Swampscott Stories

Middle School Adventure: The Goldfish Relocation Program

The Swampscott Middle School's Environmental Club wants to restore ecological balance to a nearby pond where an invasive species — goldfish — swims.

  The Swampscott Middle School students glimpsed orange fish wriggling below the pond's dark surface and announced an idea. The idea was something like this: let's drive the goldfish toward shore and fish them out with long-handled nets and rope-strung buckets. Wednesday, last week, the six Environmental Club kids' ideas resulted in splashes but no fish. But through trial and error they are determined to capture the goldfish. Middle school teacher Elizabeth Rogers regularly uses the pond to teach science lessons. Her 6th and 7th graders recently discovered that someone had released large goldfish — like those from a backyard koi pond — into the pond. "Since this can negatively impact the delicate pond ecosystem, the kids wanted to remove …

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Swampscott Stories

Middle School Ambassador Rallies Clothing Drive for Impoverished Kids

From April 1-11 eighth grader Ella Parker and classmates will be collecting donated children's clothing and shoes for ages infant to 12 years old.

  Ella Parker is forging ahead in her mission to gather shoes and clothes for kids who need them. Swampscott's representative to the governor's Project 351 has rallied her middle school classmates to make signs and spread the word: "Please donate new and gently used clothing and shoes for children up to age 12." The Spring Greening clothing drive will run at the Swampscott Middle School from April 1st to April 11th. Donors can drop shoes and clothes in a box in the school lobby. Ella and her helpers will sort donations and deliver them to Cradles to Crayons, a program that outfits children in poverty with essential items they need to thrive.  Ella and her crew have been getting help from the school administration and Big Blue Bargains, the…

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Swampscott Travelers Strengthen South African Bond

Teachers and a student recently returned from their trip to Cape Town, South Africa, where they visited Siyabulela Primary School — Swampscott Middle School's sister school.

  Submitted by the Siyabulela program. What started as a pen pal letter exchange program in Judy McKenzie’s seventh grade world geography class at Swampscott Middle School, culminated this summer with a very exciting trip to South Africa for seven middle school teachers. McKenzie began the program in 2009 in the hopes that it would enhance her student’s global awareness.  Students in Swampscott wrote and received letters approximately four times during the year. Opportunity Education, a nonprofit that assists schools in developing countries,  paired up Swampscott Middle School with Siyabulela Primary School in Langa — a township on the outskirts of Cape Town. Opportunity Education provided the postage for Siyabulela to respond.  In the …

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Swampscott 8th Grader Training For Pan-Mass Challenge

Will Cronin is one of more than 20 cyclists from Swampscott who will pedal the 50-mile route from Wellesley to Gillette Stadium and back in the Aug. 4 and 5 fundraiser for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

  Will Cronin plays football, swims and, come Aug. 4 and 5, will be bicycling on behalf of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute through its Jimmy Fund. The Swampscott Middle School student will be pedaling in the 50-mile Pan-Mass Challenge with the North Shore Cyclopaths team. He is continuing a family tradition. His mom, Tamarise Cronin, has riden 10 years in the bike-a-thon with the Cyclopaths. Up until the end of June, his mom was helping him train for the annual cycling event — this is the 33rd — but was in a crash, landing her in the emergency room with a concussion and broken hand. "The crash kept me off the bike for a month, so Will found alternative ways to keep his training going on his own," Tamarise said. "He got in touch with other…

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Grown Ups Actors Go To Middle School

The Swampscott Middle School, on the verge of summer vacation, flowed with additional excitement Tuesday with the arrival of cast and crew from the Adam Sandler movie Grown Ups 2.

  Grown Ups 2 set up a school within a school Tuesday at Forest Avenue where make believe Stanton and real life Swampscott occasionally bumped into each other in the hallways. Swampscott mom Lyn Blum said she arrived to the Swampscott Middle School late in the morning to pick up her son, Nate, a sixth grader, for an appointment. Nate was in a mostly empty hallway heading out to meet her when he turned and, to his amazement, saw Adam Sandler, she said. “Did you say anything to him?” she asked her son. “I couldn’t think of anything to say,” he told her. The middle school was home to Hollywood sets — inside and outside.  Outside, later in the day, after the school day was over, cameras and lighting hovered above a bus stop with a yellow …

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Adam "Lunchlady" Sandler In Lunch Ladies' House Today

The head of food service is a big fan of the Adam Sandler song Lunchlady Land.

