Star Academy

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BRIDGTON WOMAN IN CRITICAL CONDITION AFTER CRASH Page C3

Executive Editor Judy Meyer 689-2902

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2016 SECTION C

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS Inside a class at Franklin School By Bonnie Washuk

By David Sharp

STAFF WRITER

AUBURN — In a recent careers class David Jacobs-Pratt was teaching at Franklin Alternative School, the day’s lesson was attitudes in the workplace. Wearing a ponytail, a shirt and tie, and a ready smile, Jacobs-Pratt asked his students why it’s important to be aware of complaining on the job. Because no one wants to work with someone who complains all day, students answered. “Yes,” Jacobs-Pratt said. “If you’re unhappy, you just can’t walk off the job,” the teacher said. “In work you’ve got to do, or you’re going to lose your job.” He asked if it’s easier to find a job when you have a job or are unemployed. “When you have a job,” his students answered. Right, Jacobs-Pratt said. “That means you’re employable right there.” Franklin Alternative School, which has 68 students in grades seven to 12, is among the oldest alternative education programs around. The credit recovery program takes students who didn’t make it in traditional school settings and gives them the individual support they need to feel safe and experience success. Jacobs-Pratt, 59, says he understands his students, some of whom are homeless, come to school hungry or from tough backgrounds. “They are kids who have little trust when it comes to adults. At Franklin my kids can realize success.” He was one of those kids.

Antique jeans to be auctioned ASSOCIATED PRESS

PORTLAND — There are vintage jeans. And then there are the 123-year-old jeans up for sale in Maine. The bona fide Levi Strauss & Co. blue jeans from the American Old West are still awaiting a new owner after technical glitches prevented the denim pants from being auctioned Saturday in Maine. Daniel Buck Auctions & Appraisals said the jeans are pristine because they

Daniel Buck Auctions & Appraisals said the jeans are pristine because they were worn only a few times before the owner fell ill.

RUSS DILLINGHAM/SUN JOURNAL

Franklin Alternative School student Kyle Cyr listens to teacher David Jacobs-Pratt talk about job expectations during a recent class at the Auburn school.

When he was at Edward Little High School, “I hated school,” he said. He wondered what world history or science had to do with him. He missed a lot of school, but did graduate. Like some of his students, his family life was bad. “It was a dangerous household,” Jacobs-Pratt said.

After high school, he joined the Navy, got a college education, a good job, and eventually returned to Auburn to teach. In May, he was the state winner of the Smart/Maher VFW National Citizenship Education Teacher Award. See  FRANKLIN  Page C6

were worn only a few times before the owner fell ill. “They’re brand-new Levis. They just happen to be 123 years old,” said auctioneer Daniel Buck Soules, who worked for 11 year on public television’s “Antiques Roadshow.” The jeans were purchased in 1893 by a store keeper in the Arizona Territory. Solomon Warner established one of the first stores selling American goods in Tucson, and he survived being shot in an ambush by Apache Indians in 1870. He was a big fella. The cotton jeans with button fly feature a size 44 waist and 36-inch inseam. Unlike modern Levi’s, the jeans in those days had only a single back pocket. There See  JEANS  Page C3

ABSENTEE VOTING

Lewiston sees record number of ballots By Amanda Cullen STAFF WRITER

ANDREE KEHN/SUN JOURNAL

Lizzie Chabot works on science in one of the classrooms at Star Academy on the second floor of the Lewiston Armory. The new alternative program is for students who struggled as eighth-graders. The goal is to give them hands-on learning and more support so they can join classmates at Lewiston High School next year, said Star Academy Dean Eric Anderson.

