For 70 years — ever since Staples became the first school in Connecticut to offer Advanced Placement courses — Westport students have earned college credits while still in high school.
But there’s an exam involved. And many universities are tightening restrictions on AP credits.
For well over a decade, Staples has offered a second option for college credits. The UConn Early College Experience enabled students to take courses in high school for a fraction of the cost of normal college tuition.
The course is weighted like an AP course, in determining grade point averages.
And though Staples teachers are certified as University of Connecticut affiliate faculty, it’s not limited to the state’s flagship university. Passing grades are accepted for credit by 87% of the colleges in the US.
Since its inception, the program was low-key. Most Staples offerings were in world languages.
Now — with the addition of social studies, English courses and music, and a push by the school’s counseling department — the ECE effort has expanded.
This year, 292 Staples students took ECE courses — a huge jump from last year’s 153. That’s the fifth highest number enrolled in the state, UConn officials say.
Courses include Anthropology (this coming year), Seminar in Academic Writing and Multimodal Composition, AP French Language and Culture, AP German Language and Culture, Contemporary World Studies, Italian 4 Honors, and Popular Music and Diversity in American Society.
Enia Noonan’s Italian 4 Honors class enjoys the Early College Experience (check out the branded blue t-shirt).
Each course offers 3-4 college credits. The cost is $50 per credit — far below the cost at an actual college campus.
The University of Connecticut vets teachers closely. If an instructor’s educational background does not meet certification requirements, they must take or audit UConn courses to qualify.
Once teachers and their syllabi have been accepted by UConn, they do annual training there. It’s a chance to stay current, and meet other ECE instructors.
Last summer, Staples was approved for an American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant. The funds support faculty training and certification, and exploration of new opportunities.
Future plans include possible new courses, and partnerships with other universities, like Southern Connecticut State.
Staples Counseling department chair Bill Plunkett is proud of the program, for the breadth and depth of courses offered, the opportunity to earn college credit at a fraction of the usual cost, and the high rate of participation.
Seven decades ago, Staples was a national leader in AP education. With the ECE program, it once again looks for ways to offer college opportunities to high school students.
People say that words can’t capture the feeling of a (near)-total eclipse.
So, with minimal words — just captions — here are some scenes from today’s once-in-a-real-long-time event.
Today’s free Levitt Pavilion show was in the sky, not on stage. (Photo/Frank Rosen)
The Westport Astronomical Society set up telescopes — and offered safety gear — outside the Westport Library. (Photo/Frank Rosen)
Getting ready, thanks to the Westport Astronomical Society. (Photo/Frank Rosen)
Getting started. (Photo/Benji Porosoff)
Waiting for glasses outside the Library. (Photo/Tracy Porosoff)
An hour before peak totality (90.7%). (Photo/Jerry Kuyper)
Compo’s South Beach (Photo/Ted Horowitz)
The Temple Israel staff takes an eclipse break … (Photo courtesy of Bryan Bierman)
… and so, 6 minutes before totality, so does the Town Hall staff. (Photo/Jeff Wieser)
Linda and Mikayla Doyle could not find glasses. So they used the “pin prick on cardboard” method. To their surprise, they saw a view of the eclipse through the shadows of an evergreen tree, on the cardboard.
Above the trees, a strange sight. (Photo/Lauri Weiser)
Near totality. (Photo/Andrew Colabella)
The payoff: The moon nearly blots out the sun. (Photo/Jerry Kuyper)
Samantha Yanks is editor-in-chief of Westport Magazine. Before moving here, she held the same posts at Hamptons and Gotham Magazines. Among her many other accomplishments, she was an editor at O: The Oprah Magazine, and Vogue.
How is Westport different from the Hamptons? How is Westport Magazine different from her previous gigs? What got her to town? What’s keeping her in Westport? What has she learned, about this place and us?
Those are some of the topics we talked about the other day, on the Westport Library stage. Click below for our full, wide-ranging conversation:
Fashion and hip hop closed out VersoFest yesterday. The 5-day event was the best attended and most diverse in the 3-year history of the Westport Library event.
The penultimate event was “Glam to Punk Fashion Roundtable: Alice Cooper, Bowie, Blondie and Beyond.” Christine “The Beehive Queen” Ohlman moderated.
Christine Ohlman (left) leads the fashion panel.
