In the News 2007

LYNN -- By the time he was in the eighth grade, Eric Silva knew where he wanted to go to college, and for the next four years, he did what he had to do to get there.

The newly-minted Classical High graduate got the job done in the classroom and still managed to find time to play three sports and work summers. When the acceptance letter from Boston College arrived in the mail, Silva nearly jumped through the ceiling.

"BC has been my dream school since the eighth grade," Silva said. "I like the location. It's far enough away, but not too far. I've been touring it since my sophomore year. It's pretty much the perfect school."

Silva, who plans on going into the premed program, is one of 16 students, 12 from the local area and four from Boston Latin, who will receive Agganis Foundation Scholarships at the Agganis awards ceremony at Fraser Field on July 13. He'll receive $1,000 for each of the four years he's in college. The foundation also awards a one-year Chairman's Scholarship.

Like most Agganis scholars, Silva was accepted to some top-notch schools and had a tough decision to make. He was also accepted at Syracuse University, but decided he preferred the Boston College setting (near the city, but not in the middle of it).

Although Silva's star has been steadily on the rise, his high school experience wasn't without its setbacks. Silva has played soccer since he was old enough to lace up the cleats, and he was looking forward to a big senior year. He had made the Classical varsity team as a sophomore and had worked his way into a starting job as goalie. He saw his final season go out the window when he blew out his knee.

One of the things Silva is proudest of when he looks back on his four years at Classical is his participation in the College Bowl.

"It sounds nerdy, but I was with all my friends," he said. "I really liked the competition with other cities. We faced a lot of private schools during the season and we showed that a public school from Lynn has the ability to challenge private schools from around Massachusetts."

Silva said he's aware some people have a preconceived notion about Lynn, but he doesn't buy into it.

"I like to prove them wrong, show them we don't fall into a category and that we're our own people and we can make a difference in the world," he said.

Silva found a way to balance being a three-sport athletic all four years with his studies (including six years' worth of science in four years), but if his schoolwork had started to slip, he was prepared to drop a sport.

"Academics are my No. 1 priority," Silva said.

Silva said his parents, Denise and Carlos Silva, have always been very supportive of his efforts, both in and out of the classroom.

"I'm thankful my parents pushed me so hard," he said. "I don't think I'd be going to BC if not for them."

Silva has a younger sister, Briana, who is at Shoemaker Elementary School (Silva went to Shoemaker and Pickering Middle School before Classical). His advice to her is simple.

"She needs to find her passion, whether it's sport, drama, academics or something else, and then she can't give up, no matter what," he said.

Silva doesn't have any big plans this summer other than to continue working as a lifeguard at Revere Beach, a job he has held for the past three years, and work for the Lynn Parks and Recreation tennis clinic, which is something he has been involved in for the past four years.

Silva also plans to spend time with his friends. He said he and several of his buddies have been together since their kindergarten days at Shoemaker. They moved on to Pickering together, and then Classical.

"The best thing about Classical has definitely been the people. The people there are so supportive of each other ... They were just great. I loved Classical with all my heart. It had a lot of diversity and the people there really helped me get ready for college life," he said.

Paul Scali, LCHS Class of 2007, sends smiles and good luck to his fellow classmates. Paul recently graduated from the US Navy Bootcamp at Great Lakes, Illinois. He is now stationed and training at the Aircrew Life Support School at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, home of the Navy's Blue Angels.

LYNN - Classical High School senior Doneeca Thurston knows that leaving Lynn for Pennsylvania's Bucknell University this August will be more than a small adjustment, but she also knows that she will have the companionship of nine other Boston area students to ease the transition.
Thurston is the only Lynn recipient of the 2008 Posse Foundation Scholarship, which chooses worthy students from the Boston area to attend schools across the country in a group with other recipients.