PUTTING KIDS ‘BACK ON TRACK’ By Bonnie Washuk STAFF WRITER

LEWISTON — Last year as an eighthgrader at Lewiston Middle School, Lizzie Chabot struggled. “I was failing almost all my classes,” she said. Last year, teachers often spent a week on a concept, “then we moved on.” But some-

times she didn’t understand the concept. “I couldn’t study,” Chabot said. “Even if I did, I didn’t understand what I was studying.” Last year, she didn’t want to go to school. “I skipped a lot,” she said. Things are different this year. Chabot isn’t skipping school and she’s getting good grades, thanks to a new al-

ternative program called “Star Academy” at the Lewiston Armory next to the middle school. In its first year, the small program has 44 students who may have passed the eighth grade, but didn’t do well. Instead of letting them go to the big high school, the goal of Star Academy is to give See  STAR  Page C6

LEWISTON — City Hall has already received 6,387 absentee ballots for the 2016 election, which is a record for the city, according to City Clerk Kathy Montejo. That number is “the most absentee ballots we’ve ever had,” she said. Almost 900 more ballots are expected to arrive between Sunday and Tuesday. Montejo said they had 20 citizens volunteer to help process the votes into four ballot-counting machines. “We had about 10 Democrats, 10 Republicans helping,” she said. “We started at 9 this morning and worked straight through, and finished around 3 p.m.” Montejo said this is the first time they’ve ever been allowed to start processing votes early. The state of Maine changed the time constraints on early vote processing because of the large voter turnout expected, she said. “We can’t get the results and totals from the machines until 8 p.m. Tuesday,” she said. The remaining absentee ballots received Saturday through Tuesday will be counted Tuesday with the regular votes. Any ballot received after 8 p.m. Tuesday will not count.

Reflections in broken glass: A woman’s Holocaust story By Peter E. Murray STAFF WRITER

FALMOUTH — A tall man, meticulously dressed in a green tunic and highly polished boots, handsome, and with penetrating eyes, held Edith Herz in his gaze. She knew at that moment, her fate was in his hands. Josef Mengele pointed to the right. Against all odds, the short, skinny and naked girl would, for the moment, be spared from the gas chamber. Seventy-eight years ago on Nov. 10 — it was a Thursday, Edith Lucas Pagelson recently recalled — she stood in front of a mirror, combing her hair for school. Her father, on his return from synagogue, let her know

she would not be going. On what would become known as Kristallnacht — the Night of Broken Glass — the Nazis had destroyed 7,000 Jewish businesses and burned 1,350 synagogues. Thirty thousand Jews were sent to concentration camps in one night. Today, at 90, and living at the OceanView retirement community, Pagelson still tells the story of their odyssey of terror and survival. She does so, in part, by the sale of her book, “Against All Odds: A Miracle of Holocaust Survival.” Woven within is another story, one of devotion and love between mother and daughter. She believes it likely See  BROKEN GLASS  Page C5

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Edith Lucas Pagelson, 90, is at home at OceanView in Falmouth. She was a 12-year-old in Worms, Germany, on Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” when Nazis destroyed Jewish neighborhoods and sent the residents to concentration camps.

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Maine

SUN JOURNAL » SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2016

Bucksport still redefining itself Two years after mill closure, residents unsure of property’s future By Bill Trotter BANGOR DAILY NEWS

BUCKSPORT — This former mill town, perched on the edge of the tidal Penobscot River, has a new wine bar and is in the process of getting a new downtown arts center, gas station and convenience store, and a wastewater treatment plant. The economic activity these businesses and projects are generating in town might not attract as much notice if not for the absence of the once-dominant employer in town: the aforementioned paper mill. Verso Paper, the final owner of the riverfront paper manufacturing facility, shut the mill down nearly two years ago, laying off 570 people and bringing Bucksport’s 84 years of papermaking to an end. Since then, not a day goes by for most residents without them wondering at least two things: What’s going to become of the 250-acre mill property, and what does it mean for the future of Bucksport? Susan Lessard, Bucksport’s town manager, had an answer to that second question on Friday, when she and other town officials met with U.S. Sen. Angus King at the town office. “Bucksport is doing well,” she said. “It feels like people have emerged from the shadows (of the mill’s closure) to do all sorts of creative things.” King met with Lessard