The finale was “Hip Hop Panel and Performances: 51 Years of Wild Style, the First Hip Hop Motion Picture” with Tony Tone (Cold Crush Brothers).
Hip hop on stage. (Photos/Dinkin Fotografix)
VersoFest ’24 drew plenty of Westporters — and many others from throughout the tri-state region.
All were impressed by the depth and breadth of the programming, as well as the venue. Those who had never been in the Westport Library before were awed by the space.
And amazed that no one said, “Be quiet. This is a library!”
Congratulations to all who made it happen: Library staff, sponsors, performers, panelists, and anyone else.
In the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, WMMM was Westport’s local radio station.
Broadcasting from studios above Oscar’s (now Rye Ridge) Deli, 1260 AM offered local news and sports, plus middle-of-the-road music.
They were there for the Save the Children radio auction, the Great Race, Festival Italiano and the Oyster Fest.
Of course, John LaBarca hosted a weekly Italian house party — and made trips (as Santa) to deliver holiday gifts to the Southbury Training School.
WMMM is no longer (though the FM station lives on, as 50,000-watt WEBE 108). WMMM’s last owners — the Graham family — donated WMMM to Sacred Heart University. In 2000, the call letters were changed to WSHU-AM.
But WMMM is back, at 105.5. Those are the call letters now of a radio station serving the Madison, Wisconsin area.
I don’t know how former Westporter John Kelley stumbled on the station, but he shared the news with “06880.”
PS: When WMMM was our station, the letters stood for “Modern Minute Man” (owner Red Graham owned Minuteman Travel, too).
Out in Wisconsin these days, they call it “Triple M.”
The “new” WMMM …
… and the original.
=================================================
The Fortunoff brothers — Aaron, a Staples High School freshman, and Brett, a Bedford Middle School 7th grader — spent all of yesterday outside Stop & Shop.
The boys were collecting cereal and donations for Cereal4All. The non-profit provide cereals to local food pantries.
Their hard work paid off. Shoppers donated 989 boxes of cereal, and added $2,100 in cash.
If you missed the Fortunoffs, but want to help, you can Venmo @lauriefortunoff, or click here for an Amazon wish list.
There will also be a collection box at Temple Israel in Westport throughout May.
Aaron and Brett Fortunoff, with a few of their many cereal boxes.
=================================================
Suzuki Music Schools are best known for their violin instructions.
Sophie B. Hawkins does not play the violin.
No matter. The Westport-based singer/songwriter is the special guest performer at Suzuki’s annual gala (April 26, Aspetuck Country Club, Weston). She’ll be accompanied by Suzuki students.
The event includes a cocktail hour with open bar, dinner, and a live auction.
Last year’s gala raised nearly $40,000 to support their Bridgeport Outreach programs, to provide music lessons to children in need.
This year’s goal: raise enough funds to provide violins for those children to take home for practice.
Community Conversations: “It Will Go On” curator Victoria McCraven and Black Art Library founder Asmaa Walton (Thursday, April 11, 6 to 7 p.m.; Zoom only): A discussion about the current exhibit, and New England’s first Black art library installation. Click here to register, and for more information.
MoCA Some Noise: Open Mic Night (Friday, April 26, 6:30 p.m.): A night of creativity and talent, celebrating the power of expression and connection through music, poetry and more. Click here for more information.
Voices of Women: Natalia Kazaryan (Saturday, April 27, 7 p.m.): Georgian pianist Natalia Kazaryan celebrates the contributions of women composers. Click here for tickets, and more information.
=================================================
Stéphanie Szostak — the Westport actress whose credits include “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Iron Man 3” and “A Million Little Things.” — is a keynote speaker at the American Cancer Society’s annual Women Leading the Way to Wellness luncheon (May 15, 11 a.m., Stamford Marriott).
Szostak speaks often about overcoming failure, being an outsider and living with authenticity.
Kitt Shapiro — owner of WEST boutique, and a longtime supporter of the ACS — is a tri-chair for the event.
The luncheon highlights the importance of being one’s own health advocate. Over the past 10 years it has raised more than $1 million to support women’s health research, advocacy and more.
A deer silhouetted in the Vista Terrace woods, in Longshore near the 1st and 2nd holes on the golf course, starts this week’s “Westport … Naturally” feature off on a handsome note.
Westport’s sports landscape may soon change dramatically.
At least, the fee structure part of it could.
