Monday, April 22, 2013
From the bombing on Marathon Monday to Friday's capture of a suspect, students may seek someone to talk to.
Dr. Thomas Kingston reiterated Monday, April 22 what students, parents and educators have been thinking for the past week. "Certainly this spring school vacation week has been different from any other," said Kingston as school resumed after the April recess, a time when mass targeted terrorism returned to the United States and they and their friends were locked down in their homes as a killer was being hunted down on the streets one town over. "[The bombings] may well have an impact on our children for weeks and months ahead," said Kingston, who said each school principal would be making special announcements on the subject on Monday. While the veteran educator made the pledge that "our schools continue to be safe places and refuges for …
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Belmont High School
221 Concord Ave, Belmont, MA
/articles/belmont-schools-prepared-to-discuss-a-difficult-recess-week
230803
/locations/9287933
Friday, December 21, 2012
Superintendent Kingston notes differences with School Resource Officers and armed guards in schools.
In a Friday morning press conference, the National Rifle Association broke its weeklong silence following the horrific shooting of 26 people at a school in Newtown, Conn., and called for a surge of gun-carrying "good guys" around American schools. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre called for a new kind of American domestic security revolving around armed civilians, arguing that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." "We care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents," LaPierre said. "Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by Capitol Police officers. Yet, when it comes to our most beloved, innocent, and vulnerable members of the American family, our …
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Belmont School Superintendent's Office
644 Pleasant St, Belmont, MA
/articles/nra-calls-for-armed-security-around-schools-10f6b5ba
230768
/locations/8435791
Monday, December 17, 2012
Kingston seeks to keep "our schools are as safe as possible."
After the killings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. on Friday, Belmont Superintendent Thomas Kingston issued a statement regarding safety at Belmont's six public schools which was released on the district's website. "In light of recent events, all of us in the Belmont Public Schools have increased concern and regard for the safety of the students and adults working in our buildings. We do not discuss publicly our safety protocols or interventions because someone who might have ill intent could misuse such information." "However, I do want to assure the public that we have heightened our vigilance, conferred with public safety officials, continually review our drills and procedures, and are doing all we can within our …
42.397231
-71.177119
Belmont School Superintendent's Office
644 Pleasant St, Belmont, MA
/articles/belmont-superintendent-issues-safety-statement
230768
/locations/8400539
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Dr. Kingston said position "highly sought after" as he puts together screening committee.
Less than 24 hours after Belmont High School Principal Michael Harvey was named the new Superintendent of the Hamiliton-Wenham Regional Schools, Belmont's interim superintendent set an aggressive schedule for hiring Harvey's replacement. Dr. Thomas Kingston told the Belmont School Committee at its Tuesday night meeting, May 8, that he hopes to name the new headmaster for Belmont High by June 14, the last day of classes. "It is an ambitious time line but I believe we will have excellent candidates" who will apply for the position, said Kingston. "Let's make lemonade with the lemons of (Harvey) leaving," said Kingston. Harvey's successor will be expected to lead a school whose pupils rank as some of the best in the country. Yesterday, before…
42.39338
-71.1671
Belmont High School
221 Concord Ave, Belmont, MA
/articles/super-hopes-new-hs-principal-selected-by-last-day-of-school
230803
/locations/6976260
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Added revenue, transfers sees nearly $800K in red ink drain away.
A combination of transferred funds, savings from health insurance changes and finding money here and there has resulted in the Belmont School Department reducing a mid-March $850,000 deficit in its fiscal 2013 budget into a "very livable" $68,000 funding gap, according to Belmont Superintendent Dr. Thomas Kingston. The announcement, made before a public hearing at the school department's weekly meeting at the Chenery Middle School Tuesday, April 10, will prevent the reduction of nearly 10 teaching positions had the funding not been discovered. "We have made considerable progress" in filling the funding gap, said Kingston to the nearly 30 people who attended the meeting, noting that the budget process "is always a fluid exercise" and the …
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W. L. Chenery Middle School
95 Washington St, Belmont, MA
/articles/schools-deficit-now-a-very-livable-69k
157120
/locations/6779873
Thursday, March 15, 2012
School Committee agrees to earlier recommendation to extend Super's contract a year.
