Tag Archives: families

Aidan Kearney’s Turtle Boy blog – a hate-spewing blog that now has nothing to do with Worcester … and Worcester City Coucilor Michael Gaffney still supports $$$$ Turtle Boy (Shhhh! It’s supposed to be a secret!) …

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The same can be said for Worcester City Councilor Michael Gaffney – he is just as American-Democracy-hating and truth-twisting as Donald Trump. Gaffney is a lying, combative street fighter, just like his hero!

By Rosalie Tirella

So a few weeks ago we were on the telephone with the Holden police – Turtle Boy blogger Aidan Kearney now lives in the Jefferson part of Holden – and has become that Worcester suburb’s bete noire. I will not discuss why I called the good officers on the bad Turtle Boy, but I was surprised when the Holden copper told me he was familiar with Turtle Boy – that he had been getting phone calls about Turtle Boy-Kearney all week long!

I said: Well, hot damn! So you know how it spins with the Turtle! Worcester’s hater is now YOUR hater! Worcester’s community divider is now YOUR community divider! Worcester’s problem is now YOUR problem, officer!

Loathed in Worcester because of his loathesome Turtle Boy blog Kearney can now be loathed in Holden, a much smaller pond with a much larger collective memory. Like all small towns. We are hoping Holden will do to Turtle Boy Kearney what he has done to Worcester and its minority communities – box him in, marginalize him, stereotype him, laugh at him, accuse him of all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors.

Karma’s a bitch, Aidan!

Turtle Boy-Aidan’s exodus from Worcester makes sense: with his son now almost old enough (or old enough) to be going to school – being part of a school system/community – bully boy Aidan Kearney-Turtle Boy did not want to see the pitch forks turned on his kid. And his growing family. Which would happen here. Because he has trashed an entire city! Made a million enemies with his abusive and stupid blog.

Turtle Boy Kearney, his wife, little boy and baby girl had to pack it all up and … run away.

Now Aidan Kearney belongs to Jefferson-Holden – a white, mostly upper-middle class town where he doesn’t come in contact with the “wangstas,” “hoodrats” and skanks that he writes about in his blog every day and sees EVERYWHERE in Worcester and places like Southbridge, Gardner, Brockton, Lawrence … you know, the state’s Gateway Cities, once great factory towns now struggling to reinvent themselves. Kick a city when she’s down – that’s Turtle Boy Kearney’s M.O.

The Turtle Boy has taken a huge dump on these places, Worcester included. Turned our people into cartoon characters that just sit around in Section 8 housing smoking weed, selling their food stamps, abusing their kids, growing more morbidly obese or scrawny by the second. Turtle Boy has taken poverty, mental illness and poor job prospects for uneducated American workers and turned it all into one big dystopian joke that all the haters in Worcester can laugh at, feel superior to.

And Worcester City Councilor Michael Gaffney supports it all – has for years and continues to do so by purchasing $$$ ads on the Turtle Boy blog.

Gaffney’s one of the few advertisers  left – including a gun seller and a place where there had been a murder. Gaffney is in fitting company!

A peek today at the once porn-ad-choked Turtle Boy blog shows us a gray, square ad with a “click here for a free consultation” typed over it. You click on the ad and you see … Worcester City Councilor Michael Gaffney! It’s an ad for Gaffney’s ambulance-chasing lawyering business.

Typical Gaffney charade like this one which the media uncovered a few weeks ago …

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Up until a  few weeks ago, for years, Gaffney had his decades-old photo and lawyer ad on the Turtle Boy blog, plainly visible, with the words “Attorney Gaffney” written for all to see.

Now the Gaffer is ashamed of being aligned with the Turtle (which he is) – now sees the Turtle-Boy-Gaffney-bond as a liability (which it is).

But not quite.

Gaffney still needs Turtle Boy Aidan Kearney and his followers/readers – many Worcester voters. Gaffney still needs his evil cheerleader and mouth piece. So maybe he can be Woo mayor some day!😱😱😱😱 So Gaffney creates and pays for $$$ a Secret Turtle Boy ad. Slippery as always!

So WHAT IS MICHAEL GAFFNEY – a city councilor who is so ravenous to be mayor that he will do or say anything, no matter how nefarious, to accomplish his political goal – REALLY SUPPORTING?