In a decision that seems to have escaped public notice, the Parks & Recreation Commission voted 5-0 last Wednesday in favor of a proposal to begin charging rental fees to youth and adult leagues, sports camps and others requesting exclusive use of field facilities.
The new charges — which apply to, among others, “Westport-based youth leagues, adult lacrosse league, adult flag football league, adult soccer league, and the adult baseball league”– would be imposed to cover field maintenance costs, Parks & Recreation Department director Jennifer Fava said in a March 15 memo to the Parks & Rec Commission.
The proposal now goes to the Board of Selectwomen, for approval. It has not yet been posted to their meeting agenda.
Those fees — which would begin “for the 2024 fall sports season or September 1” — will augment an increase in the department’s athletic field budget, to “provide additional resources for cultural practices to improve the quality of our playing surfaces.”
The fees for Westport-based groups are:
Westport youth leagues: $25 per participant per season
Baseball/softball fields: $75 per hour
Baseball/softball fields with lights: $105 per hour
Synthetic turf fields: $100 per hour
Synthetic turf fields with lights: $130 per hour
Grass fields: $50 per hour
Grass fields with lights: $80 per hour.
The fees for all other non-Westport groups requesting the exclusive use of a field that includes field preparation are:
Baseball/softball fields: $150 per hour
Baseball/softball fields with lights: $180 per hour
Synthetic turf fields: $150 per hour
Synthetic turf fields with lights: $180 per hour
Grass fields: $100 per hour
Grass fields with lights: $130 per hour.
Fees could be imposed on youth and adult league users of Wakeman’s turf and grass fields — and other Parks & Recreation properties — beginning September 1.
(For more information, click here and scroll down to pages 14-17. Hat tip: Toni Simonetti)
Jake Sussman knows how it feels to be called stupid.
To pick up a book, want to read — and be unable to.
To be told dismissively, “I can’t believe someone in high school wrote that.”
He also knows what it’s like to find out that he can learn — just differently from his peers.
To embrace his differences.
And to discover his superpower.
The Westport native — who struggled mightily with ADHD before graduating from the Forman School, then the University of Hartford — ultimately learned to advocate for himself.
He learned that 1 in every 5 people is neuro-divergent — including up to 10% with dyslexia, and 5% with ADHD.
He took a huge step forward — gaining confidence and renown — when “The Forgotten Child,” a poem he wrote as a college junior for a poetry slam went viral.
With lines like “Imagine yourself as the child that always smiled/You were wild, you were beguiled/Until the day you were profiled,” it touched a chord with youngsters battling every day against a world filled with peers, teachers, even parents who did not understand them.
That forgotten child “refused to acknowledge he would never go to college,” Jake wrote — and repeated that poem and message to parents and educators.
A video of his poem went viral.
Jake had found his passion. His calling. And his superpower.
The 28-year-old could not deliver his message of overcoming frustration, affirmation and ultimately elation to his younger self.
But he could tell it to the millions of boys and girls just like him, growing up now in a world that — despite greater knowledge of learning differences — still does not provide the role models and lived experiences those kids need.
Jake’s younger brother Max empathized completely. A basketball player in Staples High School’s Class of 2018, and a business/ entrepreneurship major at Northeastern University, he was the perfect partner to help spread Jake’s message of how to reach “that kid in the back of the class.”
When Jake spoke to educators, parents, community groups and at a global dyslexia conference, people asked if worked with young people.
“I’m not a parent, a teacher or a therapist,” Jake says. “But I had credibility, because I lived this. I spoke kids’ language, because I knew it. I was relatable. I had the missing link.”
With Max’s help, Jake set up an online mentorship program. Four youngsters quickly turned into 30.
“They sat their totally focused” as he talked with them, Jake recalls. “They couldn’t get off the call.”
Of course, mentoring more than 2 dozen kids himself was unsustainable. So Superpower Mentors was born.
Jake is the heart of the company. Max is its CEO.
Their mentors are not licensed healthcare professionals. They are not competing with schools.
The mentors are men and women — just a few years older than their mentees — who provide guidance, advice and support based on their own lives. “They speak the same language,” Jake notes.
Those lives are impressive. Mentors include a NASA engineer, professional musician, animator and video game designer.
Mentors undergo rigorous training through a proprietary course. They are matched with mentees who share their interests and backgrounds. Then they meet online, up to 6 hours a month, sharing experiences only someone with a learning disability can understand.
