Pelham - Windham News | January 27, 2012 - 3 Annual PES Spelling Bee Breaks Record Outdoors Charlie Chalk with
Think Before Feeding Song Birds
Henry David Thoreau wrote about feeding birds at Walden
Tird grader Tristan Archer wins Pelham Elementary’s fifth annual spelling bee.
He will now advance to the regional bee, which will be held in Salem in March.
Tird grader Tristan Archer and his proud mom & dad take top honors in the fifth annual spelling bee at Pelham Elementary School on
Friday, January 20, which began at 10 a.m.
by Karen Plumley In a fierce 25-round competition - the longest on record - Pelham Elementary’s fifth annual spelling bee finally produced its champion. Tristan Archer from Mrs. Carr’s third grade class will be advancing to the regional spelling bee competition held in Salem in March. The judges for the spelling bee this
year were PES Vice Principal Jessica Van Vranken, School Council Representative Debbi Leuteritz, Technology Integration Specialist Stacey Lambert, and School Board Chairman Rob Hardy. Presiding over the January 20 event was
the very popular and newly appointed Principal Tom Adamakos, formerly Assistant Principal of Pelham Memorial School. Vice Principal and Pronouncer Michelle Viger was again the coordinator of the spelling bee. This year, the event had 23 spellers from grades three through five, and audience members included students in those grades as well as supportive elementary teachers and many enthusiastic parents. The competition really heated up thanks to an adept group of spellers that included runner up Lindsey Rolling from Mrs. Roberson’s fifth grade class and third-place finisher Bobby Charette, a fourth grader from Mrs. Queenan’s class. According to Mrs. Viger, each of the three top spellers won a round of the bee, but it was Tristan
Archer who finally took first place because he was the only one to spell his word correctly in the championship round. The word he won with: Reimbursable. Young children who compete in a spelling bee have a unique set of talents that combine spelling prowess with the ability to perform in front of a live audience under pressure. A well-deserved “Congratulations” should go out to all the talented spellers at this year’s annual spelling bee.
Pond in the late 1840s. But Americans have enjoyed watching songbirds clean up our table scraps and waste grains even before then. But is inviting songbirds - and indirectly, other wildlife - closer to our homes a smart move? Are we compelling wild birds to become more dependent on or unnecessarily comfortable with people? Does feeding birds in winter create health risks for songbirds at a time of unquestioned vulnerability?
It all seems easy enough, but there really is a lot to consider before opening a winter bird feeding station on your property. For instance, feeders should be placed near cover to shield songbirds from avian predators, but at least 15 feet away from windows and groundcover roaming cats can hide in or behind. A bird coming to a feeding station in winter usually enters a heightened risk area because the chatter and commotion created by birds at feeders attracts cats on the ground and hawks from the air.
Charlie Chalk can be reached at
outdoorswithcharlie@areanewsgroup.com Lindsay Rolling
Fifth grader Lindsay Rolling and her mom pose after her impressive second place finish in the PES fifth Annual Spelling Bee.
PES fifth Annual spelling bee spellers pose, as they got
ready to compete in this year’s
record-breaking competition that went an amazing 25 rounds.
Enrollment - continued from front page
A comparison of class sizes across the State of New Hampshire shows that Windham is not faring well, coming in near the bottom of rankings for teacher-student ratio. The average number of first-graders in one class statewide is 17.7. Windham’s average first-grade class includes 21.7 children. The average second grade class in New Hampshire contains 17.7 students, while Windham has an average of 19 second-graders in one class. Looking at third grades statewide, there are an average of 19.2 children per class, while Windham comes in with an average of 25.2 students in its third-grade classrooms. Having too many students per teacher is especially damaging to children in the primary grades, school officials commented. In the fourth grade across New Hampshire, the average class size is 19.2 students, while Windham has an average of 21 students in a fourth-grade classroom. Fifth grades in Windham house an average of 21 students, while the State average is 19.9. In the sixth-grade environment, the statewide average is 19.9 students, while Windham has 22.7 students in the average sixth-grade. Seventh grades in New Hampshire average an enrollment of 19.9 students, while Windham’s average class size is up to 21.7 students. And in the eighth grade it’s even worse. This year, the State average for eighth-grade classrooms is 19.9 students. Windham has an average of 23.1 students in its cramped eighth-grade facilities. These statistics are for the current 2011-2012 school year and do not include the anticipated increase of 156 students projected to take place before school reopens at the end of next summer. LaBranche has said repeatedly that it would be possible to “survive” another year without additional classroom space in the Windham School District.
Ed Hurrell Pelham, NH
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