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them more support and a different kind of handson learning. This year, they’ll learn both eighthand ninth-grade subjects. The goal is that next year, they’ll be caught up and still graduate on time. Chabot has done so well this year she’s been chosen as one of the program’s ambassadors. She gives tours and explains how Star Academy works. “Once I got here, I realized it was the most amazing school I’ve ever been in,” Chabot said. “The teachers are super nice. They make sure you’re understanding everything. You’re working at your own pace. We get time to understand what we’re learning. It makes me want to come back here and learn.” Nathan Ouellette is another Star Academy student ambassador. “The last two years in the middle school I didn’t do very well,” he said. “I was being lazy. I wasn’t getting the work done.” Teachers told him he had potential, was smart, but he was too social, too much of a people person.

Since then, not a day goes by for most residents without them wondering at least two things: What’s going to become of the 250-acre mill property, and what does it mean for the future of Bucksport?

ASHLEY L. CONTI/BANGOR DAILY NEWS

Backhoes work to tear down the former Verso Paper mill on Friday in Bucksport.

and other town officials on Friday to find out about the status of the mill demolition project and to get briefed on what prospects there are for redeveloping the site for commercial and industrial use. He was told that the demolition is ahead of schedule, with a projected completion in March 2017, and that there have been a few inquiries from entities about building at the mill site once the buildings are gone. Maine Maritime Academy, whichhas expressed an interest in establishing a commercial marine training facility at the mill site was the only one identified during the conversation.

Lessard said that, given the existing infrastructure development at the site, the town is not looking to significantly change the type of use for the property. Not only is it adjacent to a deepwater port and have rail, natural gas, broadband access, three-phase power and an existing power plant on site, she said, but the area’s workforce is well-suited for supporting industrial activity. “We’re not looking for a call center,” the town manager said, referring to one type of commercial activity that has popped up in other Maine communities. “We’re looking for an industrial commercial center.”

The site’s location at the head of Penobscot Bay, where the ocean blends in with the Penobscot River, makes it an ideal place for commercial marine activity of some sort, town officials told King. A Maine Maritime training facility would be “such an anchor,” Lessard said, by bringing 2,500 to Bucksport each year and would complement existing marine trades such as Belfast-based Front Street Shipyard, which is building multihull boats at the town’s industrial park. King said after meeting with town officials, and before going on a private tour of the mill site, that the fed-

ty Heart & Soul are two recently created, communityled efforts aimed at downtown economic development and in establishing a collective vision for Bucksport’s future. Brooke Minner, head of Main Street Bucksport and co-owner of Ocean’s Edge Realty, said home sales in Bucksport were pretty nonexistent in 2013 and 2014, right before the mill closed. But in the 23 months since, she said, they have been getting more inquiries from people who see Bucksport more as a coastal Maine village than a mill town. “Their perception was (Bucksport) was not their kind of place,” Minner said of recent prospective home buyers, “but now that is changing.” Lessard said that, whatever the future of the mill site may hold, residents are not waiting around to start redefining what kind of place Bucksport is. “That mill was a huge part of this community’s history,” she said. “It’s not here anymore, and it is not productive to look backwards. We have the ability to be a diverse community.”

“Once I got here, I realized it was the most amazing school I’ve ever been in ... The teachers are super nice. They make sure you’re understanding everything. You’re working at your own pace. We get time to understand what we’re learning. It makes me want to come back here and learn.” Lizzie Chabot, Star Academy student

“I talked too much,” Ouellette said with a grin. At Star Academy he said he’s more motivated. “I want to get all the work done,” he said. “It’s more hands-on. Last year, I was just hanging on academically. Here, I’m getting all A’s.” Chabot and Ouellette, with Star Academy Dean Eric Anderson following behind, gave a tour of the new program. It’s housed on the second floor of the armory in what was unused space. There are four classrooms and four subjects: English, math, science and history. Classes are small, about 13 students. Students work at individual work stations on interactive computers and often together on projects. The rooms look more like work sites than classes. Lessons are reinforced

