TRURO — The mood among the members of the Class of 2025 at Nauset Regional High School gathered at Truro Vineyards for the senior banquet on May 30 was, by turns, apprehensive and eager.
Nauset High School
ARGUMENTS
Nauset’s Mock Trial Team Finishes in State’s ‘Elite Eight’
Three seniors get perfect scores in championship match against Sharon
BOSTON — Nauset High senior Thomas White isn’t a lawyer, but he certainly sounds like one. He’s honed a presentation style that’s both eloquent and concise during his three years on the school’s mock trial team, traveling to courtrooms across the state to argue fictional cases against students from other Massachusetts high schools.
White, the team’s captain, was one of three Nauset students to receive perfect individual scores from the judge during a match against Sharon High School on March 13. The other two, Liv Prince and Lauren deRuyter, are also seniors.
The students were competing in the quarterfinal match of the 2024-25 state championship at the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse in Boston. Nauset was one of just eight teams remaining from among 112 in the competition.
Nauset had already proved itself to be the best team in the Cape & Islands region, edging out Monomoy, Sturgis East, and Sturgis West. Nauset had also defeated Natick in the round of 14 prior to the showdown with Sharon. At that point, teams weren’t allowed to identify themselves based on schools — Nauset was simply “Region 1.”
Sharon, Region 9, edged out Nauset 98-95, winning the case and ending the team’s playoff run at the same spot where they finished in 2023. The Nauset team hasn’t yet made it past the Elite Eight round, but coach Katie McCully said that seeing all three of the team’s seniors receive perfect scores “took the sting away.”
The state’s mock trial program, which began in 1985, is a yearly competition organized by the Mass. Bar Association and designed to teach high school students about law and give them an opportunity to practice debate in a professional setting.
It’s different from traditional debating in two ways. There is an improvisational component, with witnesses as well as attorneys portrayed by students. And all participating teams receive the same case at the beginning of the year, which they use in every event until the end of the season.
A coin flip at the beginning of each trial determines which team will argue for the prosecution and which for the defense.
Nauset’s team works with professional lawyers from La Tanzi, Spaulding & Landreth in Orleans to prepare their arguments and practice delivering them.
The fictional characters in this year’s case were Alex Parker, a teenager who was injured in a car accident driving with a friend on the way home from a graduation party. The defendant is Devin Roy, the parent who hosted the party. Parker claims that Roy didn’t do enough to prevent underage party guests, including the driver, from getting access to alcohol in the house.
Of course, there are intricacies to the case. Parker admits to stealing alcohol from Roy’s stash, potentially proving that Roy’s security was lax but making his own character less sympathetic in the process. And was the traffic light green or red when the accident happened? The case leaves it up to the students to convince the judge about who is telling the truth.
That works for Prince, who says, “It’s the details I find engaging.”
A typical mock trial team consists of 12 students playing roles as witnesses and attorneys. But Nauset’s team had only 10 members this year, so some of the students had to double up on roles. When his team was assigned to prosecute, for example, White would deliver the closing argument and cross-examine the other team’s expert witness.
Sharon’s team was large enough to have separate lineups for the prosecution and defense, with most students filling single roles. Sharon High School is somewhat larger than Nauset, with 1,161 students to Nauset’s 737. McCully said that Sharon’s mock trial program has long been successful — they’ve taken the state title twice, in 2007 and 2021.
McCully said Sharon’s performance at the match was “fiery and dramatic” in contrast to Nauset’s more composed style. One of Sharon’s strategies was to make frequent objections to Nauset’s questions, which, even when overruled by the judge, cost the team precious time.
“It’s a strategy that’s technically against the rules, standing up and objecting to everything,” White said, “but it still throws us off, so we’ve been practicing dealing with that.”
Next year, McCully said, she’s going to try to have the Nauset team balance its professionalism with a bit more showmanship.
Prince said the seniors are leaving a team that is in a good place, with underclassmen who practiced every day and demonstrated a lot of confidence during the season’s trials.
White is headed to Arizona State University, where he’ll study to become an air traffic controller. What about studying law? “I can’t say I haven’t thought about it,” White allowed. “I’m planning on joining the mock trial team at ASU.”
IN THE POOL
Erin McFarland: Swimming With Passion
The ‘welcoming culture’ of the team is most important, says the Nauset sophomore
EASTHAM — There is a calmness about the way Erin McFarland glides through the water. There is no panic. There is no wasted movement. There is just a desire to be doing what she loves. It’s meditative and therapeutic.
“Swimming is something that I’ve been doing since I was in kindergarten,” says McFarland, a Nauset High School sophomore who lives in Orleans. “It’s something that I’m passionate about and it keeps me being me. It’s been such a big part of my life since forever.
