Category Archives: Kids

Thoughts For a Monday

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A blue 3.5" Floppy Disk holding the hand of a smaller blue SD Card on a grey background. Text under the storage devices: Build a world where your children are stronger than you ever were.

Hey Fall River,

Election Day is tomorrow, Tuesday, November 4th, and I hope that everyone who is eligible and able takes an opportunity to vote and make their voices heard in the direction that we want to see this city take in the coming years.

There are a lot of candidates who are willing to point out all the things that are wrong with the city and all the things that are wrong with the schools. And I’m not about to tell you that there aren’t things that need to be fixed. I wouldn’t be running for School Committee if I didn’t think that there weren’t changes needed.

But there are also so many things that are good about Fall River. Things that don’t get talked about enough.

Dropping off my daughters for Trick or Treating last Friday, I got to drive through the Highlands. And, at least along President Ave, the streets were PACKED with people. Small children with their parents, older kids and teenagers off in their own groups. Plenty of houses generously offering candy to inflatable dinosaurs, Disney princesses, baseball players and whatever KPop Demon Hunters are. It was an amazing thing to watch for a few minutes while I waited for traffic to clear.

There were also Trunk or Treat and other events to celebrate Halloween throughout the city, both in the schools as well as in other community locations. Countless volunteers giving their time and effort to help spread some joy to others.

Positive things are happening in the schools as well. Durfee Engineering students met with industry leaders at Gilette Stadium for part of STEM week, giving them hands-on experience in areas like Robotics and Manufacturing. Meanwhile, Construction students were getting an opportunity to experience real world applications of what they are learning when they got to participate in concrete work being done at Watson Elementary. Both of these, and similar opportunities in other educational programs offered, will serve our students well as their careers progress.

Durfee’s marching band has been making a name for themselves this competition season, winning or placing second in every show so far this season. This past weekend, they won the State Championship in their class in two different shows. These 30-some students, their dedicated staff and the support of their families show how much we can achieve when people focus their varied skills and are willing to put in time and effort to achieve common good.

I’ve said it before, probably way too many times, making a point to mention it every debate, forum and interview I’ve given this campaign season. When my family moved to Fall River, I read up on the schools. I heard all the horror stories. But our experience here has been so incredibly different than what we feared. The community has been welcoming. The cultural diversity has been amazing. To a person, every instructor we have had contact with wants nothing but the best for all their students. I have to hope that as caretakers of these students, we want the same.

I feel that the path forward for Fall River is by working together. Two of Fall River’s greatest strengths are and have always been our rich diversity and by how powerful we are when we harness our differences and work together for the common good. The School Committee, working with the rest of the government, the administration, the teachers and staff of the schools and the entire community need to work in partnership to help provide the school system that the students, and all of Fall River need and deserve.

I hope that tomorrow, I can count on your vote to be one of the six people entrusted to take the Fall River Schools where we want them to go.

Together.

Play On!

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“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words.” – Victor Hugo, author

The combined Fall River Middle Schools Band performs at the 2025 All City Band Concert. Twin B is in there somewhere.

Music has always been a pretty important driver in my life. I met my best friend (Non-Spousal Division) in sixth grade band class. I also met my first wife in band in college. Hey, not every drive can be a good drive.

Most of my favorite teachers have been band directors. Our high school marching band won the Michigan state championship back in… You know what, I don’t want to say when. The year started with a 19; Damn, I’m old. Anyhow, it was during the late 1900s that decided that I wanted to be a high school band director someday.

Through actions that seemed legitimate at the time, I didn’t actually go to college for music like I wanted to. This was one of the main factors that led me to not going to college very much at all.

Even though I entered the real-world workforce at 19, mostly in an I.T. setting, I still spent nearly every summer and fall working with my high school’s competitive marching band in just about any and every capacity I could. Helping design the show themes, helping choose the music, the visual concepts we would try to express, hell I even co-wrote a song from scratch. And that was all before teaching the students ever took place. Weekly rehearsals over the summer, a week-long band camp at the end of August. Early morning and late-night rehearsals to perfect the show. This was one of my happiest places.

In the early 2000s, During one of Michigan’s once-a-decade rebooting of the automotive economy, I found myself out of work. I had one more shot to try and do what I knew that I always wanted to do, so I went back to school for what I wanted to do the previous century. Through actions that seemed legitimate at the time, I still didn’t graduate with an Education degree. So, right back to IT for me. Then, shortly after that, completely out of Michigan.

Almost 15 years later, I can say that I’m barely sad at all that I didn’t get through the Ed program. Hooked up to a lie detector, I would say that it’s less than 1% of a regret. I’m in a pretty solid place, as far as my personal and professional life goes right now.

But that didn’t seem to dampen any of the joy I got to feel last night as Twin B got to perform with other students in the Fall River Schools’ All City Band.

This concert featured the fifth-grade band students from all of the elementary schools in the district, then all of the middle-schoolers, then the high school band. The finale was a song played by all of the students together. This concert does an amazing job of showing the progression that these kids are all capable of making if they stay in the program and put forth the effort.

I pretended to reluctantly volunteer to assist with feeding the musicians in the hour between the end of their final rehearsal and the beginning of the concert. Deep down inside, but mostly on the surface, I was champing at the bit to help out. And, not to brag or anything, but that was probably one of the top one-thousand smoothest instances of feeding about 150 kids a slice of pizza and a chocolate cookie that anybody has ever seen.

It was really cool for me to get to see, firsthand, that parental volunteers willing to help out the entire Performing Arts Department seems to be a universal phenomenon. Even better was getting to see, based on half an hour in a high school cafeteria, that band kids being goofy-assed band kids is also a constant.

Twin B had, by all accounts, a successful concert and even allowed Twin A to get some staged photos of her playing the bells afterwards. I know that she currently plans to say in band for at least the next two years but is a little less sure after that. I’m not going to force her to stick with it through high school. I want to, but I won’t. Probably.

B.M.C. Durfee High School in Fall River has a competitive marching band program. In fact, they had an undefeated competitive 2024 season, including the U.S. Bands National championship in their Group. When it was mentioned during the concert that students entering at least the seventh grade could try out for the marching band, my eyes lit up and I literally got goosebumps.

I am going to at least attempt to push Twin B to try out for the Marching Band this summer, but with the approval and, frankly the insistence of my best friend (Spousal Division) there’s a good chance that I’m going to see what kind of volunteer help the marching band needs this upcoming fall, whether she is involved yet or not. I wonder if a “No electronics during Marching Season if you aren’t in band” would be a reasonable parenting policy. Sports parents have nothing on me in this regard.

Thanks to all of the teachers who had a part in putting on the concert last night. I hope you know that your hard work is understood and appreciated.