Unexpected Beginnings!

Did you enjoy the Back To School assembly? We sure did! On September 9th, all students, staff and some special guests gathered in the gym to celebrate the start of our new school year. Some 5th graders presented the morning announcements and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

It has now become an annual tradition to welcome the new kindergarten students by singing our ‘Welcome Song’. Ms Pappas, Mrs. Barry, (our music teachers) and some fifth graders played some instruments as we sang while the kindergartners, new students, and new staff joined us in the gym.

Dr. Nugent, our principal, introduced the new staff. One of the new staff members is Mr. Crowley, a fourth grade teacher aide. She also mentioned some additional staff changes.

Mrs Spriggs, Superintendent of the Dover Sherborn Schools, told everyone about the storm and why we didn’t start on the first day of school. Due to Tropical Storm Irene, there were trees fallen across many roads and down electrical wires. This made it extremely dangerous for students and staff to travel safely to school.  She acknowledged our heroes in town who fixed up the awful mess from Tropical Storm Irene. They were Mr. Hughes, Superintendent of Streets, Mr. Ramsey, Town Administrator, Police Chief McGowan, and the NStar Company.

Representing Police Chief McGowan was Officer Harry. Officer Harry said lots of trees had fallen on buildings, which caused some damage. Roads were closed due to down power lines and trees which caused us not to go to school. Tropical Storm Irene made it too dangerous to travel on the roads and Chickering’s power went out. Most people in Dover lost their power for several days. More than 5 inches of rain fell on the streets of Dover. All those reasons are why we couldn’t go to school.

Dr. Reinemann, our Assist. Principal, talked to us about Blue Tickets. To earn a Blue Ticket, students are recognized by an adult for being good or helpful. If we meet our goal, PTO writes a check, which then sends kids to camp who are not as fortunate as we are. We set a goal, last year, for 5,000 Blue Tickets including Blue Ticket Awards. Blue Ticket Awards can be given by a student to another student for being nice or helpful. We earned 5,126 Blue Tickets last year. Our goal this year is 6,000 including Blue Ticket Awards.

After the Blue Ticket announcements we sang our new, traditional Chickering Song. Ms Pappas led us through the song. The new song really helped bring us together as a school community. We are off to a great year!

Reported by Coleman, Adam, Will G., and Matty

Crash! Boom! Bang! Tropical Storm Irene

This summer in Dover and many other places, on the east coast of the United States, experienced a tropical storm. Many people lost power for several days. It was board game galore for many people. Candles were lit up around the town like Chanukah and Christmas. It was a day you could sleep all day because you didn’t have electricity.

Sunday August 27, 2011 Tropical Storm Irene paid a visit to Massachusetts. She left tree and electrical damage all through our town. We interviewed Police Officer Harry Grabert and the Deputy Fire Chief Tiberi about Tropical Storm Irene. Both men commented how scary it was to have trees falling in the road while they were on patrol and wires falling making sparks all around. The police and fire departments’ focus was to keep people safe and fortunately nobody in town was hurt from the storm.

One of the Chickering reporter’s neighbors had a 50-foot tree fall on their house and broke through the roof with some branches in the attic. That was a very scary experience for them to have a big tree fall on their house. The people that the Chickering reporters interviewed were definitely in a safe location during this storm. Everyone was scared so most people moved their cars or things that could be damaged to a safe location. The good thing about this storm was that nobody got hurt in Dover and we thank Irene for not hurting any of us.

Reported by Abby,  Sarah, and Jay