“It’s been great to be able to travel and be part of the team,” she adds. “We’ve been able to get back into a normal groove after Covid, having practices and more meets. Being able to travel has been the greatest experience. It’s mostly swimming, but a lot of it is the team part.”
The 16-year-old has had a long journey to return to the pool at Willy’s Gym in North Eastham, having come back to Cape Cod from Germany, where she lived from 2016 to 2021 before starting her freshman year at Nauset.
While abroad, McFarland competed against swimmers from all over Europe. She swam in the 2012 Olympic Pool at the London Aquatics Centre and traveled to the Netherlands on numerous occasions for events.
“It’s just new,” she says when asked how high school athletics differs from her earlier experiences. “Here, it’s a lot of hardcore swimming, getting great times and now really pushing myself to get into collegiate swimming. I may not be the fastest person out there, but the sport has been such a big part of my life that I hope to be able to continue to have the escape of swimming.”
McFarland has had a lot of success already this season for the unbeaten Nauset girls team, including victories at the Cape and Islands Relays and the Cape Cod Classic. She recently notched a win in the 400-yard freestyle relay at the Classic and has already won two heats of the 200-yard freestyle and one heat of the 500-yard freestyle in dual meets.
“The 500 is my personal favorite — it’s the one I swim at every single meet,” says McFarland. “I love the aspect of being able to be in the water and be calm the entire time and to not have to stress about how fast I’m going.”
She’s proud that, despite the cutthroat nature of the sport, the Warriors have created a welcoming culture where anybody can join the team without judgment — whether or not they’re among the fastest swimmers. Everyone has a chance to compete and be part of the team.
Regardless of the team’s success over the next two years, McFarland hopes to leave a positive mark on the program long-term.
“I hope to set a good example for younger swimmers so when they are in my shoes they can look back and remember the fun times they had,” she says. “Even though it’s a sport, it’s all about the team and how you treat others.”
ENDANGERED SPECIES
Student Count Keeps Falling at Nauset High School
Truro and Wellfleet elementary schools also see decline
EASTHAM — Enrollment numbers for the Outer Cape’s public schools have finally arrived, and they show that existing trends here are getting worse. This year’s total enrollment in the Truro and Wellfleet elementary schools declined about 10 percent compared to the 2021-2022 school year. Nauset Regional High School in Eastham lost 6 percent of its student count, falling from 833 in the previous school year to 780 this year.
On a five-year time horizon, though, the situation at Nauset High looks more serious. In 2018 there were 937 students at the high school, and the numbers have declined by an average of 39 students every year since then, for a total loss of about 17 percent of the 2018 student count.
The Truro and Wellfleet elementary schools have had both ups and downs over the last five years, for a net loss of only about 7 percent of enrollment since 2018.
Eastham Elementary has had ups and downs as well; it has six fewer students this year compared to last. Over five years, however, it has come out ahead, going from 171 students in 2018 to 186 this year.
The Provincetown Schools, which include prekindergarten through eighth grade, are the outlier, having gained students every year since 2018.
The Nauset Regional High School renovation project was designed for an enrollment of no more than 905 students, based on a 2017 analysis conducted by the Mass. School Building Authority that projected a 2022 enrollment of 887 students.
That is 107 more students than actually enrolled this year. Even the projected number would have been well below Nauset’s 2010 enrollment of 972 students.
Nauset Regional Middle School has a student population of 533 this year, down about 6 percent from its 2021 enrollment.
Regional school committee Chair Chris Easley pinpointed several reasons for the decline. According to Easley, the ongoing construction at the high school’s campus, along with the modular structures that house temporary classrooms for students, are a deterrent for many families.
“Getting people to send their children to a school that is going to be under construction is a negative,” Easley said.
He also said the newly renovated Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich and the new Cape Cod Christian Academy in Brewster, which opened in 2020, contributed to the drop in Nauset High and Middle School numbers.
“We have a Christian school that is bursting at the seams and a new tech school that has impacted enrollment,” Easley said. “We are just coming out of Covid, so we know there are also a bunch of kids that went into homeschooling.”
“We’re kind of in a perfect storm as far as numbers,” Easley added.
Easley said that, despite the decline, Nauset cannot automatically fill its empty seats with school-choice students. These students come from towns outside the four-town school district, like Truro and Provincetown, which have agreements with the Nauset district to allow their grade 7 to 12 students to attend Nauset schools for a tuition fee of about $18,500 per student.
These agreements allow Truro and Provincetown to maintain direct control of their elementary schools, while Wellfleet and Eastham elementary schools are part of the Nauset District.
“School choice numbers are set in the spring for the following year,” Easley said. “It’s an established number.”
The school enrollment numbers across the Outer Cape portend a difficult path ahead, Easley said.
“The Cape is going to really have to address its school populations,” he said. “It’s going to take a long time for education to recover from Covid.”
