Hello - I'm a former student and athlete at Stoneham High School (class of '89), and like a lot of you, I was shocked and saddened to hear the news of the budget cuts that will eliminate all high school sports, as well as art & music programs in the lower grades. Like a lot of former Stoneham residents, the first I heard of this, regretfully, was in June 23rd's Boston Globe. Some of my favorite memories from Stoneham High include my times on the basketball and soccer teams. I had some great coaches (Jim Carino springs to mind) that were every bit as influential and inspiring as my favorite teachers. If I learned teamwork and the ability to compromise, I learned it on the field and court, where those lessons are essential and more easily learned than in the classroom. My family also has a long history with SHS athletics: my uncles Mike & Tommy were accomplished hockey players, and my grandfather, Sarge O'Toole, was captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams. I have a slew of aunts and uncles and cousins and friends, like I'm sure a lot of you do, who played one sport or another over these past seven decades at Stoneham High School. Surely no individual or business in Stoneham can afford to see these vital school programs wiped out. I hope everyone will forward this website to friends and relatives who live in Stoneham, or care about the future of the town. Save the Spartans!
Jesse Haley
I just heard bout this. This is pretty unfair. With nothing to do after school, all the kids will do now is boot heroin, smoke pot, and take E-pills. That's what I would have done if I didn't have sports afterschool. Pretty soon, the Stoneham High will turn into "The Carter" from New Jack City, with people smoking crack and walking around like zombies.
Not to mention...taking the arts away from kids...could alter a students future. We could be sitting on the next big star, and we may never find them because they didn't know they could sing.
C'mon...we can't let Nancy Kerrigan define who we are as a town. We need a new shining star.
As you requested here is the message I sent you the other day!
From: Kim In AZ Date: Jun 27, 2007 9:16 PM
Hi there,
I am no longer in Massachusetts but I'm pretty pissed off. My mother still lives in the same house on Pleasant Street. Although I didn't participate in sports, I am furious.
I currently live in Chandler, AZ with my husband and 3 kids. Our school district made some changes to the Middle School Schedule to make more classroom time and budget cuts. Attempts were made to eliminate many of the extracuricular activities. Our community banded together and attended many meetings with the School Board and wrote and pushed our mayor as well as our State Senator and State Representatives. Compromises were made. When ever the kids sign up for a season of whatever sport, a donation is requested. My daughter ran track during the spring and the donation was $75 which was tax deductible. It paid for the uniforms and the buses to travel to the various track meets.
Everyone needs to band together to get the Board of Selectman to change this. Too many kids and families depend on sports scholarships. What the hell is the town doing with all the taxes!!!!
Even though I'm 2500 miles away, I'll help anyway I can.
Keep me posted.
Kim Andrade (Morris Class of 1988)
I'd also like to add that my mother who I mentioned above is paying almost $5000 a year in taxes on her house as well as almost $2000 for her water bill for herself and her tenant. Let alone the $260 for trash collection for her and her tenant.
What the hell is the town doing with all the tax revenues???
What they are doing to you guys over there is horrible!!! Keep the faith...as Warriors we are all on your side!!! Let us know what we can do....Middlesex Leaguers stick together! GO SPARTANS!
I think it is unbelieveable that a town that has the money to pay a superintendent $130,000+ a year, can't afford to keep open sports, art, and/or music classes. Why exactly is that position so highly paid? Anyway, the loss of those classes would certainly be a terrible loss. It will help bring this town to poor state of living
I will be a senior this up coming school year. Personally i think it is embarasing that citizens of our town let things get this bad. Next year not only will the seniors not get a last chance for scholarships but the spartans will lose whatever spirit they already have. I find this disturbing. Although i am not someone who plays on sports teams anymore, my heart goes out to the people who do and desperatly need those scholarships for something their good at. As for art, it is my best subject and probably the only thing im good at, at good old SHS. The music program, well just take a look around. We have pheonominal singers, dancers, song writers and musicians. Our school is full of them. If it wasnt Erik playing his guitar in the hallway it was Tony. Along with Jordan keeping us company with his guitar in various classes. I know it was just a little easier to get throught the year with them. With everything going on with the teachers and their contract, most of them wanted to give up teaching. Half of my teachers started to stop teaching us by March. If the teachers are lazy so are the students. Its all a chain reaction. We have no good systems in our schools, the older schools are falling apart and withering away. Ceiling tiles fall at random times. The bathrooms are full of cigarette smoke and graffiti. Tile on the walls fall and dont get replaced. The lights in the hallways hardly get replaced. The spirit from my point of view for the Stoneham High Spartans has diminished severely. Im ashamed and dismayed to not only be a part of a town that gives a shit less about their upcoming generations, but of the cheap SOB's that live here. And everyone older than us wonders why we're so lazy. Give me teachers that reguardless of their situation will stand in front of their classes and TEACH what needs to be taught in a fun and interesting way. That accually show that they care about their jobs, their infulences and their students. And show me priniciples that accu
Great idea with the page. I graduated in 89 and was part of all 3 SHS bands, the tiny one on the football field, the small one on the stage, and the jazz band. It would be great to get alumni together in support of the school. IF the band needs a conductor sign me up and let me know! I always in town visiting my parents and friends.