Besides the usual Turtle Boy hatred … this recent Turtle Boy blog post made me especially sad, reminded me of what Worcester City Councilor Michael Gaffney really stands for:

The recent Turtle Boy Aidan blog post I am writing about today was written by Turtle Boy a while ago. It’s about a little girl … around 7 years old who is identifying as a little boy. AG Maura Healey is supporting the little boy and his family – in the face of the Trump administration’s cruel roll back of transgender folks’ rights (kids will be physically hurt, bullied, deprived of expressing their true voices because of Trump!) Aidan-Kearney-Turtle-Boy, as in the dark on this issue as Donald Trump and his nightmare of a Cabinet are, just had to chime in on the news. The header of his recent post:

Maura Healey Using This Confused 7 Year Old Who Thinks She’s Transgender As A Political Prop. Is The Most Disgusting Thing I’ve Ever Seen A Politician Do”

Turtle Boy-Aidan’s evil post begins:

“If your 7 year old girl says she’s a boy, what do you do? Pump her up with hormones, feed into the delusion, and give yourself the SJW medal of honor. Tell her that boys have penises and they’re disgusting and then give her a popsicle.”

And more nuggets of ignorance from the Turtle Boy blog post:

” … Trump announced yesterday that he was rolling back President Obama’s executive order that forces schools across the country to allow any student to use any locker room, so long as they declare themselves a member of that gender beforehand. I know, the horror. But the fact of the matter is that in states like Massachusetts the bathroom and locker room rules will not be changed … .”

” … Seriously, this girl’s parents should be ARRESTED. This is sick and twisted.”

 ” …. disgusting political stunts I have ever seen, Maura Healey brought up an 8 year old girl to condemn Trump for coming after her 7 year old “brother” Jacob, who has a vagina and is in fact a girl. This is really the most vile thing I have EVER seen a politician do:”

“Seriously, this girl’s parents should be ARRESTED. This is sick and twisted. They allowed their eight year old daughter to be Maura Healey’s political prop.”

“Right now we’re here to talk about why it’s important for your sister to undergo dangerous hormone therapy so Mom and Dad can pat themselves on the back for being progressive. Because for you puberty will be a natural part of life, but for your sister puberty is a disease and the only way to prevent this disease is to load her up with puberty-blocking hormones, because science and biology are bad.”

InCity Times was the first newspaper in Worcester to support and write about transgender folks and their fight for civil/human rights – see our story on Jesse on this website. So we come to this issue with a special passion! Turtle Boy Kearney is WRONG ON SO MANY FRONTS here!!!: No one can force a human being to be a certain sex; most trans people ALWAYS felt who they were meant to be – from teenie tiny kidhood! No one forces transgender folks to take hormones! – parents do not inject hormones into their kids!  Most trans folks CHOOSE to make hormone therapy a part of identifying. And their desire to be who God intended them to be can be made a living hell by family, community and society if people (like Turtle Boy) don’t understand the issue. Contrary to what Turtle Boy writes on his blog, a kid self-identifying is not pulling some gag to mess up society and invade the “wrong” restroom – it’s a real and true THIS-IS-WHO-I-AM moment. It’s the need to USE THE CORRECT RESTROOM! To be HONEST with society! This can be so difficult in today’s America that psychotherapy is often a big piece of the transgender person’s “coming out.”

The amazing thing for me is not Aidan-Turtle Boy’s usual bashing, cruel and totally stupid, misinformed, DANGEROUS and possibly hate-crime-inducing take on the issue but THAT A BLUE COLLAR GUY, a TURTLE BOY reader!!, actually brought the EVIL of this Turtle Boy post home to me months before Aidan even wrote it … . The guy is a TB rah rah reader but he’s also married to a wonderful woman – a school principal. A year or two ago the guy told me his wife, the school principal, had a boy in a kindergarten class in her school who was identifying as a girl. He was serious when he told me this. Trying to understand. Thinking of what that really meant – for the 5 year old, for her family, for her teachers, for her classmates. How could the girl be supported at school? How could everybody learn? Accept? Love? He was so serious as he told me all this. As a dad with young kids he may have never thought about the issue, but he knows little kids don’t – can’t – lie about something like gender. Now that his wife, an educator, a professional with college and post-college degrees and psychology courses galore under her belt, was grappling with the issue, he was, too. Trying to figure it out. In a real way. This blue collar rough around the edges guy. He made me proud!