NAUSET HIGH SCHOOL
Renovation Bids Are $30 Million Over Budget
High bids for construction mean a new vote is likely
EASTHAM — Before the foundations are laid for the Nauset Regional High School renovation project, voters in the four district towns may have to authorize a new budget.
Of the $131.8 million that was approved by voters in Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, and Brewster in March 2021, $104.9 million was designated for construction costs. But when the chair of the Nauset Regional High School Building Committee, Greg Levasseur, presented the general contractor bids to the regional school committee on Oct. 27, the lowest offer, by Brait Builders of Marshfield, was $134.3 million.
The only other bid came from J&J Contractors of Billerica, for $149 million.
The sizable overages in the Brait bid included sub-bids for HVAC, which was $9 million over the projected $16 million cost, as well as for electrical, which was $5 million over the estimate. Other overages were for the cost of windows and doors, according to Levasseur.
During the design planning stages since the 2021 vote, the school committee “value engineered” ways to keep building costs under budget because of the construction market’s volatility. But the $30-million overage is too much money to shave off, Levasseur said at the Oct. 27 meeting. “It would do something that nobody really wants to do, which is attack the core of the program,” he said.
To lower costs by $30 million, Levasseur said, they would have to cut 64,000 square feet from the renovation, which is a third of the project.
“There are really no good solutions,” regional school committee Chair Chris Easley said. “We cannot go back and redesign because that would stop everything.”
The building committee decided the best course of action is to take the issue back to the voters, said Levasseur.
That decision was unanimous. “[The voters] should have the right to make the decision of either moving forward or not moving forward, but it is their decision to make,” building committee member Tom Fitzgibbons said.
Brait Builders, which was also the general contractor for the rebuilding of Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich, originally gave the school committee a deadline of 30 days to accept or reject the bid. That was extended first to 60 days and then to 90 days to allow for a new district-wide vote.
The building committee was expected to finalize a number for the updated budget on Wednesday, Nov. 2, after which the regional school committee will decide if a district-wide vote will be called.
That vote would likely take place in mid-January.
The approved budget of $131.8 million, with the new numbers from Brait Builders slotted into place, would be increased to $161.2 million. If that were the final number for a new budget, it would represent a 22.5-percent increase overall.
Easley said that the new budget request will most likely be for more than the $30 million construction overage, however. “When we go back and ask the voters for money, we are probably going to be asking for more than that because we have spent funds that were not budgeted,” he told the Independent.
The additional funds are for “contingencies” as well as the purchase of 37 modular trailers rather than the 16 that had been budgeted.
Easley said that no one is to blame for the escalating costs. “There is nothing that we have done wrong,” he said. The overages are a “statement of our day and time.
“Covid and the Ukrainian war are probably the two biggest factors to it,” he said. “Throw in inflation and it is almost a perfect storm against us.”
The regional school committee received a grant of $36.6 million from the Mass. School Building Authority (MSBA), but the rest of the cost will be paid by taxpayers in the school district. The $131.8-million budget was overwhelmingly supported by the district’s voters in 2021 and was apportioned by school population for each town, with Brewster set to pay 48 percent, Eastham 20 percent, Orleans 19 percent, and Wellfleet 13 percent of the costs not covered by the state. But school committee members suggested alternative methods of apportioning costs during the Oct. 27 meeting.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to splitting 25 percent per town,” committee member Josh Stewart said. “A massive chunk of this is on Brewster, and I don’t necessarily see that as fair,” he said.
“I don’t know if that is legally viable,” Nauset Schools Supt. Brooke Clenchy responded. Regional school district agreements and state law stipulate how schools are funded.
Easley also said that the $30-million overage is not anomalous. “There are all sorts of other projects across the state that are in the same boat,” he said.
Easley pointed to the Tisbury School on Martha’s Vineyard, whose renovation project began in 2018 with a budget of $46.6 million, including $14 million in aid from MSBA. The project was rejected by voters, but after lead and asbestos were found in the school a year later, the district was forced to renovate the building without MSBA aid. Voters approved a budget of $55 million in 2021, but an updated budget now has the project at $81 million, an increase of more than 50-percent.
“I’m not telling a bad tale,” Easley told the school committee. “It’s just that there isn’t any history of a place going backwards,” he said.
If the new budget is rejected, Easley said, the estimated $17 million that the committee has already spent on architects, project management, trailers, and land preparation will be lost.
It would also make it difficult to receive MSBA funding for a future project. “There has never been a school building project that was offered money, which it turned down, that was ever funded again,” Easley warned.
Downsizing the project into a smaller school would not lower the cost, said Easley. Aside from losing the $36.6 million in state funding, the project would see much higher supply and labor costs.
“It makes no sense to believe that somehow we can begin again and save taxpayer money in the process,” Easley said. “It is much easier to act on the known than the possibilities of wishful thinking.”
The next school committee meeting is on Thursday, Nov. 3.
