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Saturday,
February 15, 2014
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Westport
High School will add more Advanced Placement classes.
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EverythingWestport.com Saturday, February 15, 2014 Westport’s fleet
of aging, rusted-out snow plows is patched together with welds, baling wire
and hopes they’ll last one more year. Most are 50 years
old. The highway
department is responsible for clearing 134 miles of roadways with a
hodge-podge of older, under-powered trucks and even older snow plows. “We fix the plows
with pieces from the other plows almost on a daily basis during storms,” said
highway department employee Andrew Sousa. That is until
now. “We took delivery
of a custom-built, heavy duty 2014 Freightliner the beginning of February
along with a new plow and drop-in sander,” acting Highway Surveyor Chris Gonsalves said. Gonsalves said that a handful of
smaller plow trucks have broken down and need to be retired. The new
Freightliner will add a degree of reliability which should take some pressure
of Gonsalve’s crew. Better capital
equipment planning by the town and Chapter 90 highway monies from the state
have all helped the highway department move to a more modern fleet of snow
clearing equipment, but there’s still a long way to go. Gonsalves said that with the next
go-around on capital equipment needs he’ll be asking for two medium-duty
pickup trucks for plowing and road maintenance work. Until recently
the highway department had been severely under-staffed, a situation that has
improved with recent hirings and the addition of
three seasonal snow plow operators. “We have six snow
plows and drivers that handle 134 miles of roadway,” Gonsalves
said. The heavy duty
trucks are the front line of plowing with the medium duty pickups and dump trucks
handling the second passes. Westport
High School will add more Advanced Placement classes. EverythingWestport.com Saturday,
February 15, 2014 Students at
Westport High School will soon have more Advanced Placement (AP) courses
available to them, thanks to funding from the Westport Education Foundation. An AP Art class
has been approved as the first grant from the foundation’s Lydia Poole Barker
Memorial Fund. The funding will allow the school’s art teacher to apply for
training in March and to offer students AP drawing next year. The school also
plans to expand its science curriculum by adding an AP physics course next
year for sophomores who have completed Algebra and Honors Geometry. By making the decision to
take an AP course, you’re letting colleges and universities know that you
have what it takes to succeed in an undergraduate environment. AP courses
signal to admissions officers that you’ve undertaken the most rigorous
classes your high school has to offer. They see that you’ve challenged
yourself with college-level course work and expectations, and have refined
your skills to meet these expectations. In the increasingly competitive
admissions process, this knowledge can be very valuable. Westport High
School Principal Cheryl Tutalo said that, in
January, the school applied for funding from the Massachusetts Math &
Science Initiative to pay for the training of a teacher to offer the advanced
physics class. The school expects to get word on its application this spring.
However, should the initiative decline Westport’s application, the Education
Foundation will step in to fund the training. “The foundation
has been key in our ability to provide the training
for the teachers,” Ms. Tutalo said. With the addition
of AP physics and art, Westport High will be at the national average for AP
offerings at a high school. The school currently has AP courses (for juniors
and seniors) in English, calculus, statistics, U.S. history, biology and
psychology. “The benefit (of
AP classes) to students is to clearly make them more college ready,” Ms. Tutalo said, adding that statistics show that many
students struggle in their first year of college because they are
ill-equipped to handle the workload that college demands. She also said
that the training teachers receive for AP classes aren’t limited to those
advanced courses. “They can use
that training in all of their classes,” she said. The Westport
Education Foundation is a community-based organization which raises private funding for innovative academic enrichment
programs to enhance the core curriculum in the Westport Community Schools. “The benefit (of AP classes)
to students is to clearly make them more college ready. Statistics show that many
students struggle in their first year of college because they are
ill-equipped to handle the workload that college demands. - Westport High School Principal Cheryl Tutalo © 2014 Community Events of Westport. All rights
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