Founded in 1989, Posse started because of one student who said he would not have made it through college without his "posse." The foundation has since sent over 2,200 students from across the country to college on leadership scholarships with full tuition.
In all, 60 Massachusetts students will attend six different colleges across the state on Posse scholarships next year.
The award is not an easy one to receive, after Thurston was nominated by RAW Arts, where she has volunteered and worked for the last two years, she went through three strenuous interviews in Boston before she was finally chosen to receive the award.
The organization brings in over 1,000 students from the Boston area, and weeds out unqualified students after each of the three interviews. Students must prove that they are dedicated to the program, because they are required to accept the scholarship if they are chosen.
Now that she has accepted, she will begin attending leadership courses with her 10 future college classmates every Wednesday until the group leaves for Bucknell in August.
"I have never been to Pennsylvania before, so it is going to be an adjustment," she said. "Moving to a different state and being separated from my parents and the nest they have made for me will probably be the biggest change."
Thurston has been deeply involved with RAW Arts since joining the organization two years ago. She has contributed works in the form of short film and paintings, and has been working in the RAW Chief's program mentoring other students during her senior year.
Because of her grades and volunteer efforts, Classical leaders were ready to nominate Thurston for the Posse Scholarship earlier this year, but found out that RAW Arts had beat them to it.
"What is amazing to me about Doneeca is how she really takes charge when she wants something," said RAW Arts Director of Project Launch Susannah Horwitz. "She is one of those people that just shines, she wants to help others succeed and when she wants something she is really, really going to go for it."
Along with RAW Arts, the senior is also part of the National Honors Society, and she volunteers in the community as part of the Key Club.
"I don't have enough words to describe Doneeca," said her Guidance Councilor Jessica Toomey. "She is a tremendously involved and talented kid."
Thurston will major in psychology and environmental studies at Bucknell, and she would like to return to Lynn to set up her own non-profit organization, similar to RAW Arts, to provide art therapy to troubled kids.
"I want to work with mentally ill children, and use art to talk to them and to help them," she says. "I will probably come back to Lynn (after school). I love Lynn, it is my home."
While the long distance will be an adjustment for Doneeca and her family, her mother says she is proud to see her child perusing her dreams and working so hard to achieve this scholarship.
"It is actually an honor, her father and I are extremely proud," said her mother Valerie Deland-Thurston. "Every time I think about it I actually want to cry. She pushes herself in everything that she does. She is very motivated. Everything she has done in school she has done for herself."
Thurston says she has been in contact with her future classmates, and they are getting together on Martin Luther King Day to hang out and get to know each other more. Other students in the group are from Boston, Cambridge and Malden.

LYNN - With prom season just a few months away, high school students across the city are beginning to anticipate the formal event, and while it may not be time to decide on a date, it is never too soon to explore the latest fashions in the annual Prom Guide.
This year, Classical students will see a familiar face when they pick up the pamphlet as senior Erin Muschette is gracing the cover of the Massachusetts-area edition.
Muschette is one of 15 cover models from across the country that are featured in the magazine both in their home states and other states that are not represented by models. She was chosen for the honor after posting her profile on the Prom Guide website, and securing enough votes to be one of the top 15 cover models.
She is actually the second Classical student in the last three years to be featured in the magazine, as then-senior Luisaura Alvarez found herself in the same position on the 2006 edition.
While Alvarez had a modeling background and participated in the Miss Massachusetts Pageant prior to her cover shoot, Muschette says this is her first attempt at modeling.
"This is the first time I have ever done anything like this. I know we had another winner from Classical a few years ago, and I decided that I want to try it," she said.
Muschette and the other 14 models - two men and 12 women - were flown on an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City in November for the weekend photo shoot, where they donned trendy dresses, shoes and hairstyles for the 20-page guide.
The National Honors Society student and swim team member says she has the modeling bug now, and she hopes to follow-up on a few callbacks she has received since the magazine was released.
"I hope to do more modeling. I am trying, so we'll see," she said. "I have had a couple of callbacks and the people from the Prom Guide said they would check into them to make sure they are legitimate, because there are a lot of people out there that want to rip you off."
Muschette has also been volunteering at the Boys and Girl's club for many years, and says she hopes to get a degree in child psychology from one of the 12 schools she has applied to, including Harvard and Boston College.
But those steps are in the future. For now, Muschette says she is looking forward to finishing up her senior year, and, of course, attending the prom.
"I am really excited for the prom, but it is still a few months away," she said. "This year is flying by, almost a little too fast. I am really excited, but a little nervous too."

LYNN - With its urban center and miles of paved state roads winding through heavily settled neighborhoods, conservation areas are not always easy to come by in Lynn. But nestled between some new houses and old railroad tracks, where the Saugus River meets the Atlantic Ocean, is an important stretch of ecological real estate.