People always say you can't go home again. I never believed that until I caught wind of the disgraceful actions of the residents of Stoneham. To over ride propostion 2.5. Now I don't want to go home. What is the point? What was the thought process? What good can come from that? I am not even talking from a sentimental point of view...yet, but from a homeowners point of view. Because of their heinous actions, the town not only loses what it is known for, sports, but now there is an influx of outstanding teachers and faculty members leaving the town which all leads to the decrease of their propery value. That is business and real estate 101. Now let's talk about sentiment for a bit. I am going on 31 years old, and everything I am is because what I learned at Stoneham High School. I learned as much on the track with Coach Fillback, Powers, and Wood as I did in Mr. Romano's history class and Mr. Mucica's English class. Granted these were all different lessons, but all lessons none the less. I learned how to win, how to lose, how to motivate a team, and how to be a team player...all lessons that have made me a success in the business world today. Who can forget their freshman year in college, and coming back to the first football game since leaving SHS? Who can forget reading about Joe Vitiello and Pete Fisher as they got drafted to play Major League Baseball? What about that feeling of watching "ladder workouts" on the track and thinking about how you hated doing them, but how you miss them at the same time? Some of the best times of our lives were the days leading up to double sessions, knowing it was going to be hell, but also knowing you wouldn't want to trade it in for the world. Well now it is being traded in and the athlete's have no say in the matter. All I can think about is the great athlete's who walked through the halls on Franklin Street, and the athlete's walking those
Not surprised at all,this town has been in a downward spiral,half of redstone is empty, every project that someone puts in front of the town boards is held up for years (guiterez/nem.hospital now home depot)this town is very anti buisness, in turn they don't get the commercial taxes and here's where we end up,taking it out on kids for their mismanagement of money.Can someone please explain why supt connelly ,who retired,is making $500 a day as a consultant for the school committee for the past three months,we have an asst to do the job, while they find a replacement or better yet give him the job,gross mismanagement by the school committee,that money could at least save a couple of the lower cost sports.
Thanks for the add! I'm hoping to e-mail some pics to you in the next couple of days. From my profile, you can see that our athletic programs help make me the successful person and the athlete I have become today! It would be a shame for for these programs to be cut out of our future childrens athletic and artistic develpment. P.S...You'll have to pardon the adult content of my page but...it is Myspace! LOL!!
Can someone please post the salary adjustments a teacher gets when he/she becomes a coach? How much money is actually needed? This should be doable. A teacher caps off at like $60k after like 30 years and what would the add on be for being a coach, like $10k tops? $70k is nothing, so salaries should be ok. I know there are other factors such as transportation, equipment, etc. Does anyone have this information?
Passing this along: There's a meeting set to be held in the SHS cafeteria Thursday, June 28 from 7-9 pm by the Stoneham Public Schools Foundation (SPSF), where they're hoping to form a committee to "raise the funds needed to restore athletic programs at the high school and music, art and PE programs at the Elementary and Middle School levels"
Yes this town is politically challenged…it such a disgusting miss management of money for the last 10 years and longer … Lets vote ageist a hotel moving in were the old hospital is and get 350 million in fund…. Plus town revenue from travelers… Hmmm that’s a bad. Instead lets make it low income hosing so we can put a bigger strangle hold on the school system …
My niece’s are 15 & 11 so it’s a direct impact on them, hopefully things won’t get as bad as it seems…. Ok I’m done with soapbox… so who is the man behind the Spartan Shield Till then… give em’ hell Peace, Mundo
This whole no sports thing really sucks. I just graduated from SHS so it doesnt effect me that much, but my brother and sister still go to the high school. Football is my brothers life, thats what he wants to play in college. I don't think this town understands how much they are going to hurt their students due to all the cuts.
They want to cut sports and arts because of the budget...are they out of their mind....if they do that you will see kids running to private schools or even worse surrounding Middlesex League schools...the town will become a joke.....wow shit has really changed since I was in high school and that was only 7 years ago. Not only will it be harder for kids to get into college because of no extra curricular activities you will see the streets of Stoneham swarmed with street rats and kids popping pills and shit....way to go Stoneham.
part of what makes kids excited about learning are the programs that give them a break from the minotony (and yes i can not spell that word(thanks stoneham)) of academic courses.. it makes them feel involved and conected with each other and the comunity... plus sports, art and music are a tradition that has gone on for generations. they are spending all this money on things for the town, forgeting that what makes a town is not a random comon in the middle of nowhere but the people who live there. (not in the common, in the town... or rather houses and such in the town) stoneham is losing the culture it once fought to maintain... i graduated in the year 2000 and the theme of our carnival ball was traditions, it was about the generations of students that started the carnival ball tradition and about the school it self. i was lucky to be one of the three "masters of ceremony" and together we had to learn about our schools past... lets keep building that instead of ending what we value. this is not a solution to the towns overspending, merely a cop out of admiting their faults at budgeting the towns money. we pay the taxes we should get what WE want from them. and what will they cut next.. school lunches. proms, the senior graduation party? its time we stand up and tell those out of touch town treasurers (again shitty speller)(its very late for me) that THIS is what the town needs..
our culture. OUR traditions. thanks.. please responde if you want. but don't make fun of how i spell please... it was not my best subject.. and i'm to lazy to spell check this.. plus it's a myspace comment box not a research paper.
ok now i'm really done.
~amanda~
this makes me so mad..
i'm glad Mr. Shwabe got out well he still had a job