The fact that this guy is not getting his “facts” from the fucked up Aidan Kearney-Turtle Boy but from his wife, a pretty wonderful person, a caring human being wanting to do the right thing, makes all the difference. We wish this could happen to all the Turtle riders – including Michael Gaffney!

But it won’t. Turtle Boy and Worcester City Councilor Gaffney exploit the crises, revelations, changes and growth in Worcester. No room for illumination here, folks! Screw a BETTER WORLD! These two guys, each having his own motives that overlap, always muddy the waters, create sadness, perpetuate ignorance and fan prejudice. We’re certain every multi-cultural, diverse American place – WHICH IS EVERY WHERE in the U.S. – has a Michael Gaffney and Turtle Boy to sow the hate. Just as America has Donald Trump and his evil mouth piece and cheer leader, Breitbart editor Steve Bannon. They exploit the fears and prejudices of folks who long for a white, straight Worcester and America …

Golfers (May 23, 24, 1950) G 174B
photo: Worcester Historical Museum

… a place that never really existed.

They kill community.

They kill people!

I write this because … Years ago, when I was a little girl growing up in Green Island, there was a woman – big, vulgar, brassy, tough – who had two daughters in their late teens. I’ll call them “Betty” and “Jane.” Jane was movie star beautiful – long blond hair, lovely pink 1970s lip-stick-slathered lips, pearly white teeth and beautiful smile. When Jane walked down Lafayette Street in her tight, faded bell bottom blue jeans and pretty blouse tucked in HEADS TURNED. She was always polite to my mother and me and my two kid sisters – fans who ooohed and ahhed at her loveliness like everyone else in the neighborhood – when we passed her on the street walking home from school or from the dry cleaners where my mom worked 60 hours a week as a “counter girl.”

Then there was daughter Betty. Betty was tall and lanky. She wore no make up and had short hair – a boy’s hair cut. Her stride was loping and she wore  boy jeans. As a little kid I wondered if Betty was a young man but I never asked Ma. I just kinda followed her lead, which was: She was always nice to Betty – treated Betty exactly the way she treated her sister Jane: with respect, politeness, the same “hello!” and beautiful Ma smile …

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Rosalie’s mother had the prettiest smile!

… My mother never lectured us. And she never ever bad mouthed or made fun of anyone. She led by example. Taught us through her deeds. And when it came to people in our already diverse inner-city neighborhood Ma was the Statue of Liberty! A beacon of beauty and hope!

So we kids followed Ma’s lead! “Hi, Betty!” we’d chirp, if we saw Betty walking down a street in Green Island. “Hi, Jane!” we’d chirp if we saw her sister walking down to the park.

The girls always smiled and said “hi” back. Though Betty’s smile was never as wide as her sister’s. She always seemed serious. Day after day. Year after year.

One day, Betty kind of disappeared. We still saw Jane in the ‘hood, but never Betty. She was gone. Maybe I asked Ma about it, maybe I didn’t. But we did learn that Betty had hanged herself.

This shocked me and my sisters. Betty was a part of our world, always nice to us – polite in a rough neighorhood filled with bullies. Now she was gone!

In many ethnic urban neighborhoods different kinds of folks took their lives. We called them “ghosts.” A Polish immigrant who never “got” America, never adjusted to life here on any level, who was always in his apartment and always looking so unhappy. A street person who drank and drank and then collapsed dead drunk in the bushes by the PNI club on Lafayette Street to sleep  it off every day. … One day I asked Ma if I could give the guy a blanket. She said “Yes” and gave me a nice clean full-sized baby blue blanket to give to him. I ran out of our flat and walked up to him – he was all tottering disshelved mess, his fly open – and gave him the blanket. From Ma and me. No words exchanged. Just the doing, the deed. He took the blue blanket and went to his bushes behind the PNI, by the fence, to collapse. The boys in the neighborhood saw the giving of the gift, walked over to him, stole his blanket … and stoned him. Threw rocks at him. I never saw the old guy again.

Aidan Kearney aka Turtle Boy and Worcester City Councilor Michael Gaffney are those Green Island boys today, here in Worcester, in the 21st century.