It may look like a field of thick grass or a wasteland of mud to the casual observer, but the Marsh view Park Salt Marsh off of Boston Street on the Saugus line is a vital piece of the area's ecosystem, and it is crawling with life.

Now, thanks to the science department at Classical High School, marine biology students are beginning to utilize this valuable resource to learn how to protect the environment around them, and foster a real-world understanding of the lessons learned in the classroom.

Classical Marine Biology Teacher David Winchester is a marine biologist in every definition of the title. Working with the New England Aquarium in Boston and other private aquariums across the state for over a decade, the Lynn native has been studying the region's aquatic make-up for most of his adult life.

Two years ago he came to Classical with the idea of giving back to his hometown as a teacher, and has taken what was once a one-time walking field trip to the marsh to a yearlong field study of the marsh and its surroundings.

Students take water samples, bird watch and catch shell fish - all of which are brought back to the classroom for further study. The area possesses such a variety of living organisms; Winchester and his colleagues Jeff Grove, Andrew Creamer and Amanda Curtis, are able to tie in nearly every textbook lesson to the marsh.

"The best is when we can go at low tide, there are shrimp and crabs to collect, we take plant samples and go bird watching," Winchester said. "The school has been going down there informally for a while, but I wanted to take it up to the next notch. There are some weeks in the spring when my classes went every day."

Because of the warm weather this week, Winchester was able to take his class to the marsh on Tuesday at high tide. The class has set up three main research points along an old General Electric rail line to sample water and search under bridges for organisms. They study the areas and use classroom technology to keep data on any changes or new life forms that they may find.

"When I first bring them to the salt marsh it is kind of a let down because it looks like it is just mud and grass," he said. "In marine biology there are a lot of sexy topics like coral reef or the rainforest, but the salt marsh is so important to the New England region."

Along with serving as a home for many small fish and organisms, the marshes also sustain shore birds, which use the muddy surface as a sort of rest stop during migration. The birds feed on the worms and small bugs in the mud, and will sometimes use surrounding areas to lay eggs.

The grassy covering acts as a natural form of nutrients and protection, filtering out mud and toxins in the summer when it is alive, and sinking into the surface, providing nutrients after it dies.

While the project is an easy way to keep students interested in his class, and do some of his own research as well, Winchester says the overall goal is to get the students thinking about conservation and protecting areas like this in he future.

"Ultimately, I want them to care enough about the conservation issues to want to care wherever they are," Winchester said. "There is this belief that kids tend to get down hearing all of these negative things on the news and in the world. If that is all they hear then a lot of kids end up feeling helpless, like 'why should I even try?' The strategy is if you teach people about things ultimately they will start to care about them. If they care they will want to learn more about it."

Winchester is hoping that the research his classes do this year and in the future will result in something much more, and he has already started putting some pictures and basic information on a web page about the project.

He hopes that in the future he could log water samples and other info on that site, and create a place where all of the classes, along with the community, can contribute to the study of the wetlands.

Classical is also looking to get involved with students at the Breed Middle School, which is down the street from the high school, along with other science teachers in the city who may be interested in bringing the project to their classroom.

In the case of his colleague Curtis, who teaches at the Classical Freshmen Academy on North Common Street, Winchester was able to set up a mini-lab in her room, complete with water samples and creatures from his class' trips to the marsh.

He says he is willing to do the same for other science teachers who may want to get involved, and is also hoping to contact Revere and Saugus high school biology teachers to see if they would like to collaborate on the project.

As the weather gets warmer, Winchester says his classes will be doing research on the marshes more frequently and collecting more ecological data on one of Lynn's most important and vital areas of open space.

LYNN-Superintendent Nicholas Kostan said Wednesday that he has no plans of using the Connect Ed phone service to announce school cancellations until he can be sure that the system's phone number database is accurate.

Kostan was responding to a small group of upset parents who complained Monday that the department did not use its reverse phone service to notify them that school was cancelled. As a result, some parents say they did not know to keep their children home.

Connect Ed is a reverse phone service that plays pre-recorded messages and announcements to keep parents up to date the goings on in the schools. Individual principals often use the service to make announcements on special events or report cards, and Kostan has used it himself to announce changes to public meetings and other school policy.

The program was originally designed as a security measure, and a way to let parents know of potential dangers in and around the schools, or details of lockdown situations, if necessary.

Kostan says the service works very well, but he is hesitant to implicate it for the use of announcing school cancellations because of the early hour that the calls are placed.

