By Ann Needle

Could you feed yourself — or your child — on $6 per day? Take away $1, and what food would you cut out? That is the dilemma many people wrestle with daily. And, come next month, recipients of SNAP benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) will see their budgets shrink even further.

For the Stow Food Pantry, this is the reality it tries to make a bit less daunting. And, its annual Postal Pantry Share the Bounty Food Drive, October 7 to 12, is the food bank’s biggest source of items and financial donations every year, according to Food Pantry President Amanda Bennett. Now that most SNAP recipients will see their benefits reduced by November, the Pantry must use this drive to help gear up for an expected increase in clients.

Peaceful Turnout for Gun Violence Forum

By Ellen Oliver

A public forum “Gun Violence: Nine months after Newtown: What has changed?” was held by the Stow Democratic Town Committee on September 18 at Hale School. The forum was originally scheduled to be held in May, but was postponed due to concerns about the potential size of the turnout and need for increased security measures, according to the SDTC.

The panel members for the forum, some different from the ones scheduled for May, included John Rosenthal from Stop Handgun Violence, Angus McQuilken from the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence and StateRepresentative Michael Brady, who is on the Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee. James Wallace from the Gun Owners Action League, was also scheduled to appear, but withdrew the day before due to illness.

Nashoba MCAS Scores Healthy

By Ann Needle

With the school year still new, the Nashoba School Committee got a first look at last spring’s MCAS scores for the district at their meeting Tuesday night, and heard reflections from Nashoba Regional High School’s principal, after his first year of service, on what is needed at the school. Much of the rest of the Committee meeting was devoted to reviewing and approving new and existing policies, including a new teacher evaluation system.

Looking at the spring MCAS results, the district continued to fare well. Compared with other grades across the state, each Nashoba school placed at least in the top third of each grades’ Math, Science, and English Language Arts tests, according to calculations released by The Boston Globe. Students take the exam in grades 3 through 8, as well as in grade 10. The tests’ rankings are listed (highest to lowest) as Advanced, Proficient, Needs Improvement and Warning/Failing.

Intel Closing Impacts Region

By Nancy Arsenault

Late last week, word reached the public that international semi-conductor giant Intel will be shutting down their chip manufacturing facility in Hudson. The shut down will slash 700 positions by the end of 2014. The first round of layoffs, affecting 100 people, is expected to take place over the next few months. When the entire layoff concludes, the Hudson workforce will have been cut nearly in half.

“Intel has informed its employees that it plans to cease manufacturing operations at its wafer fabrication facility in Hudson, MA,” confirmed Ann Hurd, Manager of Corporate Affairs Intel East Coast, speaking to The Stow Independent on Friday. She said Intel is developing plans to offer other manufacturing positions within the company to laid off employees, but none of those positions are in Massachusetts. “Our other factories are in Arizona and Oregon,” said Hurd of the relocation options.

Reduced School Year Assessment for Stow

By Ann Needle

As plans were laid out for the new school year, Stow taxpayers received some good news at the Nashoba School Committee’s first meeting of the 2013/14 year held on Tuesday night.

In sum, Superintendent Michael Wood noted that new state accounting rules and corrections made to enrollment numbers mean Stow’s assessment is about $150,000 less than its original 2013/14 calculation. Lancaster sees an $85,000 drop, while Bolton’s contribution ticks up by $200,000.