THIS WEEK’S PROGRAM
Dennis Logue will introduce Robert Hargraves will offer a talk titled “Fearless Fission”. Here’s a poster that previews his talk:
THE ZOOM LINK FOR THE MEETING
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88229582283?pwd=aS9Hd3o1cS9ZK0hQL0ZhUHZXSEdxQT09
Meeting ID: 882 2958 2283
Password: 254494
The Zoom Room opens at 11:45 AM. After our opening Pledge of Allegiance and opening Password Todd will hand off the virtual podium to Dennis to introduce our speaker.
LAST WEEK’S ANNOUNCEMENTS
President Todd Allen thanked the 16 members who signed up to volunteer for the Mask-Up activity we co-sponsored with the Lebanon Rotary Club. A picture from that event is found at the end of this Newsletter and I trust that he will have some facts and figures on the event forthcoming.
Todd also announced upcoming speakers reminding members that he scheduled a social-distance luncheon meeting with the Lebanon Rotary at Camp Conniston, a YMCA camp in Grantham on August 26 beginning at noon.
Rod Thomas announced that Denise Dahlberg won the raffle, a certificate for $10 off at Jesse’s should we ever eat there again.
DONATIONS IN LIEU OF MEALS
LAST WEEK’S PROGRAM
Wayne Gersen introduced UVEI President Page Tomkins who provided an honest and sobering presentation on how schools fared during the Spring and how things look for the coming school year. With 50+ teachers and administrators in the field in our region in nearly as many school districts Page has a good sense on how the pandemic played out in schools in our area.
In assessing last Spring, Page felt that parents and teachers did “pretty well” given the extraordinary circumstances. He reminded club members that the change to remote learning happened extremely rapidly with no training for teachers OR for parents. His sense was that the student performance was “sketchy” with the achievement gap between students widening as a result of the change. This was the case because some students had no access to the internet and some students did not have close parental supervision because their parents were working.
For the coming year, he sees three alternatives emerging for schools: all face-to-face; all remote; or some kind of hybrid that combines face-to-face with remote learning. He lamented that most of the teacher training he’s heard about thus far deals with hygiene issues as opposed to how to modify instruction given these alternatives. He has a sense that the school openings this year will range from “sufficient to chaotic”, driven mostly by the state of the outbreak when school is scheduled to open and the nature of the plans each school develops.
Page did note some positives as a result of the emergency shifts: there were more project-based units; more outdoor activities; and more student centered learning opportunities. He felt that schools that were already “committed to change” fared better in the pandemic than those who were resistant to change.
UVEI is faring well in the face of this challenge, with strong enrollments for September. Their challenge will be finding teacher-mentors who are willing to take on the challenge of working with a new teacher while working simultaneously on new ways to deliver instruction.
Coming Attractions for August and September:
August 19 – Todd Allen will introduce David Diamond who will offer his insights on the future of retail.
August 26 – Socially Distanced Luncheon at Camp Conniston in Grantham
September 2 – Todd Allen will introduce Emily Barr who owns five local TV stations and will provide us with an update on locally owned TV broadcasting
September 9 – John Hochreiter, the elected Assistant District Governor, will introduce this year’s District Governor Jamie Milne.
September 16 – Todd Allen will introduce John Helminiak who will help commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the 50th Anniversary of the Berlin Airlift
September 23 – Todd Allen will introduce Arnon Mishkin of Fox News Surveys who will, I am confident, have some timely news to share!
Our Mask Distribution Team in Action on Saturday morning!
Be Well! See you on Wednesday.
