Medway

Medway Public Schools, Town of Medway Receive State Grant to Improve Cybersecurity Awareness

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Medway Public Schools
Armand Pires, Superintendent
45 Holliston St.
Medway, MA 02053

For Immediate Release

Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019

Media Contact: Benjamin Paulin
Phone: 781-428-3299
Email: [email protected]

Medway Public Schools, Town of Medway Receive State Grant to Improve Cybersecurity Awareness

MEDWAY — Superintendent Armand Pires and Medway Director of Information Services Richard Boucher are pleased to announce that Medway Public Schools and the Town of Medway were awarded a grant as part of the 2019 Cybersecurity Awareness Grant Program to improve awareness and training among staff.

Distributed by the state’s Executive Office of Technology Services and Security Office of Municipal and School Technology, the grant will fund the extension of the town’s current cybersecurity awareness and training tools to Medway Public School staff.

With the help of the grant, the town and school district will educate approximately 500 staff members on cyber threats and provide training and best practices for keeping the community’s data as secure as possible. Over the next few weeks, the town’s Information Services Department will work with the schools to develop a comprehensive plan for cybersecurity training and assessment.

The funding will also be used to add to the existing municipal efforts in cybersecurity awareness. The town has been using a tool called KnowBe4 for the past three years. The program allows the town to train staff and run campaigns to test both the staff’s ability to recognize cyber threats and the town’s ability to manage those threats. With the assistance of KnowBe4, the town has decreased the average percentage of employees who click on a link or open an attachment in a phishing test email from about 40 percent to two percent. With this grant, the town will be able to continue to monitor and educate staff through the use of KnowBe4.

“With an increase in municipal cyber attacks around the country in the past few years, it is important that we continue to improve upon our efforts in cybersecurity,” Boucher said. “With the training this grant will allow us to provide to school and town employees, we intend for our staff to understand that cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility and that being able to identify and correctly respond to a cyber threat is key to remaining digitally secure.”

About the Cybersecurity Awareness Grant Program

The Executive Office of Technology Services and Security 2019 Cybersecurity Awareness Grant Program is a one-year competitive grant program that will help local government to improve overall cybersecurity posture through end-user training, evaluation and threat simulation.

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Medway Public Schools to Unveil Brand-New Fitness Center at High School

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Medway Public Schools
Armand Pires, Superintendent
45 Holliston St.
Medway, MA 02053

For Immediate Release

Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019

Media Contact: Benjamin Paulin
Phone: 781-428-3299
Email: [email protected]

Medway Public Schools to Unveil Brand-New Fitness Center at High School

Fitness Center Paid for with $90K in Local Donations

MEDWAY — Superintendent Armand Pires is pleased to announce that the Medway Public School’s new fitness center at Medway High School will be unveiled next week.

WHEN:

Tuesday, Nov. 12, 3:00 p.m.

WHERE:

Medway High School, 88 Summer St., Medway

WHO:

Speaking at the unveiling event will be Medway Board of Selectmen Chair John Foresto, Medway School Committee Chair Susan Dietrich and Superintendent Armand Pires

Those in attendance will include booster organizations, town officials, school committee members, coaches, school administrators and students.

WHAT:

The state-of-the-art fitness center was fully funded by $90,000 in generous donations from local sports boosters, fundraising organizations and athletics and education supporters.

“Without the tremendous donations we received, this new fitness center would not have been possible,” Superintendent Pires said. “Our students receive such great support from the members of the Medway community. Not only will the center be open to our sports programs, but all Medway students will be able to take advantage of this great space for health and exercise.”

The school’s old fitness center opened when Medway High School first opened in 2004. The equipment has since become outdated and the space was too small for the school’s needs. That space will now become an area for aerobics. The new fitness center is located just down the hall.

The fitness center is 2088-square-feet and features equipment from Cybex Treadmills, Life Fitness and Hammer Strength.

All students will be able to use the fitness center after school from 2:45-4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, when Strength Coach Dale Fingar will be supervising. Athletics teams will also be able to sign up to use it as a group with their coaches.

Athletic Trainer Sean Powers and Fingar held an orientation on Wednesday, Nov. 6, to show students and staff members how to properly use the equipment.

The new fitness center was made possible through generous donations from the following groups and organizations:

  • Medway Amateur Hockey Association, Inc.
  • Medway High School Boosters
  • Medway High School Soccer Boosters
  • Medway Youth Football and Cheer
  • Medway Community Education
  • Medway High School Field Hockey Boosters
  • Medway Lions Club
  • The Alex Handy Fund for Youth Safety
  • Medway Foundation for Education
  • Medway High School Girls Volleyball Boosters
  • Medway Mustangs Gridiron Club Inc.
  • Town of Medway
  • Medway High School Basketball Boosters
  • Medway High School Gold Boosters
  • Medway Secondary Parent Teacher Organization
  • Medway High School Lacrosse Inc.
  • Medway Youth Flag Football

A plaque with the names of the donors will be placed outside the entrance of the center.

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Medway High School Drama Club Puts on “Scared Silly” For Fall Play 

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Medway Public Schools
Armand Pires, Superintendent
45 Holliston St.
Medway, MA 02053

For Immediate Release

Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019

Media Contact: Benjamin Paulin
Phone: 781-428-3299
Email: [email protected]

Medway High School Drama Club Puts on “Scared Silly” For Fall Play 

MEDWAY – High School Principal John Murray is pleased to announce that the Medway High School Drama Club recently wrapped up their fall play with two performances of “Scared Silly,” Friday and Saturday, Nov. 1 and 2, at the high school.