Mentors offer practical advice in areas like time management, organizational skills and executive functioning.
Equally important is the confidence and excitement youngsters gain, just by talking with someone who knows what they’re going through.
But Superpower Mentors serve parents too. They have access to the mentors to discuss their child’s progress, and gain insights and tips.
“They ask things like, ‘how can we handle the fight we always have just before dinner?'” Jake says. “It’s a family partnership.”
“The myth is that kids with learning disabilities can’t sit still,” he adds. “But they can. And they do, the entire time they’re with their mentors.”
Since launching, Superpower Mentors has enlisted over 100 mentors. They’ve conducted over 7,000 sessions, with mentees as far away as Spain and Norway.
But as important as that is, Jake has another goal: to impact the town he grew up in.
His time in the Westport public schools “did not work out well for me,” he says. “But I’m not pointing fingers. I want to be partners. We can help change the world. And it can start here.”
Jake’s home town is filled with “artists, creative people, entrepreneurs,” he says.
“They’re people who think differently. We want to make sure our schools are empowered to reach those types of kids. Max and I love this town!”
“A Mind Like Mine: Inside the World of Kids with LD and ADHD” is an interactive program for parents and educators, to learn strategies and empower youngsters. The free event is May 7 (7 p.m., Westport Library). (Click here to register.)
Westport Board of Education and school officials have been invited.
Over 100 people have already signed up, a month before the event. Jake looks forward to meeting them.
And — even more — to helping their kids’ unleash their superpowers.
(To learn more about Superpower Mentors, click here.)
Lux was also the last name of a much-loved Long Lots science teacher.
Yesterday — nearly 2 decades after his death — Norbert Lux got a shout-out in the New York Times.
Melissa Kirsch — who writes the paper’s “Morning” newsletter every Saturday — wrote about tomorrow’s eclipse.
She said:
The first time I heard of an eclipse, I was in sixth grade. My science teacher, too aptly named Mr. Lux (“light,” in Latin), described the mechanics of the event, but what stayed with me, an anxious child, was not the idea of a world plunged into daytime darkness but the risk of permanent retinal damage posed by looking directly at the eclipse.
I couldn’t believe I was permitted proximity to this much peril, this much responsibility over my safety. One glance skyward and I could damage my eyesight forever. Why was I just learning about this now?
Norbert Lux
Staples High School Class of 1975 graduate Doug Davidoff spotted the Times piece, on SHS ’77 grad Dawn McCabe’s Facebook page.
“I’m glad Mr.Lux made it to the New York Times,” Doug writes. “He would have so enjoyed the eclipse on Monday.”
Doug adds: “As Mr. Lux taught, don’t look directly at the sun. It might cause permanent retinal damage and harm your eyesight forever!”
The weather report for tomorrow is “partly cloudy.” Unfortunately, there may not be all the “lux” we need to appreciate the show of nature Mr. Lux taught so well.
(For Melissa Kirsch’s entire story on the eclipse, click here.)
A pole with the American flag, and below it the POW/MIA banner, flies on the bank of the Saugatuck River, behind VFW Joseph J. Clinton Post 399.
Members and guests of the century-old club see it. So do boaters, passing by.
Those flags were last week’s Photo Challenge. Richard Stein, Susan Iseman, Andrew Colabella, Clark Thiemann and Seth Schachter all knew exactly where that stirring scene can be found. (Click here to see.)
Andrew notes that the flags are tattered. The VFW and American Legion hope to replace them. Donations are welcome. Email acolabellartm4@gmail.com for details.
Here’s this week’s Challenge. If you know where in Westport you’d see it, click “Comments” below.
(Photo/Matthew Slossberg)
(If you enjoy our weekly Photo Challenge — or anything else we post — please consider a tax-deductible contribution to “06880.” Just click here. Thank you!)
Click here to help support “06880” via credit card or PayPal. Any amount is welcome, appreciated — and tax-deductible! Reader contributions keep this blog going. (Alternate methods: Please send a check to “06880”: PO Box 744, Westport, CT 06881. Or use Venmo: @blog06880. Or Zelle: dwoog@optonline.net. Thanks!)
GET THE “06880” APP
The “06880” app (search for it on the Apple or Android store) is the easiest way to get “06880.” Choose notifications: whenever a new post is published, or once or twice a day. Click here for details.
