“Youth Is a Work of Art” is a virtual art exhibit by the Eastham Public Library featuring work by Nauset Regional High School students. It includes prints, drawings, paintings, photographs, woodworking, and metalworking. A preview opens Monday, March 22nd, with new pieces posted through April 9th. Visit easthamlibrary.org to view or submit.
Nauset Regional High School
NAUSET REGIONAL
2 Eastham Boards Back High School Renovation in Unanimous Votes
Beebe calls endorsement a ‘no-brainer’
EASTHAM — The Nauset High School renovation gained the unanimous support of Eastham’s finance committee and select board when they voted on Feb. 17 and Feb. 22, respectively, to recommend approving the $131.8-million building project.
The renovation has won a $36.6-million Mass. School Building Authority (MSBA) grant that would reduce the amount to be paid by district taxpayers to about $95 million. The grant is dependent on the project winning approval in a March 30 special election.
“I still think it’s a pretty conservative price tag given the volume of what they need to do at that school,” said Jamie Demetri, chair of the select board. “A price tag doesn’t necessarily dictate a decision. This is about something bigger than just a price tag. This is about a community.”
Town Administrator Jacqui Beebe noted in a memo to the board that one goal of the town’s strategic plan was to keep the community diverse and vibrant. “We need to retain and encourage more families with children to live and stay in Eastham,” she wrote. “Good schools are an essential component and the reason why families move here.
“This is a no-brainer, really, because of that $36.6 million,” Beebe told the select board, “plus the lowest interest rates that we’ve ever seen. We really need to take advantage of this moment in time to vote for this project to save money. I know it sounds paradoxical, but really, this is the best deal we’re going to get.”
Beebe’s memo noted that, because of a delay in approving the municipal water system, the town “lost the opportunity for zero-percent interest from the state revolving loan program and is now paying 2.4 percent. This is an additional 28 million dollars in extra taxes that the residents must pay for the same system. We can’t afford another mistake due to delay of a necessary project,” she wrote.
“I would challenge someone to find a municipal project that was delayed and ended up costing less, because there just aren’t examples in my 25-year history,” Beebe said at the select board’s meeting.
The Nauset Regional School District warrant for the March 30 election states that the approximate debt allocable to each town in the district would be: Eastham, $18,871,224; Wellfleet, $12,290,135; Orleans, $18,157,605; and Brewster, $45,830,225.
The Eastham Finance Committee issued a statement on Monday urging citizens of all four towns to vote yes on the project. The committee cited the MSBA funding, arguing that “no resubmitted school project has been approved for funding”; the high school’s “dire need of upgrading”; and the likelihood that a major repair of the school would require that the structure be brought up to code, at an estimated cost of $98 million — without the benefit of state aid.
Opponents of the renovation project have advocated phasing out the school choice program, which, as of Oct. 1, 2020, accounted for 198 of the 877 students enrolled at the high school, and building a smaller school to serve only the district’s students. Truro and Provincetown, which pay tuition of approximately $18,900 per student under a five-year agreement with the district, were sending 83 students to Nauset High as of Oct. 1.
The finance committee addressed the idea of building a smaller school in its statement. It warned that rejecting the project next month would cause a delay of at least three years and would require a new feasibility study. “Moreover,” the committee wrote, “during the delay, construction costs rise to match or exceed the towns’ $95.4 million portion of the renovation, and our children remain longer in a less secure, old building that meets neither 21st century educational requirements nor building codes.”
Select board member Art Autorino defended the school choice program.
“I think we’re at a crossroads,” he said. “We can decide if we want to continue the excellence we have in our school program, which is really driven by the diversity of the students in school choice and by the actual educational programs that we offer, versus downsize that and end up with a school that’s probably not as educationally diverse, not as people diverse, and doesn’t offer the kind of programs that we want, that at the same time will probably cost more money.
“We have a fantastic educational program in a school that’s falling apart,” Autorino added.
Fred Magee, chair of the Wellfleet Finance Committee, told the Independent this week that his committee had thoroughly vetted the project last year before voting to recommend its approval. Given that the regional school committee would be presenting its operating budget at an upcoming meeting, Magee said he would poll finance committee members to see if they wanted to revisit the subject.
“At this point, I don’t know what the basis would be for revisiting it,” said Magee.
Wellfleet Select Board Chair Michael DeVasto said his board would be voting on whether to recommend approval of the project. He planned to put the question on the March 9 agenda.
DeVasto said he was “very much an advocate” of the project. “Having $36 million from the state really puts us in a good position,” he said.
TESTING THE LIMITS
Pandemic Intensifies Debate on MCAS and Inequity
Schools await word on when and how to give this year’s tests
The annual Mass. Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests, required of all students in public schools, will be administered this year, despite concerns from school administrators about what exactly the data from this year’s tests will be used to measure.
“The whole year going back to March,” said Nauset Regional High School Principal Chris Ellsasser, “there’s an asterisk next to all of that.”
The tests in English language arts and math, which are administered in grades 3 through 10 throughout the spring, were canceled last year when schooling went online because of the pandemic. In September, the state Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) said it planned to begin 2021 MCAS testing as early as January. Then, in December, as Covid cases continued to climb, the DESE said the tests would be postponed “until later in the year.”
The latest memo from the DESE came in a Jan. 5 letter to school superintendents, in which Education Commissioner Jeff Riley wrote, “The extent of the loss [due to the pandemic] in the Commonwealth is not yet known.”
Riley detailed changes to be made to this year’s tests, including shortened testing sessions and a pending directive, now official, that the class of 2021 will not be required to pass the 10th grade MCAS to graduate. In addition, no schools will be judged “underperforming” because of test results this year.
“Tentative” schedules for this year’s tests have now been posted. “They’re kicking the can down the road again,” said Nauset High Assistant Principal Sean Fleming.
While schools are left in limbo about the test schedule, many statewide leaders don’t understand why the tests aren’t simply being canceled.
The board of the Mass. Association of School Committees voted 112 to 9 in September to call for “a moratorium on all high stakes testing for the 2020-2021 school year.”
“I don’t know what they think they’re measuring,” said Beth Kontos, president of the Mass. branch of the American Federation of Teachers. Riley’s Jan. 5 letter stated that MCAS testing would give families and teachers “critical insight into academic losses that need to be addressed this spring and summer.” But Kontos noted that MCAS test results typically aren’t available until the following academic year.