“Scared Silly” is a collection of 10-minute plays that offer spooky comedy tales with a twist. In total, the club put on seven of the 10 plays in the collection, ranging from a look at what detention looks like in a school for the supernatural (“The Midnight Club”) to a humorous story about a trick-or-treater dressed in plain clothes who wants candy anyway (“The True Meaning of Halloween”).

Given that opening night was just a day after Halloween, choral director and drama teacher Kendra Nutting said she was looking for something on the spooky side for the fall play. Since Medway Drama excels with comedy, Nutting said, “Scared Silly” played to the students’ strengths.

“The success of this production was truly an ensemble effort,” Nutting said. “Every one of the 23 cast members and 16 crew members worked tirelessly to make this show the best it could be, and all of their time and effort paid off wonderfully.”

Nutting said the closest she had come to organizing seven plays in one was directing two one-act plays in the fall of 2015. She said she enjoys doing shows in this format because of the different opportunities for the entire cast to play a part, as opposed to a more traditional full-length play where there might be only four or five principal characters for the entire production.

A big challenge with the format, however, is that producing a series of independent plays means that all of the costumes and sets are completely different from one another.

“With two one-act plays its not much of a problem since you have the whole intermission for the changeover, but completely re-setting the stage and re-doing costumes and makeup for seven separate times was quite the adventure,” Nutting said. “The cast and crew pulled it off marvelously. The MHS Drama Club continues to grow and improve with every new production, and I am extremely excited to see what next year holds.”

The cast of the MHS Drama Club production of “Scared Silly” included the following:

  • Prologue, interlude and epilogue – Rebecca Cleboski, Jackson Huckins, Faith Olson and Katy Olson
  • “In the Waiting Room at the Ghost Placement Agency, Life Comes at You Fast” – Samantha Curry, Joseph Gangitano, Daphne Freeman, Megan McCarthy and Kenneth Santos.
  • “It’s You!” – Haley Garvin, Ashton Ellis, Aoife Bergeron, Sadie Green, Matthew Bullard, Samuel Jacobs, Megan McCarthy, Ian Tomarakos, Sydney Maurer and Daphne Freeman.
  • “The Midnight Club” – Matthew Bullard, Jackson Huckins, Chloe Redfield, Sadie Green and Olivia Dennehy.
  • “Forever Friends” –  Rebecca Chleboski, Maggie Connors, Olivia Dennehy and Chloe Redfield.
  • “The True Meaning of Halloween” – Ian Tomarakos, Haley Garvin and Trinity Johnson.
  • “Left Hanging” – Sydney Maurer, Kenneth Santos, Olivia Dennehy, Lillian Woodard, Samuel Jacobs, Samantha Curry, Aoife Bergeron, Jackson Huckins, Sadie Green, Faith Olson, Joseph Gangitano, Katy Olson, Ashton Ellis, Daphne Freeman, Ian Tomarakos and Kristopher Mitchell.
  • “The Rocky Junction Rumor” – Trinity Johnson, Chloe Redfield, Matthew Bullard, Samuel Jacobs, Kenneth Santos, Lillian Woodard, Maggie Connors.

Many performances remain for the Medway High School Performing Arts community this year, including the production of the musical “Anything Goes” on March 13 and 14. The school will also be inducting its second class into the International Thespian Society on May 8 along with a one-act play, “The Monologue Show (From Hell),” starring the new inductees.

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Medway Middle School Rewarding Student Behavior Through New Positive Office Referral Program

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Medway Public Schools
Armand Pires, Superintendent
45 Holliston St.
Medway, MA 02053

For Immediate Release

Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019

Media Contact: Benjamin Paulin
Phone: 781-428-3299
Email: [email protected]

Medway Middle School Rewarding Student Behavior Through New Positive Office Referral Program

MEDWAY — Superintendent Armand Pires is pleased to announce that starting this year, students at Medway Middle School will receive special recognition through the new Positive Office Referral program.

Positive office referrals are a chance for any staff member to “write up” a student when they are spotted demonstrating the school’s core values of “responsibility, respect and rising above.”

Principal Craig Juelis said he has received positive referrals from classroom teachers, teachers supervising other grades at lunch or recess, and even from fellow students.

“In too many cases, we don’t celebrate the good deeds that are happening each day in our building,” Principal Juelis said. “This provides us with an opportunity to promote and call out the many positive things that our students are doing each day that may have gone unnoticed.”  

Juelis said he first learned of the Positive Office Referral program several years ago while listening to Beth Houf, a middle school principal from Missouri, during a leadership conference. 

As part of the referral program, students receive a certificate that identifies the core value they lived up to and the teacher’s description of how the student earned the recognition. 

Students have received referrals for moving their lockers to help a classmate, offering a student a pencil case who didn’t have one, making consistent improvements in their academic and behavioral performance, helping show new students around the building in their first few days, working through particularly difficult academic work, and more.

In some cases, staff members will inform the student they are receiving a positive referral, while other times students are surprised by the recognition when called to Juelis’ office. 

Juelis said the school also reaches out to parents to share the student’s achievement.

“Parents or guardians are very excited to hear this good news from the school,” Juelis said. “It is very important that families receive regular communication from the school, especially when their student has done something to earn this kind of positive recognition.”

Since the program began in September, referrals have been given out weekly and more than two dozen have been rewarded so far.

As a way to further celebrate positive behavior in the school, Juelis said last year he revised a past practice of celebrating noteworthy staff deeds with a program called “staff shouts.”

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