"If a principal makes a call about an event, it comes in around 4 p.m. or in the afternoon sometime, then it's just like a telemarketer, people just hang up," he said. "But when you are dealing with cancellations, it is early, people are upset they are being woken up at 6 a.m., and they are calling here very angry asking to be removed from the list."

It is difficult for the School Department to keep on top of phone number changes, because if a family moves and changes their phone number, they do not always notify the child's school. If the school is not notified, the next person who receives that phone number will receive the Connect Ed calls until they ask the school to remove the number from the list.

While Kostan says he is not opposed to using the phone system in the future, he just does not feel comfortable implementing it until he is sure the database is up to date. Until then, parents have a variety of options in finding out whether school has been cancelled.

Kostan has an extensive notification list, including all local news channels, which run school closings on a ticker throughout snowstorms, and local radio stations.

The information is also posted on the Lynn Public Schools Web site, www.lynnschools.org, along with www.itemlive.com.

LYNN - With a weekend nor'easter smothering Thursday's deep snowfall in a sheet of ice and rain, area residents had their hands full just trying to get in and out of their own neighborhoods during the storm. But by Monday morning, some parents assumed the roads were clean enough for students to go to school and began their usual weekday routines none the wiser that the school department had capped the weekend with a second snow day.

Superintendent Nicholas Kostan said the decision to cancel school Monday was made because, while the roads may have looked bare, the freezing temperatures had coated the entire city in a sheet of ice that would have been potentially hazardous to students both riding school buses and walking to school. "It is better to keep on the safe side," he said. "There was a lot of water out there, it was like a skating rink in some areas in the morning."

Kostan said there was also a conflict at some schools that are used for off-street parking during the city snow ban. Many cars ended up plowed in, or simply stuck spinning their tires in the ice, which would have made for an even more confusing and dangerous situation when teachers and students began pulling into the parking lots. "It was just best to give people a day to clean out," he said.

While cancellation notices were posted on all local television news stations, and on the Lynn Public School Web site, along with Itemlive.com, parents are wondering why the city did not utilize its Connect Ed reverse phone system to further assure that all families were aware of the day off.

"I checked the news before I went to bed and school wasn't canceled yet," said Cheryl Matsubara, who has a child at the Aborn School. "I packed up lunch and bundled my child (in the morning) and dropped her off (at a friend's house). I was around the block when I got a call saying 'Mom, there is no school today.'"

Matsubara, who is looking back at the situation with a light-hearted attitude, said she did not check the news stations because it appeared the roads had been cleared, and admitted dropping her child off was a mistake on her part. But she was not the only parent in this predicament, and the situation does raise questions as to why the city does not use the reverse phone system to notify parents of days off. "I would have loved to get that automated message," she said. "I feel like Monday's cancellation was very unexpected. I find that auto messaging very effective when they call for other things."

The Connect Ed service allows the School Department to phone parents at home with automated messages regarding everything from school lockdowns to open house schedules. Individual principals use the system frequently for a variety of reasons, but Kostan said the department has never placed phone calls to announce school cancellations. "We do use it quite extensively, especially by the individual principals, it is quite helpful," he said. "We haven't used it for snow days yet, but it is something we will probably look into using in the future."

Other surrounding communities, such as Salem, use the system for snow days but receive frequent complaints from new residents that do not have children in the school system. Because a parent did not update their new phone number in the database when moving, irritated residents are forced to call into the school after receiving an unexpected 6 a.m. wake-up call.

Kostan said Lynn has experienced similar problems because families in this area change phone numbers so frequently, which is one of the negative aspects of using the system.

For parents like Matsubara, Monday's situation was hardly life altering, but why the School Department would not further utilize a system that they have already had a positive experience with is a mystery.
"I don't know how realistic it is, but I would love the automated system if (snow days) was announced by 11 p.m.," she said. "I am usually in bed before 11, so it would be nice to know the day before. Either way, I would love to get that automated message."

LYNN-Less than a month after Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. requested the School Committee shave $900,000 from its appropriated budget, members voted to nearly double that amount in cuts in the wake of rising energy costs.

In all, the committee voted 6-1 Monday to reduce appropriated funds by $1.72 million to cover the $900,000 Clancy requested, along with an additional $829,000 in energy costs, $196,000 of which the department still owes from last year.

