New England Public Radio

Some Schools Close On Election Day To Protect Children

Many schools in Western Massachusetts are closed on Election Day. One reason is concern about the safety of children.

RELATED: Turnout For Early Voting Mixed In Western Massachusetts

Schools are closed in Hadley, Chicopee and Longmeadow.  Amherst is giving kids a day off for the first time on Election Day.

Michael Morris, Interim Superintendent of the Amherst Pelham Regional Public Schools, was the principal at an Amherst school where lots of people voted in 2008.

“There was a steady stream of dozens of people waiting on line inside the school  to vote,” said Morris. “For three-to-seven-year-olds, that is disruptive.

Morris said that unlike people who work in the schools, voters don’t undergo a criminal records test.

Safety concerns coupled with the need to schedule training for teachers is why Granby schools are closed, said Superintendent Sheryl Stanton.

“With the general public coming in and out of the buildings and the contractual obligation to provide professional development,” said Stanton, “it seems like a way to be time efficient and also keep our students safe.”

Stanton said closing schools also gives children the chance to witness parents and grandparents as they vote.

Back-To-School Book Series: Marie Betts Bartlett’s ‘Poppy’s Purpose’

Sunday, September 11, 2016, marks 15 years since the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

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(Photo Credit: Joyce Skowyra for NEPR)

Children’s author and illustrator Marie Betts Bartlett has found a way to mark the occasion. The Leyden, Massachusetts, resident has come out with a book, “Poppy’s Purpose.”

It’s based on the true story of a PATH train car. Now on display at a Connecticut museum, the car was trapped in the train station under the World Trade Center.

Click the audio player above to hear Bartlett’s conversation with New England Public Radio’s Carrie Healy. The author and illustrator says she was far removed from the events that occurred on September eleventh, 2001.

Summer Fiction: Jung Yun’s ‘Shelter’

A Korean-American family’s story of lies, identity and loss. That’s what you’ll find in “Shelter,” the debut novel of Jung Yun — who until this month taught at UMass Amherst. Her book is the latest pick in our summer fiction series, when we put the focus on new novels by writers from around New England.

Click the audio player above to hear Jung Yun explain her writing process to NewEngland Public Radio’s Carrie Healy.

MORE BOOKS: NEPR’s Summer Fiction series

Mass. Vaccination Rates High, But Some Areas At Risk

Cases of measles are rare in Massachusetts and Connecticut, but Emory University researchers say nationally one in eight children under the age of seventeen are at risk of infection.

Outbreaks are mostly prevented by what’s called herd immunity. According to the Department of Public Health, several Massachusetts counties remain undervaccinated, including Hampshire and Franklin.

“The real risk at this moment inside the state is low,” Sean Palfrey, a pediatrician at Boston Medical Center, says. “The risk of having an unimmunized child come to the state, because we have an awful lot of travelling going on, is 100 percent.”

Ninety-five percent of Massachusetts kindergartners have been vaccinated, while the rate is 97 percent in Connecticut.

In Greenfield, DCF Workers Rally For Lower Case Loads, More Funding

As Beacon Hill lawmakers begin budget debates this week, social workers around the state are staging lunchtime rallies, calling for millions in funding to hire additional workers. They say caseloads per worker are dangerously high, endangering children under their watch.

Earlier this year, many frontline workers had high hopes for swift change after Governor Charlie Baker appointed Linda Spears as DCF Commissioner. As the former head of the D.C.-based Child Welfare League of America, she  oversaw a 2014 independent audit of the state agency, on the heels of the high-profile death of 5-year-old Jeremiah Oliver, whose social worker reportedly missed months of visits with Oliver’s family.

Spears recommended social workers have a maximum caseload of 15 families. But with a spike in reporting after Oliver’s death and new state guidelines for reporting abuse and neglect, more calls came in to DCF, and caseloads increased.

Debi Belkin, a social worker and supervisor in the Greenfield office, which covers Franklin and Hampshire Counties, says in her more than 30 years at the agency, she in fact has never seen caseloads this high.

“When you factor in the increase in parental substance abuse, domestic violence, it increases our work ten-fold in trying to keep kids safe,” Belkin says.

In an email, DCF confirms it has experienced a significant increase in the number of child abuse and neglect reports filed in the past year. The department also said it is committed to reducing caseloads.

Chicopee Leaders Ask For Meeting With Patrick On Immigrant Housing At Westover

Two local leaders in Chicopee want an in-person meeting with Governor Deval Patrick on the plan to potentially house immigrant children at Westover Air Base.

Chicopee Mayor Richard Kos and state representative Joseph Wagner say they want Governor Patrick to come to Chicopee to discuss the controversial proposal. Wagner says the city’s residents need more information on the plan.

“We have not heard the rationale or any of the detail associated with the governor’s proposal, no real level of detail,” says Wagner, adding “I think it’s our goal to inform the citizens that we jointly represent here across this city.”

Westover is one of two federal military bases in the state that Governor Patrick cited last week as possible locations to temporarily shelter up to one thousand children who’ve crossed into the United States illegally. He says the state should help process the children in a setting that is secure, safe and humane. Mayor Kos says he sent the meeting request to the governor on Thursday. Patrick’s office offered no comment on the request except to say it had been received.