“What we need to know about our students we already have from in-house data,” Principal Elsasser said. “When we see a student who was getting ‘A’s, and now he’s getting ‘C’s, that’s a much clearer indicator of who needs help. We don’t need MCAS to know which kids are struggling.”
The MCAS was created in 1993 as part of an education reform effort that was advertised as a way to increase funding for underserved communities. In spite of the fact that high-stakes uses of standardized tests (such as deciding whether individual students should get a high-school diploma) are widely seen as invalid by test experts, school reforms tied to test results are popular. And in the seven years following the adoption of the MCAS, state funding to public schools doubled.
But a 2018 state Senate report noted that, since 2002, state funding has not kept pace with inflation and public schools’ needs. “In fact,” the report stated, “adjusted for inflation, state funding is now less than in 2002.” Yet the MCAS remains.
The Testing Battle
The MCAS has long been controversial, as parents, teachers, and policymakers argue over whether the data it generates help address the state’s educational inequities or exacerbate them. Why do we need new data every single year? What defines a “good school”? And, most important, is MCAS helping kids or hurting them?
“Even before the pandemic,” said William Mulholland, president of the junior class at Nauset Regional High School, “I always thought MCAS was unfair, because it’s setting every single school in Massachusetts to the same standard, when every school is not evenly funded.”
Mulholland referred to the fact that school funding is often correlated to the revenue local governments can generate from property taxes. Wellesley’s schools, for example, are better funded than Brockton’s.
And high-stakes tests are undeniably stressful for students. Mulholland remembers crying during the essay portion of the fourth-grade MCAS. “I thought it was the most stressful thing,” he said.
Bonnie Bartolini, a special education teacher in the Nauset Schools, remembers staying at school until 5 p.m. one year with students who needed all the time they could get to finish the exam. Since then, the DESE has allowed students who need more time to complete the exam the following day.
Either way, Bartolini said, students taking MCAS “are not learning for the week — they’re testing for the week.”
One of the state’s most controversial policies allows it to take over “underperforming” school districts, that is, those with very low test scores. In such cases, the local elected school committee is stripped of authority. “Why would you lose a democratic right because students are testing low?” Kontos asked.
A ‘Segregation Machine’
Organizations on both sides of the MCAS debate have seized on this year’s uncertainty to argue more strenuously for their respective positions.
Ed Lambert, president of the Mass. Business Alliance for Education (MBAE), said MCAS testing can show which students have been most affected by the disruption and disarray of online learning. “The digital divide is real,” he said.
“One of the ironies,” said Lambert, “is that some of the groups most concerned about MCAS are the same groups that benefit from knowledge of the size of the achievement gap. You can’t measure an achievement gap if you don’t give an MCAS exam.”
But many people believe you can. Jack Schneider, an assistant professor at UMass Lowell and leader of the research group Beyond Test Scores, wrote in The Atlantic that 60 percent of the variance in student test scores is due to socioeconomic factors.
“MCAS isn’t going to tell us anything that we don’t already know about which kids need extra help,” Schneider told the Independent. “We knew before the pandemic who needed the most support. And we know that the pandemic is having a disproportionate effect on those same kids.”
Schneider believes that tests like MCAS actually hurt certain kids and the communities they come from. Although MCAS results do not directly determine school funding, indirectly they do. Schneider attributes much of this to the website GreatSchools.org, which is funded primarily by the Walton family, owners of Walmart. GreatSchools.org rates schools on a scale of 1 to 10, based almost entirely on standardized tests, and puts the scores online in a clear, attractive format. It turns public school districts into something families can shop for “like cereal,” Schneider said.
“The worst thing that GreatSchools does,” he said, “is build their ratings into real estate websites like Zillow and Trulia that allow people to filter according to GreatSchools ratings. That’s a segregation machine. We know that when you’re searching for the ‘9’ and ‘10’ schools on Zillow that all the schools in Somerville and Chelsea are going to disappear.” Schneider has a 10-year-old in Somerville Public Schools.
The Nauset Schools do relatively well on the MCAS — on GreatSchools, Nauset High gets a 7. “The only thing that’s helpful from MCAS results is that more people come to Nauset, because we do well on the exam,” Bartolini said. “The state thinks it’s measuring how we perform, but they’re really measuring our demographics.”
At a Jan. 26 panel on high-stakes testing, held via Zoom, Schneider said, “What do we want for young people in our communities? I guarantee you the answer is never basic academic competencies in two subject areas. Schools are essential lifelines. At their best, schools motivate and engage kids.”
RENOVATION DEBATE
Easley Challenges Brewster Committee’s School Cost Numbers
School choice program is attacked and defended
EASTHAM — Members of the Nauset Regional School Committee have taken issue with a report on the high school building project that asserts that eliminating — or substantially reducing — the school choice program could save between $4 million and $5 million a year in operating costs.
The calculation was included in an unsigned document published online last month and titled “Subcommittee Report to Brewster FinCom Finalized January 2021.” The members of the subcommittee are not named, either in the report or on the Brewster town website, but the report has been cited by critics of the proposed $132-million renovation, including in an op-ed in the Feb. 11 issue of the Independent by former school district treasurer Bill Dugan of Wellfleet.
Nauset School Committee Chair Chris Easley said last week that the Brewster report is misleading. “I challenge the committee in question to get an accountant to certify their analysis,” he said at the committee’s Feb. 11 meeting.
“I don’t know where anybody comes up with the $5 million,” said school committee vice chair Judith Schumacher. Schumacher said that amount would represent the salaries of more than 50 teachers. Estimating that between the middle school and high school the district employs 135 teachers, she said, “I really don’t think we can get rid of half of our staff.”
Opponents of the high school renovation plan argue that Nauset’s high percentage of school choice students is driving the scale of the project, which is planned for 905 students. The high school’s enrollment last year was 921, of which 219 students, or 24 percent, came through the state’s school choice program. Opponents argue that the choice program should be phased out and a smaller school built.
The Mass. School Building Authority has approved a $36.6 million grant for the renovation, which would bring its cost down to less than $96 million for the four towns of the school district, Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, and Wellfleet. The state grant is contingent on a favorable vote on the project at a district-wide election scheduled for March 30. Lawn signs supporting and opposing the renovation (or “expansion,” as “vote no” signs refer to it) have been popping up in the four towns.
