NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — McCann Technical School is considering adding a drone program to the school's offerings.
School Committee member Robert Reilly presented his findings from the Massachusetts Associations of School Committees and of Schools Superintendents joint conference, held in Boston a week ago. He told the committee he was impressed by a drone program at a Fall River high school.
"It really grabbed me," Reilly said Thursday. "It is not just learning how to fly drones but what they did with them …They did an awful lot of good things."
Reilly said students did aerial mapping of forests and agricultural land. He said the instructor of the program explained how drone pilots can be a huge asset to farmers.
"For crop dusting, they showed an example of fertilizing fields and they put a drone up there and it was up high enough to help the farmers see what they were doing," he said. "They missed big gaps when they were laying down whatever they were doing."
He said the Federal Aviation Administration course is only eight hours, so the school would not have to hire anyone — just find an interested teacher.
"I think that first, we have to see if it grabs a teacher that would be a plus," he said. "I think it would be a really good thing to investigate at a small scale."
Reilly said there are costs that would come with such a program but added his professional organization has offered to kick in $3,000 to jumpstart the program and purchase drones.
Superintendent James Brosnan said he thought it was a good idea and that he would investigate it.
"It is an interesting thing and we would support doing that because as when started robotics we got the right teacher, then the right students and the right niche," he said. "Form it as a club and get organized."
Reilly said he also served as a delegate representing McCann at the conference to vote on resolutions but felt a subcommittee should be formed to review these resolutions before the conference.
"We don’t ever discuss what our positions are on whatever these resolutions are like arming teachers — those sorts of things," he said. "It seemed to me we should do that at least have some sort of committee that has a discussion on these and makes some sort of recommendation so when we go to these conferences and go into the delegate assembly, we have our voice heard."
Brosnan suggested that instead of creating a new subcommittee, roll the responsibility into the policy subcommittee that can look at the list of resolutions and recommend to support, not support, or stay silent to the entire committee.
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Macksey Updates on Eagle Street Demo and Myriad City Projects
By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
The back of Moderne Studio in late January. The mayor said the city had begun planning for its removal if the owner could not address the problems.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Moderne Studio building is coming down brick by brick on Eagle Street on the city's dime.
Concerns over the failing structure's proximity to its neighbor — just a few feet — means the demolition underway is taking far longer than usual. It's also been delayed somewhat because of recent high winds and weather.
The city had been making plans for the demolition a month ago because of the deterioration of the building, Mayor Jennifer Macksey told the City Council on Tuesday. The project was accelerated after the back of the 150-year-old structure collapsed on March 5.
Initial estimates for demolition had been $190,000 to $210,000 and included asbestos removal. Those concerns have since been set aside after testing and the mayor believes that the demolition will be lower because it is not a hazardous site.
"We also had a lot of contractors who came to look at it for us to not want to touch it because of the proximity to the next building," she said. "Unfortunately time ran out on that property and we did have the building failure.
"And it's an unfortunate situation. I think most of us who have lived here our whole lives and had our pictures taken there and remember being in the window so, you know, we were really hoping the building could be safe."
Macksey said the city had tried working with the owner, who could not find a contractor to demolish the building, "so we found one for him."
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