While the cuts represent a significant amount of the department’s appropriated funds, which are monies that can be spent in the future as opposed to funds that have already been allocated, outgoing Business Administrator Stephen Upton managed to develop a plan that will not cost anyone in the department their job.

Upton said that salary and transportation costs are right on target for this year, although the increase in employees receiving raises for achieving new degrees has increased. Because of that spike, he was not able to take as much money from positions that had been budgeted but never filled.

“In essence, those empty positions do not exist,” he said. “Many, many more people have new degrees this year, our spending is ok, but empty positions were not available to use as cuts toward energy, or the $900,000 requested by the Mayor.”

The department has placed a hiring freeze on those empty positions, and there will not be any new positions budgeted in the future, which Upton said will ultimately save the department $150,000 from its appropriated salary line.

Upton was also able to take $150,000 from the transportation department, which is only projected to use $50,000 of its over $300,000 appropriation for this year.

Money projected from special education tuition along with funds originally set aside for repairs at Classical High School made up the most significant portion of the cuts, combining for $800,000 in total unused cash.

Upton said the special education department had a projected surplus of $863,000 in their tuition line, of which he left $363,000 as a safety net.

Some additional smaller cuts came from left over funds at individual schools, such as library and book funds, to equal the $1.72 million total.

“When you cut nearly $1.8 million at this point, you are going to see cuts that you don’t want to see,” said Committee member Jeffery Newhall. “But to cut this out without reducing staff, it is remarkable when you are losing $1.8 million.”

Clancy had requested cuts from both the city and school appropriations last month, in anticipation of a stormy financial forecast when negotiating the fiscal 2009 budget.

Superintendent Nicholas Kostan is also concerned about the financial future of the department, which is struggling to fund necessities such as school repairs.

“We are trying to save as much money as we can this year to soften the blow for next year, which we expect will be a very difficult fiscal year,” he said.

As he has consistently stated in the past, Clancy once again chalked up the need for the School Department’s cuts to a rash of worker’s compensation claims within the custodial and maintenance departments.

“I am not going to mince words. This is basically because of a work stoppage in the custodian and maintenance division,” he said. “A $1.8 million spike, nearly 40 percent of the maintenance department out on compensations claims is a disgrace. Because of these particularly outlandish actions, a work stoppage in the custodial and maintenance departments, we had to take drastic action. The entire city has had to take drastic action.”

Responding to a request by Committee member Donna Coppola to table the cuts until a review of the maintenance budget is complete, Clancy urged members to vote for the cuts now, before the situation gets any worse.

“We have to reduce the appropriation of every line item in the city budget,” he said. “Police and fire included. Every day this goes by it gets worse, and I don’t want to lay this over until (newly appointed Business Administrator Kevin McHugh) takes over (in January).”

Coppola, the only member to vote against the cuts, is expected to request a review of money transferred from the school to the city budget when the custodians moved to the Inspectional Services Department.

James Kebreau, an assistant coach for various sports in Lynn and Everett, died at his home earlier this week.
Kebreau, 35, had recently been an assistant coach for the Everett High football team and an administrator in the school system. He had been a student, teacher, and coach at Lynn Classical for many years.. Mr. Kebreau was an excellent student-athlete and graduated from Westfield State College in the early 1990's.He played football for Classical under coach Dave Dempsey. .He also coached at UMass-Boston as well. James is remembered fondly by his former teachers and his friends and colleagues at Lynn Classical High School. Condolences go out to his wife, his two daughters, and his extended family.

The following obituary is courtesy of the Daily Item:
LYNN - James Kebreau, age 35, of Lynn, died Wednesday, November 7, 2007. He was the husband of Audra (Stinson) Kebreau, and the son of Solange David Kebreau. Born in Boston, he was raised in Lynn. A graduate of Lynn Classical High School, class of 1990, and Westfield State College, he also attended Cambridge College. A former football player at Classical High School, as well as Westfield State College, he went on to coach football at Everett High School, UMASS College in Boston, and M.I.T. in Cambridge. He formerly worked as a teacher at Lynn Classical High School and Everett High School. He also had worked at Gregg House in Lynn as a recreational and youth counselor. James also coached basketball and track at Lynn Classical High School and was advisor for the African-American Club. A member of the Manning Field Advisory Committee, James was a member of the "Woodsies" Golf Club. He enjoyed playing golf at Gannon Golf Course, traveling, and watching his children play in their team sports programs. James was a Dallas Cowboys and Boston Red Sox fan.