The 16-page Brewster finance subcommittee report uses 2018 data from the Mass. Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to calculate a per-pupil cost based on that year’s expenses of $29,551,080. That figure includes costs of all school district departments for both the middle and high school: administration; operations and maintenance; teachers; benefits and fixed charges; pupil services; guidance, counseling, and testing; instructional materials and technology; professional development; other teaching services; and instructional leadership.
In 2018, the Nauset district served 1,468 students, and, according to the DESE, the per-pupil cost was therefore $20,130.
The Brewster finance subcommittee report came up with a higher per-pupil cost of $25,162 “per member town pupil.” The authors then take the difference between the two figures, $5,029, and multiply it by the number of in-district students to arrive at $5,139,506. This amount, they assert, represents the “total annual subsidy burden to member towns.”
The authors then adjust that total downward to $4,724,579, deducting $414,927 to account for students from Truro and Provincetown, who are not school choice pupils but whose tuition is paid by the two towns under an agreement with the Nauset district.
The bottom line, according to the report, is that the district would save about $4.7 million per year without having to “subsidize” school choice and tuition students.
“These are not made-up numbers,” said Brewster Finance Committee Chair Peter Dahl, who stood by the report’s findings at a Feb. 8 meeting of the Brewster Select Board. “These are the numbers reported by the Nauset Regional School Committee to the Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education.”
Meanwhile, a report released by the Nauset district’s superintendent’s office last month asserts that the school choice program generates revenue for the district. That report estimated that the cost of additional teachers needed to accommodate the 198 school choice students for the 2020-2021 school year was approximately $644,085. Projected school choice revenue is $1,549,403, the superintendent’s report states. According to the DESE data, that revenue projection would be for all school choice students enrolled in the Nauset district for the year — so, including both middle and high school students, a total of 257.
“You can claim you need to do a marginal analysis,” Dahl said, “but the cost of over 30 percent of your students, 20 percent being choice, is not marginal, it is material.” His committee voted against the high school project 5 to 3 last month.
Brewster’s select board did not go along with the finance committee, voting 4 to 1 in support of the renovation.
In his op-ed essay, Bill Dugan wrote, “Bigger is not better. Bigger is just more expensive,” in urging citizens to vote no on March 30.
At last week’s regional school committee meeting, member Richard Stewart defended the school choice program. What’s at risk without it, he said, are “the very characteristics that make the school great.” At Nauset High School, he said, “They don’t take a cookie-cutter curriculum; they have an incredible, rich array of courses. This is the part of choice that some of the critics ought to look into.”
Stewart added that he believes that’s the reason the school ranks high in comparison with others across the state.
OP-ED
Phasing Out School Choice Will Save Millions
Nauset can learn from other highly rated regional schools
The Independent’s Feb. 4 article on the proposed Nauset Regional High School reconstruction [“Supt. Claims School Choice Doesn’t Raise Costs,” page A6] contains inaccurate statements by Supt. Thomas Conrad and fails to note the recent vote of the Brewster Finance Committee to “not recommend” the project. The committee found that the school choice program and tuition pupils from Truro and Provincetown added $4.7 million per year to Nauset’s costs. Nauset High accepted 219 choice program students in fiscal 2020 out of a total enrollment of 921.
Supt. Conrad stated that the choice program is a financial benefit to the district. The facts do not support this claim. All of Nauset’s fixed and variable costs were considered in the Brewster Finance Committee study. Nauset’s total costs exceed $20,000 per pupil. Nauset is subsidizing these choice program students.
Why is it that, on average, choice program pupils compose only 1.7 percent of the statewide school population, whereas at Nauset High School they compose 23 percent of the student body? If 5 or 10 choice students were filling a few vacant seats, the $6,000 payment the district receives for each of them might represent a break-even proposition. But 219 choice program pupils? This proposition defies logic.
The regional school committee argues that there is no significant financial difference between building a new high school for 600 to 700 students and building one for 905. This is also false.
Three other highly rated regional school districts — Concord-Carlisle, Dover-Sherborn, and Northborough-Southborough — prove that Nauset can save millions of dollars annually if we reduce our student population by 280. They accept no choice program students and have approximately the same number of pupils that Nauset would have if we phased out the choice program. Their average total annual expenditures are $6 million less than Nauset’s. These schools achieve these savings even though they pay their teachers an average of $10,896 more per year than Nauset. These financial data are from the Mass. Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education website.
We have a lot to learn from these schools, including the fact that they can offer a rich curriculum to their students and do not need to import additional pupils to achieve excellence.
Bigger is not better. Bigger is just more expensive. Voting no on March 30 on the Nauset High School renovation is the only way we are going to be able to correctly size our high school.
Bill Dugan of Wellfleet served as part-time treasurer of the Nauset Regional School District from 2005 to 2018.
LEARNING
Nauset Supt. Claims School Choice Doesn’t Raise Costs
Zoom meetings will lead up to NRHS building project vote on March 30
EASTHAM — The Nauset Regional High School building project committee has scheduled a series of Zoom meetings leading up to the March 30 district-wide vote on the renovation project. The meetings are scheduled for eight Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. from Feb. 3 through March 24. Opportunities for public questions and answers are on the agenda.
The scheduled topics for the upcoming meetings include “Other Options” (Feb. 10), “Education 2050” (Feb. 17 and 24), and “School Choice” (March 3). Zoom links to the weekly meetings can be found at nausetbuildingproject.com under “Meetings & Events.”
School Supt. Thomas Conrad’s office has also been putting out information on school choice, which has emerged as a major point of contention in relation to the project. A report issued on Jan. 22 was sent to the select boards and finance committees of the district’s four towns.
“School Choice provides a significant revenue stream (1.74 million in FY20) that not only enables Nauset Middle School and Nauset High School to offer an extensive program of studies, but the funds also allow the District to reduce assessments (taxes) to the member towns,” the superintendent’s report states.
Students who live outside the district can attend Nauset schools through the choice program. The district receives $5,000 for each such student. Critics of the renovation plan say that results in a deficit that is passed on to the district’s taxpayers. But the superintendent’s report contends that, in most cases, the cost of educating a school-choice student is limited to the cost of consumable supplies.
This point was also noted by Eastham Finance Committee members, who had lamented at their Jan. 13 meeting that they had never received the incremental cost information they had requested from the district last March.
“There have been several letters to the editor and articles in the paper where people who are opposed to this plan have done what I call a straight-line calculation of the cost of educating these choice students,” said finance committee member George Deptula. “They just take the gross cost and divide it by the number of students and say each choice student is costing us tens of thousands of dollars and all we get back is $5,000.