  Some of Maureen Kellett's lunch serving team at Swampscott Middle School had never heard of the song Lunchlady Land. They know who the movie actor Adam Sandler is but are unfamiliar with his comical song from some years back. It's about how Sloppy Joe came to Lunchlady's rescue after green beans and garlic bread, chop suey and others in the cafeteria food line ganged up on her. Maureen, the district's director of food service, however, is well acquainted with Lunchlady Land, a song that has endeared Sandler to lunch ladies everywhere. She has a collection of Lunchlady figurines given to her as gifts and she keeps them in her office at the middle school. Today the lunchlady man is scheduled to be at Swampscott Middle School filming scenes…

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Middle School and South African Pen Pals Telecommunicate

The sister schools connected for the fourth year via video chat.

  This article was submitted by Abby Rogers. The Swampscott Middle School 7th grade social studies students and teachers, Abby Rogers and Ben Truboff, participated in the 4thannual telecommunication project with the students from their sister school, Siyabulela, on May 24th. Siyabulela is a public school located in the township of Langa, South Africa. Judy McKenzie, former seventh grade teacher, started this project after visiting South Africa.  Salem State University provided their media center enabling the students to have a live video chat with the pen pals they have been writing to all year.  Along with many questions, students also shared their poetry, surveys, and songs. This event was made possible through the generosity of the …

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Middle School Students Design Underwater ROVs

The students put their work in the water at the May 3, Sea Perch event at MIT.

  This article was submitted by Swampscott Middle School STEM Teacher Adam Scharfenberger. For the past four months, during Team Time at Swampscott Middle School, a group of eighth grade students could be found in the bowels of the middle school designing underwater ROV’s for the Sea Perch Final Challenge that took place at MIT on Thursday, May 3rd. On a given afternoon at 1:52 pm, following the long basement corridor north, one would begin hearing voices echo out of a room ahead on the right.  Upon entering the room, one’s eyes are bombarded with learning in action.  Students are hunched over an above ground pool in the back of the room testing their ROV designs.  At a workbench in front, a student is wiring and soldering a control panel …

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The New Middle School Principal Will Have a Presence

Veteran administrator Robert Murphy, who grew up in Swampscott, starts his new job July 1.

  Students, teachers, staff, parents and anyone else at Swampscott Middle School next year can expect to see their new principal in the halls and classrooms and on the grounds. Principal Robert Murphy says it's important to be visible and to let students know that he and others are interested in what they do. That might be interest in their participation in a science project, a concert, a track meet or their academic achievement. "It's why I am in the job," he said in his office last month at Pickering Middle School in Lynn. He has been principal at Pickering for five years, and has taught or been an administrator since the 1990s in Swampscott, Marblehead, Revere or Lynn. When he is in his Pickering office, the door is typically open. He …

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Middle School Movie Experience to be Educational

The superintendent of schools wants to minimize disruptions to the Swampscott Middle School kids' education when Hollywood comes to shoot scenes for Grown Ups 2.

  Adam Sandler has seen photographs of the Swampscott Middle School and he likes its look — it reminds him of a school he attended in Manchester, NH. That's what a movie location manager told Swampscott school officials last week when he received their approval to film 4 1/2 days at the Forest Avenue school, said Superintendent Lynne Celli. The shooting will take place between May 29 and June 5. For all of the excitement, the goal will be to keep an eye on education and integrate movie production into classroom learning, the superintendent said. Crew members, those who do the lighting, set design, camera and make-up and other jobs that make a movie come to life, may visit media or drama classrooms to share their knowledge. There is also a …

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TaxpayerofSwampscott

1:23 pm on Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Where's the outrage? Selectmen are once again displaying their "public be damned" attitude toward the citizens of Swampscott. Film producers have chosen Swampscott to shoot part of the new Adam Sandler film and have held out a $20,000 carrot as the inducement. "What do they want?" you ask. Well they want to rent the former Temple Israel property for production offices and the parking lot behind …   more ›