Besides his wife Audra and his mother Solange, he is survived by his children, Alessandro Angel Rivera, Chloe Solange & Mia Helen Kebreau, all of Lynn; his sisters Sandra & Frantzie Kebreau, of Lynn, nieces; Angelica Jackson, Gabi, & Catherine Stinson, Marie, Kate, Christine and Beth MacCune, and a nephew Tyler James Kebreau. He also leaves his brother-in-law, Michael Stinson of Haverhill, sister-in-law Susan MacCune & her husband John of Scituate and his mother-in-law Catherine Stinson of Lynn. He was the son-in-law of the late Winford Stinson.

SERVICE INFORMATION: His funeral will be held from the SOLIMINE, LANDERGAN & RICHARDSON FUNERAL HOME, 426 Broadway (Rt129) Lynn on Thursday at 9:00am followed by Funeral Mass in St. Mary's Church, Lynn at 10AM. Internment will be in Pine Grove Cemetery, Lynn. Relatives & friends are respectfully invited. Visiting hours will be on Wednesday from 2-4 & 7-9PM. Memorial donations may be made to Eastern Bank - Attn: Joan Bunaskavich, 156 Boston Street, Lynn, MA 01905. Direction & guest book www.solimine.com

LYNN - As if the Lynn Classical Freshman Academy teachers did not have enough challenges to handle this year with nearly 300 new students relocating to the Fecteau-Leary building because of construction on O'Callaghan way, they now have the Monteros sisters and four other sets of twins creating confusion, and a little mischief, on a daily basis.

Gabriela Monteros admits that she is the troublemaker in the family, but she is not above placing the blame on her identical twin sister Gladys, which can cause more than a little confusion among the administration at the academy.

"I got in trouble and I had to get detention, but when they asked my name I told them my sister's and they came and got her out of class," Gabriela explained with a smile.

"I got her back, I told the teachers to go to the class that she was in, and she ended up with the detention," Gladys shot back, also quick to claim that she gets better grades.

The sisters are one of five sets of twins in the freshmen class, joining Khelay and Khosay Sharifi, Dillon and Riley McManus, Tatianna and Tahanna Brown and Hto and Say Pow - two Burmese refugees who have relocated to Lynn from Thailand.

Classical Academy Principal Judith Taylor says there is even a sixth twin in the class, but the pair has been split up between two schools.

"I just thought this was really weird," she said. "There must have been something in the water that year."

All of the twins are in the same grade, but the birth years vary from 1991-1993. The Monteros and Paw sisters were even born within five days of one another in May of 1992, although the Paws were a half a world away from Lynn at the time.

Only the Brown sisters are paternal twins, and all of the sets are the same gender, adding to the oddity of the situation, and the difficulty for teachers. The Sharifi twins even admitted to swapping schedules to fool their teachers and classmates.

"I can only tell them apart if I can see their faces clearly," teacher Melissa Winchell said of the Paw twins. "I have to walk around to the front and get a good look at them. I think when they came here, 'twins' was probably the first English word that they heard, because we all pointed it out."

While all 10 of the students put an end to the myth that twins can feel sympathy pains, two sets have had strange experiences with injuries in very close proximity to one another.

The McManus brothers spoke of a doomed middle school gym class where one brother was knocked out and had to go to the hospital, and a short time later the other was hit in the groin with a ball. Tashanna Brown said she sprained her ankle just hours after her sister had her tonsils removed, and the two ended up at the same hospital.

Several of the siblings attended school with each other in the past and have become close friends, and, for the most part, everyone seems to get along well with their twin despite having to spend a lot of time with one another.

Although it is still four years away, almost everyone said they would be willing to attend college or stay close to their twin if the situation was right, although Dillon McManus said he would only stay with his brother if "his career made him more money than mine."

As each group enters high school the rivalry has picked up a bit, with the younger twins claiming more maturity and better grades, although the older twins beg to differ, but the overall opinion of the Classical Freshmen Academy is positive on all sides.

McGrath Airs it Out for Trinity College

So far this season, teams have been defending Trinity College quarterback Eric McGrath all wrong, sending the arrows in the playbook his way and forgetting about the receivers to whom the Lynn Classical product is throwing.