“The straight-line method is unrealistic and frankly misleading,” Deptula added. “You got fixed costs that you can’t allocate on a straight-line basis to the choice students. The incremental cost is the response to that. You’ve got to show you’ve got a whole bunch of costs that are going to be there whether or not you’ve got choice students.”
The superintendent’s report acknowledges that there are six or seven more teachers on staff — at a cost of approximately $644,085 — in the 2020-2021 school year as a result of the high school’s having 198 school-choice students. The added teachers help keep classes at a reasonable size.
“With expected revenue from School Choice in FY20 to be $1,735,199 and FY21 to be $1,549,403, the School Choice program is clearly financially beneficial to our District,” the report states.
Other stated benefits of the choice program included the addition of students from diverse backgrounds, races, and cultures, and a wider variety of courses the school can offer.
According to the report, without choice students, the school would likely not be able to offer some courses, including advanced placement art, American Sign Language, level 4 German, Latin 2, criminology, botany, salt water ecosystems, American pop culture, and some sections of A.P. calculus or A.P. statistics.
“These courses not only attract students to Nauset from all over Cape Cod, but they provide an unmatched opportunity for member students to challenge themselves and pursue their individual interests and passions,” the report states.
Editor’s note: Because of a reporting error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that six or seven teachers were hired for the 2020-2021 school year at the high school. Though they were on the staff, they were not all hired in that year.
SCHOOL RENOVATION
May 31 Deadline for Vote Called Into Question
Committee chair accuses state Rep. Whelan of ‘hit job’
EASTHAM — The Mass. School Building Authority (MSBA) has confirmed that the Nauset Regional High School renovation is eligible for a third extension of the deadline for qualifying for a $35.6 million state grant — contrary to statements from the regional school committee. School officials said they had been told by the MSBA that there would be no further extensions.
The second and most recent extension gave the district until May 31, 2021 to get voters’ approval of the $131.8-million project.
MSBA Executive Director Jack McCarthy confirmed on Jan. 15 that his agency had never received a request for a third extension of the deadline. McCarthy would not say how likely approval of such a request would be, only that the MSBA would “entertain a request” and that a decision would take about one week.
It was not clear this week who was responsible for the contradictory statements.
Project manager Richard Marks, who is the president of Daedalus Projects in Boston, said he did not tell the building committee that an extension would not be granted, but that “senior staff” at the MSBA had told him about two months ago that “it was time to vote” on the project. He declined to name the MSBA staff member who told him that.
“I told Greg [Levasseur, chair of the school building committee] the MSBA’s position is, it’s time to vote,” said Marks.
Nauset Regional School Committee chair Chris Easley, who also sits on the building committee, said there may have been a miscommunication about the extension question.
School officials had used the supposedly immovable May 31 deadline as an argument for holding a district-wide vote on the project on March 30 rather than putting their plan up for votes at the four towns’ individual town meetings and town elections. Critics called the idea of a district-wide vote “undemocratic.”
In a statement issued on Jan. 15, Levasseur said, “The Nauset Regional High School building project has received two extensions to date on the timeline for voters of the Nauset Region to vote on this project … There is no guarantee of a third. But more importantly, state law allows for a simultaneous district-wide ballot vote on both the project and acceptance of state funding.”
Addressing the charge that a district-wide vote would be unfair, Levasseur said, “In this Covid pandemic era that will continue with us for the foreseeable future, a same day district-wide ballot vote is, without a doubt, the most democratic option. It allows for balloting by mail and will attract the largest number of voters in the region.”
Critics say a district-wide vote would mean losing the opportunity to discuss the project on town meeting floors. A district-wide vote would be held simultaneously in Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, and Wellfleet, and would be decided by the cumulative vote.
The school committee voted unanimously on Dec. 10 for a district-wide vote. At that meeting, vice chair Judith Schumacher said, “Greg’s [Levasseur’s] people have again gone to the MSBA and the MSBA has said, this is it, no more extensions. So, we now face what I call a drop-dead deadline. By May 31, 2021 we have to have voter approval for the proposed renovation project or we lose the 36 million dollars in state financing.”
State Rep. Tim Whelan of Brewster brought the conflicting statements to light in a Jan. 14 social media post. Whelan said he contacted the MSBA on Jan. 14 after several Brewster residents asked him why the agency wouldn’t grant a further extension of the project’s deadline.
“With regard to the Nauset Regional School Committee’s recent vote to circumvent Town Meetings,” Whelan wrote, “I spoke to MSBA today, who advised they would be willing to entertain any request for an extension on the existing deadline. The MSBA fully understands the difficulties Covid has placed on municipal operations.”
Brewster resident Adam Lange read Whelan’s post at the Jan. 14 school committee meeting.
“My concern is Brewster,” said Lange. “We pay for a majority of the school, or almost half, and now we can be overruled by towns that have very little skin in the game like Wellfleet and Eastham.”
Easley questioned the timing of Whelan’s post, which he called “disingenuous.”
“It’s the first time in five years that he’s chosen to communicate,” said Easley. “You’d expect a phone call first, rather than a social media post. I have a deep concern that this whole thing was brought up as a hit job rather than as constructive assistance.”
Whelan defended himself in an email to the Independent.
“The truthfulness of the statement I made on my social media was clearly proven by the quotes attributed directly to MSBA Executive Director McCarthy,” he wrote. “If doing my sworn duty to get truthful information from a state agency to then share with constituents is some kind of a ‘hit job,’ then I am left speechless.”
SCHOOLS
Nauset Board Sets HS Vote for March 30
Critics say district-wide vote on renovation is ‘undemocratic’
EASTHAM — The Nauset Regional School Committee voted 6 to 1 on Jan. 7 to set March 30 as the date for a district-wide vote on the $131.8-million renovation of the regional high school, with Orleans committee member Josh Stewart casting the dissenting vote.
“I apologize if it’s going backwards some,” said Stewart, who had voted on Dec. 10 to approve the district-wide vote. “I’m curious if there’s any kind of official support from the four towns’ finance committees and boards of selectmen as far as changing to this one vote option.”
The renovation project has been in the works for years. But the committee’s decision to have a district-wide vote has sparked criticism, especially from those who say the school should be much smaller and cost much less to rebuild.