Haters. Bullies. Killers, the both of them.

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This Sunday! Friendly House Annual Christmas Party!!!

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Friendly House Annual Christmas Party!

36 Wall St.

This Sunday, December 18

2 pm – 4 pm

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For children ages 0-12 – must be accompanied by an adult

Raffles!

Gifts for all children ages 0-12 in attendance!

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Music!

Dance performances!

Entertainment!

First come, first served!

Volunteers, gifts for tweens still needed … if you can help in any way! Cheers, inner-city Woo!

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THANK YOU, GORDON AND SANTA!!! You’re the best!!😄😄😊☺😁😃🎄🎅💝

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Help our kids be great! The Worcester Boys and Girls Club fall wish list!

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Boys & Girls Club of Worcester
65 Tainter St.
bgcworcester.org

Our Fall Wish List:

Services/ Capital Improvements

Floors for Kid’s Café, Education Center, Games Room, and Teen Center
Painting our program rooms
HVAC, plumbing, and carpentry (professionals in these fields can donate their time, materials, etc.)
Swimming pool vacuum
Snow Plowing
Furnishings

Bean bag chairs
Colorful throw rugs
Flat screen television for the games room, School Aged Child Care program, and our Plumley Village outreach site
Athletic Equipment

Yoga mats
Basketballs
Rubber balls (to be used for 4 square, dodge ball)
soccer balls
volleyballs
Soccer goal nets
Footballs
boxing gloves and tape
swim towels and goggles
Whiffle ball set
Jump ropes
Hula Hoops
Outdoor Chalk
Educational Tools

Journals
Notebooks
Digital/ disposable cameras
iPads/Surface (to be used for school projects, book reports, college & job applications)
Pens
Pencils
Loose leaf paper
Binders
Folders
Backpacks
Educational workbooks (k-4th grade)
Flashcards (foreign language, math, English)
SAT prep books
Smart boards
Wii/PlayStation & flat screen TV (for educational and fitness purposes)
Plain t-shirts
Arts & Crafts Supplies

Tempera paint
Paintbrushes
Markers
Crayons
Colored pencils
Clay/ Play dough
Sketch books
construction paper, copy paper, and origami paper
Glue (large bottles)
Paste and glue sticks
Scissors
Paint mixing stick

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Main South and the Worcester East Middle neighborhoods – always in style! TODAY!

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(There’s also the REC FARMERS MARKET HERE, in the park – Saturday mornings!) pic: R.T.

ZUMBA CLASS! ZUMBA in Crystal Park (aka University Park – across from Clark University)! TODAY! FREE!

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Rosalie’s flowers “chilling” on her kitchen window sill this autumn day – Sept. 15. pic:R.T.

Community Unity Event
and Resource Fair!!!

TODAY!! Thursday September 15

5 pm – 7 pm

Mulcahy Field (right next to East Middle)

158 Dorchester St.

Parents for a Better Worcester and
Families of the Worcester East Middle Neighborhood
Invite you to:

A ‘Community Unity’ Event
And Resource Fair!

We are Working to Make Our Community Safer!

Come and be part of the solution and
Find out What We All Can Do!

Together We Can Make A Difference!

There will be a Resource Fair in the Cafeteria of Worcester East Middle School right after the program with information on:

After-school programs!

Crime watches!

Youth programs!

Thursday September 15th, 5-7pm
at Mulcahy Field (right next to East Middle)
158 Dorchester Street, Worcester

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Lilac says, WORCESTER DOG PARK PUBLIC HEARING TONIGHT, CITY HALL! BE THERE! VOTE FOR THE DOGS!! pic:R.T.

WPS students – always in style! … AFTER 15 YEARS THE MISSION IS THE SAME … THE HOME AND SCHOOL WORKING TOGETHER

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WPS inner-city students and families … ASPIRE!! pic:R.T.

By John Monfredo, Worcester School Committee

Congratulations is sent out to InCity Times‘ editor and publisher Rosalie Tirella on their 15th anniversary. The newspaper continues to be an alternative newspaper, with a goal to support those individuals most in need in our community.

