Chris Burrell

Children Meet Racism on Tisbury Side Street

Two young girls from New Jersey got their first exposure to overt racism this week when they returned from a morning walk into downtown Vineyard Haven and found a racial slur spray-painted in letters two feet tall in the street by the house their family was renting at Clough Lane and Pine street.

Tisbury police are investigating the vandalism that happened Wednesday — possibly in broad daylight — and police chief John McCarthy is looking into whether the incident should be considered a hate crime.

 

 

 

Up-Island Parents and Educators Ponder District's Shaky Prospects

CHRIS BURRELL

Spencer Booker lives in Aquinnah, and when it came time to decide where to send his three children for grade school, the choice was obvious. Proximity was key, so they chose the Chilmark School.

"It was geographical, the closest school to my house," he said. "And it's a great little school, very intimate, very supportive. All the teachers know all the students, first name and last. That's the kind of environment I want to put my kids into for their education."

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School District Shows Strains

West Tisbury Finance Committee Pushes for Drastic Measures, Proposing the Dissolution of Up-Island District

By CHRIS BURRELL

Concerned at the prospect of spiraling educational costs, dwindling state aid and declining enrollment, the West Tisbury finance committee is pressing school officials up-Island to consider drastic measures - among them, shutting down the Chilmark School.

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Principal Advances Her Inquiry on Drugs, Asks Students' Help

By CHRIS BURRELL

Less than three weeks after she apologized for overstating the problem of marijuana use by students on the regional high school campus, principal Peg Regan has put the pot issue right back on the front burner - at student council, the school committee and her monthly parents meeting.

Mrs. Regan's approach this week was less about gauging the magnitude of the problem and more about formulating the best response from the school.

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Oak Bluffs Sign Off Didn't Follow Rules

By CHRIS BURRELL

An elected Oak Bluffs town official who is employed as operator of two municipal sewage treatment plants on the Island may have violated state environmental and ethics laws in the process of securing a septic permit this winter for his new house in Oak Bluffs.

Joseph N. Alosso, member of the board of health and operator of the wastewater treatment plants in Edgartown and Oak Bluffs, denies any wrongdoing.

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