Responding to Stewart, Nauset Supt. Thomas Conrad said he had not met with town finance committees or select boards.
“It was a big decision a year ago, and I think it’s an even bigger decision this year given budget shortfalls in most of our towns,” Stewart said on Tuesday. “We need to make sure the selectmen and finance committees are on board as partners with us. Letting this thing sit and stew for a year has brought up some people that are concerned about it.”
Stewart said he still supported the project and understood the need to shift to a district-wide vote. “The single date makes sense,” he said. “Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that we’re going to be able to pull off four town meetings and four town votes in the time frame that the state requires, during a pandemic.”
The committee had planned to take the project to town meeting voters last year, but the postponement and uncertain scheduling of town meetings prompted it to defer the votes until 2021. Now, with a May 31, 2021 deadline on the project’s $35.6-million Mass. School Building Authority grant, and uncertainty about the dates of this year’s town meetings, the committee voted unanimously last month to hold a district-wide vote. Both the building project expenditure and the debt exclusion question would be voted on simultaneously in all four towns and decided by the cumulative vote.
“We couldn’t put this $36 million [state grant] at risk because we didn’t know if town meetings and in turn town elections were going to occur in an orderly fashion this year because of Covid,” said committee chair Chris Easley. “The greatest way to tick off the voters is to lose the $36 million.”
Kavanaugh Speaks
Reading from a prepared statement during the “citizens speak” segment at the beginning of the meeting, Brian Kavanaugh of Orleans urged the committee to rescind its decision.
“First, the changed process violates well-established Nauset past practices,” he said, citing a $6.5-million replacement of windows, doors, and roofs at the school that was approved by town meetings in 2011. “Second, the change in process represents a failure to honor its word with respect to how voter approval has been sought since the project’s conception, and it is also a basis upon which you received over a million dollars to perform design,” he said.
Kavanaugh is a retired commodities trader and former member of the Nauset Regional School Committee. He warned of potential pitfalls of a district-wide vote, naming the 2018 Dennis-Yarmouth district vote on a $117-million middle school project, which passed by a narrow margin, with Dennis voting 1361 to 876 in favor and Yarmouth 1502 to 1955 against.
“Their project resulted in great inter-town discord and landed them in court,” said Kavanaugh.
“There is a contradiction between how you were elected to this committee and how you are seeking approval of your project,” he said. “You were not elected by the four towns. You were elected by a single town, with responsibility to represent your town’s interest.”
At that point Kavanaugh was cut off by Easley because he had used up his allotted two minutes of “citizens speak.” A bid by another resident to yield his own two minutes to Kavanaugh was rejected by Easley.
“I don’t think that’s how citizens speak works,” he said. “We’re not in the middle of a meeting and you’re not yielding to somebody else that’s participating in the meeting.”
Stewart said that, while he understood the spirit of the two-minute limit, he would like to see citizens allowed time to voice their concerns, even if they take three minutes. “It doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of a school to be shutting down voices,” said Stewart.
“To be clear, Josh, it’s not my rule — it is the rule of this committee,” said Easley, adding that speakers could request time to appear before the committee and be put on a meeting agenda.
Kavanaugh said afterward that he planned to ask to be put on the committee’s agenda to give a presentation, along with Bill Dugan of Wellfleet.
In a recent letter to local newspapers, Dugan, a former Wellfleet town administrator and former treasurer of the Nauset school district, advocated the “phasing down” of the school choice program by not accepting new out-of-district pupils.
“Nauset voluntarily accepted 290 Choice Program pupils in FY 2020 into our Middle School and High School from outside of the Nauset District,” Dugan wrote. “These Choice students will not pay for their share of the cost of enlarging the high school. Their presence hugely inflates the building costs for Nauset taxpayers.”
According to the Mass. Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) website, the Nauset district’s school choice enrollment was 290.9 in 2020, 314.7 in 2019, and 348.9 in 2018. While not comparable to the DESE numbers because of a different reporting date, the Nauset School District reported school choice enrollments as of Oct. 1, 2020 of 198 at the high school and 60 at the middle school, with 23 Provincetown and 60 Truro students paying tuition to attend.
Nauset receives $5,000 per school choice student and approximately $18,000 per student from Provincetown and Truro.
“The number of pupils drives all the costs,” Dugan told the Independent. “Both the operating budget and the capital budgets — which are construction budgets. Obviously, the larger the school population, the bigger building you need.”
The Nauset High renovation is designed for an enrollment of 905 students. According to the school district’s enrollment records for 2020, there were 877 students at the high school.
Dugan recommended building a smaller high school based on the number of students who live in the four-town district.
“I would welcome Truro and Provincetown joining Nauset,” said Dugan. “I think it’s the logical thing to happen. Now, I think they’re reluctant to join, because they have a better deal as nonmembers than they would as members. As members, they have to pay their share of building the new high school. As nonmembers, they don’t have to pay anything.”
Dugan agreed with Kavanaugh’s opposition to the district-wide vote, calling the change “undemocratic.”
“Each town should have the opportunity, as we have had in the past, to vote twice, so we have the opportunity to ask questions on the floor of the town meeting and also have the benefit of the secret ballot vote [for the debt exclusion],” said Dugan. He predicted a small turnout of voters in March, saying that many residents will be away at that time.
‘Ocean Creatures’ Note Cards From Eastham Painters Guild
The Eastham Painters Guild creates sets of note cards each year, featuring art by guild members, to fund scholarships for seniors at Nauset Regional High School and Cape Cod Regional Technical High School. This year’s theme is “ocean creatures.” It includes paintings of horseshoe crabs, Kemp’s ridley turtles, whales, sharks, seals, and piping plovers.
Past themes, which are still available for purchase, include lighthouses of the National Seashore, hydrangeas, local birds, and Eastham 400. The cards, which are $12 for 10, can be purchased by emailing [email protected].
EDUCATION
Scholarships Keep P’town Kids in College
But an award funded by tax-form gifts is depleted
PROVINCETOWN — For Christina Reid, 18 — a freshman at Boston’s Suffolk University, a 2020 graduate of Nauset Regional High School, and a third-through-eighth-grade alumna of Provincetown Schools — receiving this year’s Provincetown Town Scholarship proved to be a more-than-welcome boon.
Reid had saved earnings from seasons of working at the Portuguese Bakery and at Stop & Shop, alongside her mother, Ingrid Mattis, an essential worker at the grocery chain’s checkout counters. She’s applied for “just so many scholarships” and receives a financial aid package from Suffolk. Still, her annual charges are a whopping $61,216 for room, board, and tuition. To Reid, every dollar counts.