to ensure students understand the concepts before moving on, Anderson said. In the science classroom, it’s as interactive as it can get. Students often test theories with hands-on experiments, then go over the results on their computer. One student was working on a circuit board, learning about electricity. Ouellette was delving into gravity and forces. “You put the sensors here, and let the car go and see how fast the car goes,” he said as he showed how he documents the speed as a toy car raced down a ramp. “It shows you the speed per second.” Star Academy Dean Eric Anderson said what’s helping students is the hands-on learning and the students own goalsetting,

both short and long term. By helping students fill in gaps of content knowledge they may be missing and giving them the confidence to advocate for themselves, they will be able to successfully rejoin classmates next year at Lewiston High School, Anderson said. The program, which can support up to 80 students, is being paid for with an $800,000 federal grant that covers two years of instruction. The program can be sustained when the grant runs out, said Lewiston Middle School Principal Jake Langlois, since there are fewer students at the high school. So far, the program is going well, Langlois said. “It’s not a retention program,” he said. “It’s to get students re-engaged and get them back on track.”

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As a veteran and history teacher, he engaged his students in citizenship projects such as placing flags at graves on Memorial Day. That was noticed by the VFW, he said. In class, he asked his students to explain what’s expected of them at Franklin. “Respect, accountability, responsibility,” student Devin Jeselskis said. Nate Krasny, 16, of Oxford has been attending Franklin for several months. “Oxford wasn’t working for me,” he said. “I was insufficient in credits really bad.” He met with Franklin Principal Russ Barlow and talked about his future, whether Franklin would be a good fit. “I came here. I like it. It’s family,” Krasny said. After his education he wants to pilot planes. Kyle Cyr, 18, a senior, has been at Franklin for several years. He came from Lewiston High School.

eral government — which in August sent a cadre of officials from various agencies to Maine to look into ways to help Maine’s forest products industry — has several economic development programs available. What kind of assistance the feds can provide, he said, depends on how the mill site is redeveloped. King said that taking a multifaceted development approach rather than finding a single, large-scale employer is a much more prudent and realistic approach in the modern world of global economics. Finding multiple companies to move in is more feasible and will reduce the economic impact to Bucksport and the region should any one of them fail, he said. “I think that is better strategically, and I think it is more achievable, and they can achieve it over time,” King said. As for the rest of the town, the closure of the mill is forcing local residents to address the town’s need to diversify, but it also has helped expedite the process. Main Street Bucksport and Communi-

ANDREE KEHN/SUN JOURNAL

Eric Anderson, dean of the Star Academy in Lewiston, stands in front of the Armory building where the program is located. The program has four classrooms in what were vacant rooms in the Armory’s second floor.

He tracks his graduates. In 2012, 22 students graduated. Three months later, 14 were working, one was in school, four unemployed and two he couldn’t find. In 2013, nine graduated. Three months later, seven were working and two were in school.

RUSS DILLINGHAM/SUN JOURNAL

Dylan Thurlow, a student at Franklin Alternative School in Auburn, listens to teacher David Jacobs-Pratt during a recent class at the Auburn school.

He didn’t like the big school; he felt like a number. “I was failing my classes,” he said. Franklin was a game-

changer, Cyr said. “It showed you what school could be like. Here, everyone is loving toward each other. Everyone’s like

your friend.” After school he hopes to work in music and film. Through Franklin he did an internship with a local

production studio. Cyr is on track to graduate in June. Without Franklin, “I probably would have dropped out.” Not every Franklin student graduates, but a lot do, Principal Barlow said. He tracks his graduates. In 2012, 22 students graduated. Three months later, 14 were working, one was in school, four unemployed and two he couldn’t find. In 2013, nine graduated. Three months later, seven were working and two were in school. “We had 100 percent in school or working.”

In 2014, 13 of his graduates, or 88 percent, were working or in school. In 2015, three months after graduation his eight graduates were all working or in school. “We’re doing something right,” Barlow said. Last year “was a rough year,” he said. Of the seven who graduated in June, five out of seven are working or in school. “When people ask ‘What do you do all day?’” Barlow answers that his faculty works to produce “responsible, informed citizens who are taxpayers. We care.”