Who doesn't like School Superintendent Dr. Thomas Kingston? In his nine months in Belmont, Kingston has garnered praise for his steady leadership at the helm of the Belmont School District from not only the school committee, said Laurie Graham, School Committee chairwoman, "but also from the community and staff." "He has been doing a wonderful job," said Graham who made official what was first reported in Belmont Patch in November, the School Committee will extend the Arlington resident's contract by one year. "It will be my masochistic pleasure to accept," joked Kingston, who had retired from his previous position as the long-time head of the Chelsea Schools in 2011. The unanimous decision will allow the committee months of breathing …
42.38652
-71.17051
W. L. Chenery Middle School
95 Washington St, Belmont, MA
/articles/kingston-s-extension-ok-d-teaching-healthy-choices
157120
/locations/6599050
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Additional costs since first draft in January could lead to cuts in four teaching slots.
The price of everything is going up and so is the costs associated with running the Belmont School District. From the last time the school department presented a draft budget to the Belmont School Committee on Jan. 10 that showed the district being $509,000 in the red, level service expenses have now increased by $199,686 in the past two months, increasing the deficit facing schools by nearly 30 percent to approximately $709,000. The new assumptions shows available revenue in the fiscal 2013 budget at $42.7 million with the new level service budget – the funding the district requires to provide the same services from the previous year – creeping up to $43.4 million. According to Belmont Superintendent Dr. Thomas Kingston, the likely remedy…
42.38652
-71.17051
W. L. Chenery Middle School
95 Washington St, Belmont, MA
/articles/school-deficit-grows-by-200k-still-managable
157120
/locations/6586638
Monday, February 13, 2012
Belmont to continue focus on improvement after federal law set aside, says Kingston.
Belmont Schools will continue to push to improve the education for three notable subsections of its student population, according to Dr. Thomas Kingston, Belmont's superintendent of schools, after Massachusetts was one of 10 states that were granted a waiver by the US Department of Education on certain provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act last week. The state now moves away from a controversial aspect of the law that determined that nine in ten Massachusetts school districts were not meeting yearly federal progress standards in 2011. Under the provision, a school either achieved its ever increasing Adequate Yearly Progress target or it didn't not, with no middle ground. In 2011, at the same time that Massachusetts 4th and 8th graders…
42.397231
-71.177119
Belmont School Superintendent's Office
644 Pleasant St, Belmont, MA
/articles/belmont-aims-to-close-education-gap-after-no-child-left-behind-waiver
230768
/locations/6370752
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Preliminary look at schools shows a $509K gap to reach level-service gap.
One year ago, the word being used to describe the financial outlook of the Belmont Public Schools was "dire." The schools' budget gap – the difference between revenue in town coffers directed to schools and the amount needed to provide the same level of education as in the previous year – in January 2011 was more than $2 million, an amount that caused people to gasp when it was announced and result in the formation of a citizens group to rally residents behind adequate education funding. Tuesday, Jan. 10, at the first meeting of the Belmont School Committee in the new year, the word associated with this year's budget shortfall is "do-able." In fact, the consensus of school and town officials is that they are confident that the difference …
42.38652
-71.17051
W. L. Chenery Middle School
95 Washington St, Belmont, MA
/articles/school-budget-shortfall-manageable
157120
/locations/6173704
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Provides interim superintendent opportunity to stay on an additional year.
The Belmont School Committee will be extending the contract of Belmont School Superintendent Dr. Thomas Kingston by an additional year, according to School Committee Chairwoman Laurie Graham. The decision was approved at last night's School Committee business meeting, said Graham, who said the group is taking to heart the advice it received last month from Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, who told the committee that the current crop of potential candidates were not an ideal group to select a superintendent. In addition, Graham said the committee's efforts to promote and support a new town-wide approch to the budget process as well as a need to provide a greater amount of time to the …
42.397231
-71.177119
Belmont School Superintendent's Office
644 Pleasant St, Belmont, MA
/articles/school-committee-to-extend-kingston-s-contract
230768
/locations/5722676
David Chase
9:45 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
LaPierre's an idiot. This is not a cost-effective way to save lives, because schools are already incredibly safe (safer than homes, safer than cars. Really, really safe). Better to teach kids about drug safety (especially the legal drug, alcohol), car safety, and perhaps even gun safety. more ›