One may not always agree with editor “Rose” (including me), but the idea of supporting, giving advice and advocating to those in need is a good concept. Rosalie grew up in the Green Island area of the city and knows the hardships that individuals experience – she has been a strong supporter of our inner-city parents.

As a matter of fact, at the age of 21, my first teaching assignment was at Lamartine Street School, and that’s where I first met Rosalie and her lovely mother. Rosalie was in my 5th grade class!

Since those early days, I have continued to reach out to our inner city parents with ideas and advice that hopefully make a difference in the lives of their children. I did it as a teacher, as the principal of Belmont Community School, and when I retired I still wanted to make a difference. That’s why I ran for Worcester School Committee.

Believing that a parent is a child’s first and most influential teacher – every school needs to have as its highest priority parent involvement within the schools.

You don’t need to be a researcher to know that family involvement can make a positive difference in school attendance, student behavior and academic achievement. What is needed is for schools to develop and ensure that parent involvement is embraced and not just given lip service. All schools need to welcome family members to their school. If schools don’t, the lack of positive interaction will stifle family-school connections.

Here are just a few suggestions for all schools:

Place positive signs on the schools entrance doors welcoming parents to the school.

Invite family members to eat lunch with their children. I can tell you that it works because I did it at Belmont Community School. We don’t have to feed the parents – they can bring in a lunch and spend time with their child. How about having lunch with parents on the first Friday of every month?!

Invite family members to attend workshops on important concepts that are taught to their children on a regular schedule. Inviting parents into the school for a special workshop does work! It serves as a way for the parents to assist their child at home.

Have staff and the principal make phone calls to invite families to participate in special events, meetings or other activities. Here in Worcester we have the Connect Ed. system where the school can invite parents to special events via the telephone.

Let’s go a step further and call parents with good news! It could be if a child had success on a test or just had a great day in school. Let me tell you it works! I did it for over 20 years at Belmont! Parents loved hearing good news and were more receptive in coming to school because of the call. Let’s start with that one positive telephone call.

Be sure that language translation is available in the office and for conferences and other contacts with parents.

Have workshops on reading and math. All families want to help their children, but many parents may not know how and that’s why the schools must reach out to our inner-city parents.

Have a family center stocked with learning materials that families can take home. Such a center would be a welcome addition for the schools . A Family Center should be part of each school – a special place in school where family members can meet, plan and implement programs.

In essence, schools must create a culture of wanting parents to be involved by modeling their beliefs, in both words and deeds, to the entire school community.

When families of all backgrounds are engaged in their children’s learning, their children tend to do better in school, stay in school and pursue higher education. Clearly, children at risk of failure or poor performance can profit from the extra support that engaged families and communities provide.
Remember, the research is clear: When parents play a positive role in their children’s education, students tend to do better in school. That all important teacher and parent PARTNERSHIP must be part of every school!

Good luck, InCity Times, on your 15th birthday and for the next 15 years! Continue your mission of involving inner-city parents in the learning process!

What’s fair pay?

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Worcester’s Grafton Street Elementary School. For years elementary school teachers all over America – mostly women at the time – were grossly under-paid. pic:R.T.

By Edith Morgan

We are at last at the place where there is some hope that women will be paid the same as men for equal work. That has taken a while. As a former teacher, I can remember the days when women teachers were paid less for the same or greater effort, did not get regular raises for experience, could not teach if married, then could not teach if pregnant, etc. I recall being told that only men could get a raise, as they were heads of household, and I as a woman could not be a “head of household” – despite the fact that I, like many women, was the main wage earner in my family, as my husband was in school and received only a meager stipend.

It was really high school teachers who spearheaded the move to organizing for more fair pay. Too many of us who were elementary school teachers were female, and we were accustomed to serving but not expecting proper pay. We taught children; high school teachers said they taught subjects. But now, after decades of battling, all teachers are on a multi-step schedule, based on educational level and years of service, not on the sex of the teacher.

It has been a tough battle to get fair pay for female-dominated professions – and the battle is by no means over.

This society still gives lip service to the vital role of raising and educating children, said to be our future. But we still pay near-starvation wages to those to whom we entrust our allegedly most precious possessions: our children. Early childhood programs of top quality are few and far between, very expensive, and overfilled. I went to a public preschool at three years of age, in France, in 1933 – that is how far behind we are here in America. My parents, who never even entrusted us to a babysitter, entrusted us to that French public school program. They could not have afforded a private program, as we came to France with nothing. Of course, there, teachers were honored and looked up to, and I do not remember my parents ever saying a bad word against teachers. If we children complained, they said we should learn all we could from this year’s teacher(s), and next year we might get one we liked better.