“I was considering not going back this spring semester, just to save money — to start working early,” Reid said.
Now, though, Reid doesn’t have to postpone her studies in the name of practicality. The Town Scholarship, which is awarded yearly to a single graduating high school senior who lives in Provincetown and “has achieved a distinguished academic record,” was a tremendous help, she said. “It’s relieved my mom from stress and relieved me from stress.”
Reid will return to Boston for her freshman spring semester. She’ll continue studying psychology (she thinks) with a focus on mental health counseling, sticking to her long-term post-graduation goal (she thinks) of returning to Provincetown and giving back to the community that has given to her.
Her future is bright. But the future of the gift that helped clear the path for her is clouded.
The Town Scholarship award has its origins in Massachusetts law: MGL Part I, Title IX, Chapter 60, Section 3C, which enables towns to fund a scholarship by accepting donations, according to Julia Perry, chair of the Provincetown Scholarship and Trust Administration Committee.
The law allows any city or town to “design and designate a place on its municipal tax bills … whereby the taxpayers of said city or town can voluntarily check off, donate, and pledge an amount” to add to the scholarship pool.
Provincetown’s property tax bill features one of the check-off boxes the law describes. But Perry said that “most people now pay their tax bills automatically — either through their mortgage or as an automatic deduction — and never look at the property tax bill, so the amount in the Town Scholarship Fund has been dropping.”
This year, there was only $4,449.77 in the Town Scholarship fund’s coffers. Based on the strength of Reid’s application — she had, among other accomplishments, the highest GPA of any applicant — the scholarship committee awarded her $4,000, which leaves a scant sum for applicants from the class of 2021.
In the absence of a regular cash stream coming with tax payments, the members of the scholarship committee have decided to spend the next few months fund-raising.
“At a minimum, we would like to raise enough to make a similar award next spring,” Perry said. “Ideally, we would like to raise enough to create a perpetuating fund.”
Donations to the fund may be made online at provincetown-ma.gov/791/Gift-FundsDonate or by sending a check made out to “Town of Provincetown” with “Town Scholarship Fund” on the memo line to the scholarship committee, 260 Commercial St., Provincetown 02657.
The scholarship committee is an advisory board that recommends student winners each year to the select board for approval. The committee is also responsible for the management of two other funds: the biannually awarded John Anderson Francis Scholarship, endowed by the will of Cecilia Francis, and the Capt. Joseph F. Oliver Scholarship Fund, endowed by Capt. Oliver’s will.
Reid was also one of this year’s six recipients of the Francis Scholarship, which is available to students who graduated from Provincetown Schools after 2009 and then graduated from any Cape Cod high school. Graduating high school seniors, students currently enrolled in college, and students enrolled in graduate or professional schools are all eligible to apply for the scholarship.
As of July 31, the Francis Scholarship fund had a balance of $1,130,230.71; of that amount, $605,638.13 was restricted for investment purposes. This year, acting on the committee’s recommendation, the select board awarded $45,000 of the fund’s $524,592.58 expendable balance to its six winners: Reid, Safara Brooker, Mackenzie Edwards, Aleksandar Isailovic, Lilli Osowski, and Katarzyna Sapinska.
The Oliver Scholarship is available to students with home addresses in Truro or Provincetown at the time of their high school graduation who have successfully completed their first year of college — after graduating either from Provincetown High School before 2013 (the year it closed) or from any other Cape Cod high school thereafter.
As of July 31, the Oliver Scholarship fund had a balance of $485,814.69, of which $415,809.73 was restricted for investment purposes. Acting on the committee’s recommendation, the select board awarded $12,500 to five students: Mary Burns, Mackenzie Edwards, Brenden Kaeselau, Nathan Balk King, and Katarzyna Sapinska.
OP-ED
Wamsutta Frank James Made Good Trouble
The music teacher who awakened us to real history
One story surfacing this Thanksgiving tells of a search party from the Mayflower, anchored in Provincetown Harbor, raiding a gravesite near Corn Hill in Truro. About 10 bushels of corn and beans were found by the party and brought to their hungry shipmates.
As a descendant of those hungry shipmates, I’m grateful they found nourishment and survived. I have a sense of their desperation and the relief the buried harvest must have brought. But clearly this land was inhabited by an organized people who had stored part of their life-sustaining crops. This was someone else’s food.
History is full of invasions and land grabs by powerful adventurers and colonizers. Yet our national narrative continues to characterize the Mayflower passengers as people on a high-minded quest to bring democracy to a barren land, not looters and thieves of precious winter stores. Real history is complicated.
Another story going around this year is about what happened in 1970. How did Wamsutta Frank James wake up non-native people by not delivering a speech before a prestigious group assembled to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower in Cape Cod Bay?
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts invited schoolteacher Frank James, the beloved leader of the Nauset Regional High School band and orchestra, to address a Boston banquet as a representative of the Indians. Mr. James, as I knew him in school, told the Cape Codder that, on receiving the invitation, he wrote a speech and was asked to submit it to be checked for grammar and spelling for a press release about the event.
James was told his speech was “too inflammatory” and would make people uncomfortable. He was provided an alternate speech. Someone from the State House drove to James’s house in Chatham, where they spent hours attempting to reconcile the two speeches, the one James wrote with the one state officials wanted him to read. He decided to withdraw from the event.
The headline in the Codder read “Wampanoag Skips 350th Banquet; Won’t Speak With Forked Tongue.” A substitute Indian was found to address the banquet. He wore a Sioux-Dakota war bonnet.
James’s speech was published in full in the Cape Codder. It began:
I speak to you as a man — a Wampanoag man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction (“You must succeed — your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community”).
And it continued:
History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal…. Two distinctly different cultures met. One thought they must control life; the other believed life was to be enjoyed, because nature decreed it….
High on a hill, overlooking the famed Plymouth Rock, stands the statue of our great Sachem, Massasoit. Massasoit has stood there many years in silence. We, the descendants of this great Sachem, have been a silent people. The necessity of making a living in this materialistic society of the white man caused us to be silent.
Although time has drained our culture, and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands of Massachusetts…. Our spirit refuses to die.
When James wrote his speech, a 19-month occupation had begun of the old prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay by the American Indian Movement.
