At noon on Thursday, May 21, two Shellback Dinghies made by students at Searsport District High School will be launched into Searsport Harbor at the Town Dock.

The students spent the past eighteen weeks building the dinghies with master boat builder Greg Rossel for their class Building a Shellback Dinghy: An Integrated Field Approach to Core Math & Science Standard.  After the launch the boats will be sold and the proceeds used to fund the next year’s class.  

The Shellback Dinghy was designed by E.B. White’s son Joel White.  

Watershed School seeks host families

Watershed School in Camden is currently seeking host families for international foreign exchange students for the 2015-2016 school year. Since its inception in 2003, Watershed has welcomed students from countries as diverse as Germany, South Korea, Morocco, France, Mexico and Russia.

To learn more about becoming a host family to an international Watershed student, please call 230-7341 or email info@watershed-school.org. 

Host families need to be able to provide a bedroom, meals, and transportation to Watershed and will undergo a standard screening process. Watershed will provide a stipend to families to offset the costs of the hosting arrangement.

Legislative committee votes not to require school districts to inform parents of right to opt-out of assessments

On Monday, May 18 the legislature’s Joint Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs held a work session on LD 695 “An Act To Empower Parents in the Education of Their Children by Allowing an Opt-out from Standardized Assessments.”

The end result was that 11 of the 13 committee members voted not to force local school districts to inform parents of their right to opt-out of statewide assessment. Two of the eleven voted to pass a version of the bill without that requirement. The bill now goes to the Maine House and Senate.