I recall coming home one day and announcing to my parents that henceforth I would have nothing to do with money, as the teacher had told us that “money is the root of all evil.” As a testament to the power of teachers’ influence, it was years before I really felt comfortable having anything to do with what was popularly called “filthy lucre.” My parents, loath to contradict the teacher, explained gently to me that the real saying was: ”THE LOVE OF MONEY is the root of all evil.”

Our system of compensation for work, our reward system, seems to reward those who do the least, with the most. Hedge fund managers, who move money from here to there and catch billions in between, are fabulously rich; CEOs who barely know what goes on in their businesses get millions and bonuses; speculators of all sorts are rewarded outrageously, while those who die for us have to battle to get treated for the horrendous diseases they pick up in battle. The list is endless! Suffice it to say: We reward the most vital jobs the least, and the least vital the most.

Assumption parked in A.I…Helping kids with Autism – Go, Assumption College, go!!!!

In recent years, there has been a rise in Autism across America, and now 1 in 68 children are diagnosed on the Autism spectrum.

In Central Massachusetts alone, 3,000 families are estimated to have a family member diagnosed with Autism.

Due to the rising number of families with children who have been diagnosed with Autism in need, waitlists grow longer and more therapists are needed. HMEA is dedicated to helping these families in Central Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island.
 
Through a $56,700 grant from The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, HMEA has been able to expand the Students for Higher: Rising Up for Autism program in partnership with Assumption College.

Dr. Jan Yost, President & CEO of The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, remarked “with the increasing number of children presenting with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, we commend HMEA for partnering with Assumption College to develop a creative approach to alleviating the challenges these children and their families face, while also providing college students with exposure to children with Autism and a job as they are studying to be therapists.  The ultimate goal is to increase the number of therapists who are skilled in Applied Behavioral Analysis, which is proven to help young children with Autism. Once a successful program is established at Assumption College, it is hoped that HMEA will be able to implement the program in other colleges in Central Massachusetts.” 
 
The Students for Higher program specifically trains students in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy. ABA therapy has proved to be an effective treatment for Autism, especially when used during Early Intervention and is endorsed by the U.S. Surgeon General.

Students are taught ABA training techniques such as personalized brain games and positive reinforcement. Students shadow Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBA) at first. Once students have gained adequate training and observation, they take care of specific clients independently and check-in with a supervisor.
 
The Students for Higher program is making an impact on those with Autism, their families, and Assumption students. Kate Colburn, project leader of Students for Higher, happily reported that “the Students for Higher:  Rising Up for Autism program has helped provide Behavior Therapy services to all of the children that HMEA supports in the Worcester area.” It has certainly made the impact it intended on families and the unnerving waitlist.
 
Students have the opportunity to gain real-life, hands-on experience that is much needed in the job market. They are able to receive ABA training and practice with the supervision of BCBAs, helping them to determine their career paths while helping those in need. “After participating in the Students for Higher program, I feel like I’m more prepared for the real world and I have the experience I need to do what I love” says Abigail, an Assumption College sophomore, “I also like how my daily experiences with my client connects with what I’m learning in my Human Services and Psychology classes.”

Michael Moloney, CEO of HMEA, said “through this program, HMEA has been able to provide more ABA trained therapists to families in need across Worcester County, the MetroWest region, and parts of Rhode Island. Not only are Assumption College students gaining needed real-life work experience, but they’re also helping HMEA achieve its mission of giving children with autism and their families, help, hope, and a future filled with promise.”
 
About HMEA:
 
HMEA was founded in 1961 on the basic principle that people diagnosed with Autism or other developmental disabilities have dreams for their lives. Our mission is to help them live that dream and our 700+ caring, committed and competent staff are dedicated to achieving that. We treat each person diagnosed with Autism or a developmental disability as an individual, with talents, abilities and challenges. And our care spans his or her lifetime — from the first few months of life through adulthood. HMEA serves over 4,000 people who have Autism and other developmental disabilities throughout 110 communities in Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.hmea.org

WPL news parked in A.I! … New Worcester Public Library school branch to open Friday!!!!!