"Defenses are mandating that you throw the ball because they're blitzing on every play," said Trinity head coach Jeff Devanney. "If they're going to do that and they're going to play one-on-one coverage on the outside, then we're going to throw the ball."

In the Hartford school's first three games, the 6-foot-2-inch, 210-pound junior rang up a 137.28 passer rating, boosted mostly by seven touchdown passes and 598 yards. That passing production had the Bantams 3-0 going into yesterday's game against a fellow unbeaten, Tufts.

McGrath threw for 284 yards and three touchdowns last week in a win over Hamilton. Although the Bantams run a no-huddle, spread offense, they're as likely to run as they are to pass, with 79 running plays and 78 passes for the season. But they're more likely to eat up yards through the air, thanks to McGrath's arm. They have 26 first downs passing and 12 by way of the run.

"Eric's a very talented player," Devanney said. "In our offensive system, we put a lot of pressure on the quarterback to make a lot of plays and we're able to do that because of his talent. But it goes beyond his physical talent. Eric's got the great mental makeup as a quarterback, too. Things don't fluster him. He's a great competitor. He loves to play in the games and he's kind of got that coolness and confidence about him that things don't bother him."

He also has options. The Bantams have eight receivers, rotate three running backs, and use a couple of tight ends. On any given play, McGrath has a dozen options and he's used almost all of them this season, completing passes to nine different receivers.

"In our system, we don't want to have one go-to receiver," Devanney said. "We want you to not know where the ball's going. We have that right now. We can line up with four or five receivers on the field and we can throw it to all five of them."

The offense, Devanney said, is designed to make the opponent defend the whole field. That way, "Eric makes his reads and he can throw the ball all over the place."

Going into yesterday's game against Tufts, the Bantams were averaging 33 points a game. And as much as teams have been chasing McGrath, they've only been able to sack him three times, and one of those, according to Devanney, was a called run play.

"It helps if teams are going to blitz us like they've been blitzing us," the coach said. "It helps because we're getting big plays in the passing games."

LYNN - Gordon College and the city of Lynn have long enjoyed a partnership, building a relationship that allows for students of the school to come to the city and make a difference in many areas.

Part of this cooperation involves an opportunity for education majors to enter Lynn schools and observe teachers and students, providing invaluable experience that cannot come from listening to a college professor. Lynn students, in turn, gain a tutor and classroom aid who is not far removed from the same learning environment.

Thanks to the efforts of Gordon College graduate and Classical teacher Melissa Winchell, some of those education majors are spending their Thursdays at the Fecteau-Leary observing and aiding teachers as they instruct Lynn Classical freshmen.

Two years removed from her own graduation day at Lynn English, Gordon sophomore Christina Hope is looking to get back into the classroom full-time again, but this time she is striving to give back to Lynn as a teacher.

A chemistry major at the moment, she plans to change her focus to history, and wants to return to the city as a history teacher. Each Thursday she observes a variety of teachers, and is also available to help the students as an extra classroom resource.

"Being in the classroom definitely helps you understand what it takes to be a teacher," she said. "It is helpful to be able to observe the differences in teaching style and talk about the test results and really see what is helpful and what isn't and what is learning and what is not learning."

Hope and her fellow classmates cannot legally teach a class because they are not certified, but Winchell said they can still interact with the students and act as a tutor, giving support to the teachers and giving a new perspective to students.

She says coming to schools like Classical is huge for some of the college students because it provides an opportunity to experience teaching in a diverse, urban school.

"For students and education majors to have an opportunity to be placed in Lynn public schools they are getting a rounder experience and they are able to see what it is like teaching in an urban school," she said.

Hope said it is rewarding for her to come back to Lynn, because she wants to use her experience to help other students, especially at the high school level.

"A lot of what (Gordon) does benefits the inner city," she said. "Especially being from Lynn I feel it is a benefit to talk to the kids so that they can know where I am coming from."

Teachers say the program is a helpful way for college students to learn the ropes of teaching, and it is something the high school kids really respond to.

"It is a wonderful program, students get a chance to see the different levels (of courses) and realize that there are different approaches to different students, and it isn't a case of dumbing down the material," said science teacher Amanda Curtis, one of the teachers Hope observes. "Observing is also a plus, as opposed to substituting because students don't really care about subs. They are always asking about the tutors though, they like when they come into the class because it provides a different voice."