I have no doubt that the Indians have had things right about challenging the U.S. history of imperialism, enslavement, and all those broken treaties. Right to call U.S. policies and practices toward the Indians nothing less than genocide. And they’ve been right about living in sacred harmony with the natural world.
Frank James reminded us with his speech about honor, about building trustworthy relationships, and about the heart-sickening betrayals by the U.S. government that still continue.
Scholars like Daniel J. Silverman and Ian Saxine have studied who the Wampanoag were and how they responded to the English who anchored first in Provincetown Harbor. This past summer, the Eastham Public Library and the Eastham 400 Commemoration Committee (eastham400.org) organized a full season of virtual sunset and campfire stories, shared by local residents: Mayflower and Wampanoag descendants and others. These interviews can be viewed still.
After the undelivered speech was published, Frank James and his tribal colleagues met on Cole’s Hill above Plymouth Rock. There, he read his speech and they declared Thanksgiving to be a National Day of Mourning.
The National Day of Mourning has continued every Thanksgiving for 50 years as both a sacred and a very political event. It is preceded by fasting from sundown the day before. The mourning will continue until mutual respect and real equity are all of ours to share.
SOCCER
Nauset Boys Take Title; Girls Fall Just Short
Bittersweet season endings for two outstanding teams
EASTHAM — After finishing the regular season first in its conference with an impressive 7-1-2 record, the Nauset Regional High School girls soccer team felt like they still had something to prove.
“People always focus on boys soccer and we want to show everyone we can win, too,” junior Isabel Cook said before the league championship match.
First-year Head Coach Tom Pollert said the team’s primary goal was to finish first in conference play and make the league playoffs. The Warriors achieved that. The final step was to win the league championship.
Both the girls and boys soccer teams won their Cape and Islands League Atlantic Division semifinal matches against the Falmouth Clippers on Thursday, Nov. 12 and then competed for the league title on Saturday the 14th.
The girls suffered their only loss of the season to Falmouth on Nov. 3 and found themselves down 1-0 to the Clippers late in Thursday’s semifinal match. Sophomore Emma Easley scored with six minutes left in regulation to tie the game and force overtime. In overtime, sophomore Ella McGrath buried one in the back of the net to win the game and send the girls to the league championship match.
“After the game there were a lot of emotions,” said Cook, who lives in Wellfleet. “We had players crying and jumping up and down. Everyone worked as hard as they could and played for each other.”
The Mass. Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) introduced new soccer rules this season that prohibited heading the ball or throw-ins, made masks mandatory, and required social distancing during play. The rules made the game safer, but presented many challenges for players.
The girls responded to these new rules under Pollert’s direction and found a way to succeed.
“It was definitely a learning curve,” Pollert said. “Obviously, with the Covid rules the way they are, the girls have had to really adjust their game.”
Pollert said most teams in the league tried pushing the ball ahead quickly with crosses and lead passes, but Nauset likes to play a possession game to move the ball downfield. The Warriors focused on pressuring other teams to play their game of possession.
“We felt like we had the upper hand in that kind of game,” Pollert said.
Normally, when a player kicks the ball out of bounds, the opposing team’s player can quickly grab the ball and throw it back into play to a teammate or toward the goal. Sometimes, a team can get a head start toward the opponents’ goal off a throw-in.
This year, teams were required to play an indirect kick instead of throw-ins. An indirect kick must be placed inbounds by the referee and a player must pass to a teammate before kicking it up field. This gives the defense a little more time to prepare. Nauset used the speed of senior Monique Malcom, a track star at the school, to pressure the opposing team in those situations and force turnovers, Pollert said.
“We always found new ways to play within the new rules, thanks to our coach,” Cook said. He taught the team some creative strategies, she said. Moreover, “He never gave up on us.”
It also helped that junior goalkeeper Brady Deschamps recorded seven shutouts on the year.
“This year I feel I was really close with the defensive players and we all trusted each other to have our backs, which kept us calm and ready in the games,” Deschamps said. “Every shutout we had made the team want to keep the pressure up for the next game.”
The Warriors hosted the Barnstable Red Raiders in what turned out to be an absolute nail-biter of a league championship game. Both teams were held scoreless through regulation and two overtimes before Barnstable finally won by one penalty kick.
It was a tough ending to one of the best seasons for Nauset girls soccer in recent history. Deschamps said the team was happy to have a season and added she was extremely proud of how they played.
The Nauset boys team beat Barnstable 5-1 to cap a perfect 12-0 season and claim the Cape and Islands League Atlantic Division title on Saturday. But there will be no state championship this year.
The MIAA soccer tournament was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, so teams were only allowed to compete in a league tournament. “There’s no doubt about it that it’s bittersweet,” Head Coach John McCully said. “We really would have wanted to compete for a state title this year.”
The Warriors would have been a favorite to win a state title. Teams that faced the Nauset boys this year barely stood a chance, as the Warriors outscored opponents 62-2 over the entire season, including league playoffs.
“That alone will tell you that there was something special in this group,” McCully said.
He credited the senior leadership of Anthony Lovati, Benny LaBranche, Ethan Boyle, and Henry Watson with driving the team’s success. Those four plus senior Kelan Warren and junior Will Schiffer were named to the Cape and Islands League All-First Team. LaBranche was named league MVP, as well as being named to the All-State team along with Boyle, according to McCully.
“Their leadership helped drive us to be the best that we could be,” McCully said. “We tried to be positive, tried to be upbeat and make the most of a really trying season.”
“It was disappointing to not be able to compete in the state tournament, but we made the most out of it and the team had a great time,” Provincetown’s Anthony Lovati said.
The girls will graduate only four seniors this year, while the boys graduate 11. But coaches McCully and Pollert are excited for the future, with a number of current juniors and sophomores expected to lead the way next season.
“Nauset soccer has a lot to look forward to,” McCully said.
WARRIORS WATCH
Golfers to Finish Season at League Championship
A weekly preview of Nauset High sports
A word to fans: according to league rules, fans may only attend home games. Masks are required and physical distancing rules will apply.
Thursday, Oct. 29
Boys soccer: The undefeated Warriors (6-0) travel to Barnstable to play the Red Raiders at 4 p.m.
Girls soccer: The Warriors (5-0-1) will host the Barnstable Red Raiders at 4 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 30
Field hockey: The Monomoy Sharks will travel to Eastham to play the Warriors (4-2) at 4 p.m.