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The new WPL branch at Burncoat Prep! Go, Worcester kids, go!! pic:R.T.

WORCESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY BURNCOAT BRANCH BUILDS A WELCOME ADDITION TO THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY

Newest Elementary School-Based Library to Serve the City of Worcester
as Part of the “One City, One Library” Initiative

 
WHAT: The opening of the Worcester Public Library Burncoat Branch at the Burncoat Street Preparatory School on Burncoat Street will be celebrated with a ribbon cutting and ceremony.One City, One Library is a private-public partnership focused on improving literacy skills citywide.
 
The Burncoat Branch includes all new books, iPads, computers, electronic literacy stations, a SmartBoard, and comfortable seating.

Public hours will begin April 1, 2016 at 4 p.m. 

During the school year the branch will be open to the public Tuesday through Friday from 4 to 6:30 p.m. and Saturday from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. 

Additional hours will be added during the summer months.
 
The One City, One Library collaboration between the City of Worcester, the Worcester Public Library, the Worcester Public Schools, and other organizations dedicated to education, has opened public library branches in four of the city’s elementary schools.

These branches offer the wealth of resources found at the public library, including technology, new materials, and professional librarians, and bring them into our schools.

These resources are accessible to students and teachers during the school day. The library is open to the public when school is not in session.
 
WHERE: Burncoat Street Preparatory School, 526 Burncoat Street, Worcester
 
WHEN: Friday, April 1, 2016     
9 a.m. Library Opening Ceremony and Ribbon Cutting with Mayor Joseph M. Petty, City Manager Edward M. Augustus, Jr., and representatives from the Worcester Public Library, Worcester Public Schools, and community partners.
 

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Rosalie at the Worcester Public Library Greendale branch yesterday – returning materials, checking out cool new stuff. This WPL branch, located on West Boylston Street, is ALWAYS BUSY! Go Celtics!

Editor’s note:
Why isn’t this happening in GREEN ISLAND, LOWER VERNON HILL, GRAFTON STREET, PIEDMONT/CROWN HILL, VERNON HILL, QUINSIG VILLAGE??!!!!!! So many poor/needy kids in these neighborhoods NEED and WOULD LOVE TO HAVE such a wonderful neighborhood resource!
– Rosalie Tirella

Protest tomorrow!

BOSTON FAMILIES AND STUDENTS TO PROTEST MAYOR WALSH’S STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS

Boston – On January 19, 2016, a broad-based coalition of public education stakeholders made up of families, students, educators, community members and groups representing public schools throughout Boston will come together at Mayor Walsh’s 2016 State of the City Address to protest budget shortfalls which negatively impact all of our Boston Public Schools.

We are protesting the Walsh administration’s failure to aggressively advocate for adequate funding and to make the investments needed to create success for every single student in all of our Boston Public Schools.

DATE: Tuesday, January 19, 2016

TIME: 4:30 pm

LOCATION:  Intersection of Westland Ave and Mass Ave, Under BSO sign

We are demanding that Mayor Walsh, at a minimum, do the following:

Join in solidarity with Boston’s students, families and community members to aggressively advocate for our Boston Public Schools at state and federal levels;

Through strategic planning and ambitious revitalization, reduce the BPS budget shortfalls of $50 million this year and $140 million over the last three years;

Invest in fully-resourced community public  schools with wraparound services for Boston’s children;

Work with the true stakeholders of Boston Public Schools: students, families, educators and community members to fully audit BPS’ budget in order to assess community needs and address inequalities;

and, Collaborating with the true stakeholders, demand democratically controlled public schools through an elected Boston School Committee.

In Boston, the stakeholders have come together to build a new vision for our public schools and our children—one that champions great public schools as the heart of our neighborhoods and ensures that every student, regardless of zip code, receives the highest quality education available.

Our stakeholders have developed a community-driven movement for the benefit of all of our students  and we will hold all of our elected officials accountable to us as their constituents and voters.

Contact: Karen Kast-McBride Mary Lewis-Pierce (617) 877-2871 857-891-3271
Karen.Kastmcbride@gmail.com lewispierce@gmail.com