Tuesday, Nov. 3
Boys and girls cross country: It’s Senior Day for the co-ed Nauset cross country team as they take on the Dennis-Yarmouth Dolphins at 3 p.m. at home.
Seniors to be honored include Makayla Hutchinson, Quinn MacDonald, Isabelle Nobili, Rachel Pranga, Shay Lynn Risk, Matthew Dadoly, Joshua Pilone, and Finn Riley.
Girls soccer: The Warriors travel to Falmouth to face the Clippers at 4 p.m.
Boys soccer: Another Senior Day celebration will happen before the Warriors’ home game against the Falmouth Clippers at 4:30 p.m.
Seniors to be honored include Matt Fischer, Henry Watson, Ethan Boyle, Ben LaBranche, Chris Pombo, Kelan Warren, Conner Cushing, Jaden Dixon, Artie O’Neil, Anthony Lovati, and Luke Meehan.
Wednesday, Nov. 4
Boys golf: The Warriors (2-6) will compete in the Cape & Islands League Championship at Willowbend Country Club beginning at 9:30 a.m.
Field hockey: The Warriors will play an away game against the Falmouth Clippers at 4 p.m.
WARRIORS WATCH
Boys and Girls Soccer Start Undefeated
A weekly wrap-up and preview of Nauset High sports
A word to fans: according to league rules, fans may only attend home games. Masks are required and physical distancing rules will apply.
Thursday, Oct. 22
Boys golf: The Warriors play host to the Barnstable Red Raiders at Captains Golf Course in Brewster, beginning at 3:30 p.m. The Warriors are off to a 2-4 start this season.
Boys soccer: The Warriors will travel to Dennis-Yarmouth to play the Dolphins at 4 p.m. The team started the season 4-0 and has yet to allow an opponent to score a single goal.
Girls soccer: The Dennis-Yarmouth Dolphins travel to Eastham to play the Warriors at 4:30 p.m. in a game that marks the halfway point in a shortened soccer season.
The game will also be Senior Night for the Warriors, as four seniors, Frida Mamo, Hailey Richardson, Mary Sheppard, and Monique Malcomb, will be honored before the start of play. Just like the boys, the girls are off to a 4-0 start.
Friday, Oct. 23
Girls field hockey: It’s a Cape and Islands League clash between the Warriors and Sandwich Blue Knights, beginning at 4 p.m. in Sandwich. The Warriors will look to build on their 3-1 start to the season.
Monday, Oct. 26
Boys soccer: The Warriors will play host again to the Monomoy Sharks at 4 p.m.
Girls soccer: The Warriors travel to Chatham to play the Monomoy Sharks at 4 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 27
Boys golf: The Warriors will play the Falmouth Clippers at the Falmouth Country Club at 3:30 p.m.
Boys and girls cross country: The Warriors team will compete in its second meet of the year against the Falmouth Clippers at 4 p.m. in Falmouth. The boys are 1-0 while the girls are 0-1.
Wednesday, Oct. 28
Boys golf: The Warriors will play the Sandwich Blue Knights in Sandwich at 3 p.m.
Girls field hockey: The Warriors host the Barnstable Red Raiders at 4 p.m. on Senior Day. Seniors Tess Taloumis, Sophie Christopher, Layne McIntire, Grace Murphy, Mia-Fay Melano, Abigail Stevens, and Cecilia Pekarcik will be honored before the game.
HOOPLESS
Roundball Players Contemplate a Bleak Winter
With local pickup basketball sessions on hold, players are restless
With a chill in the evening air, now is the time of year when the Outer Cape’s pickup basketballers normally move indoors. On weeknights throughout the winter, the elementary school gyms here host adults who come to shoot hoops and play impromptu games.
It’s a ritual, the players say, that gets them through the long season. And it’s as much about mental health as physical fitness to know that, whether you’re having a good week or a bad one, on Tuesday and Thursday nights you’ll see some friends and fellow players at Eastham or Wellfleet Elementary School for a night of hooping.
But it seems that tradition will be on hold this winter. Both Wellfleet Recreation Director Becky Rosenberg and Eastham Recreation Director Christine Mickle confirmed this week that their departments will not be running any pickup basketball sessions until further notice.
The weekly pickup games are usually posted in a Facebook group that reaches more than 300 people across the Cape. But the group has been pretty much dormant since March. Since there wasn’t much organized pickup ball over the summer, players were looking forward to winter for their usual fix.
Though the news comes as a blow to the locals who rely on the indoor court time, they say they understand the need for caution.
Under the circumstances, said Mike Warren of Orleans, staying off the court makes sense, but he’d like to get back to it because “basketball gets my mind off the outside world and just be free.”
Eastham native Jake McGrath was disappointed, too. “We’re losing that joy and competition that we look forward to each week,” he said.
McGrath added that there aren’t many social spots for young people on the Outer and Lower Cape.
“Pickup is vital,” said Crash Pechukas-Simonian of Wellfleet. “It brings people together. It is the only game where all you need is a place to play. They open the doors, and, even if only two people walk in, they can still play.”
Rick Marvin of Eastham shuddered to think about the “long drawn-out” winter ahead. “Rain and winds are consistent enough where it’s hard to get the exercise we need,” he said. “Once a week, we all look forward to meeting in a gym and getting our shots up and socializing as we join in and play the game we love.”
Marvin said he thinks it could be possible for pickup ball to resume in a safe manner, but he admitted that might be wishful thinking.
“Obviously, I’m not an expert, but if there’s any way to keep us on the court, it’d be a shimmer of light in this godforsaken year of 2020,” he said.
It’s hard to imagine a winter without basketball. The coronavirus forced the National Basketball Association to pause and restructure its season. In a normal year, the NBA season would be starting right now, but, instead, the season just ended last week. So, even on TV, there is no basketball on the horizon.
Of course, local players can shoot around on their own or maybe play H-O-R-S-E with friends. And a few are determined to try out other sports, at least for the time being.
McGrath said he’ll try lifting weights more often. “I’ll hit the gym,” he said, “but it’s not the same as getting to run around and play ball.”
Warren said he has “picked up biking on the local bike trails and small trail hiking.” And now that winter is approaching, he said, “my weekend time will mostly be occupied with snowboarding.”
Pechukas-Simonian has a more couch-oriented plan. “To fill the void,” he said, “I’ll watch Steve Nash highlights and lament.”
