Sheela was born and raised in South Berkshire county, and is a long time language teacher and grant writer for youth-serving nonprofits. As a writer, with an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, she’s interested in education, issues of inequality, and literature. She is a Moth Story Slam winner and Grand Slam participant, and runs, with Joey Chernila, story nights at Fuel Bistro in Great Barrington. She lives in West Stockbridge with her husband and three children.
Tuesday, 12 Feb 2019 - In the push for medical cannabis approval in 2012 in Massachusetts, and then to the passage of recreational in 2016, the ACLU, Drug Policy Alliance and others stressed the racial and class disparities of the war on drugs. It is a fair guess that many of the more than 60 percent of Berkshire County voters who checked “yes” on the 2016 ballot question did so at least in part to help right these wrongs.
Wednesday, 6 Feb 2019 - Any new initiatives will build on the school’s strong pre-existing relationships with businesses and nonprofits, fostered in part through its longstanding internship program, which sends dozens of students into the community each year for a portion of the school day.
Saturday, 2 Feb 2019 - The techniques and approaches Foote advocates are not specific to any particular substance or circumstance; rather, they address the fact that communication gets much more fraught, and the stakes get much higher, when kids enter their teen years.
Thursday, 24 Jan 2019 - "People knew going into it that there was a lot of potential money at stake, and the kids who were contending for the scholarship, that money meant a lot to them, because they didn’t have a trust fund or something. So it was a little bit nerve-wracking." --Stone Murphy
Monday, 21 Jan 2019 - The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission explicitly has forbidden retail marijuana stores from describing what they sell. You can’t understand what’s in front of you if the laws make it play hide and seek.
Sunday, 13 Jan 2019 - Human beings are inclined to assume that our own lived experience reflects that of everyone else’s. We—the people who write and think about pot and have enough money to open stores that sell it—are blind to the “other” in our midst.
Friday, 4 Jan 2019 - Though Great Barrington might soon be hosting four or five cannabis retail stores, you are likely to have a hard time figuring out what they sell.
Tuesday, 18 Dec 2018 - Moratoriums on retail and cultivation facilities can extend, with the state attorney general’s blessing, into 2019. Townspeople must eventually determine such things as the number of businesses they will allow, what the maximum size may be, and where in town they can be located.
Tuesday, 11 Dec 2018 - If all applicants and interested parties are eventually approved, there could be as many as five cannabis outlets in and around Great Barrington.
Saturday, 17 Nov 2018 - I am a white male. Things aren’t gonna change for me. I’m worried about everyone else … I’m not going to vote in November, because I’m not educated enough. I don’t pay attention that well. I don’t think my vote would be too valid.
Monday, 29 Oct 2018 - I was recently invited to be the guest speaker for two journalism classes at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington. The students, about 35 all together, had prepared questions for me based on their reading the day before of my recent four-part series, "Addiction in the Berkshires: Sara’s story."
Sunday, 28 Oct 2018 - Over the five days, teachers and students work in teams to solve real-world problems in a classroom where hands-on experimentation, critical thinking, and collaboration.
Wednesday, 17 Oct 2018 - The videos stress the importance of nonjudgmental communication, and the scientific facts regarding human development and drug and alcohol use.
Thursday, 11 Oct 2018 - "I think a second chance is the greatest gift you can give. I still remember and am forever grateful for the people who gave me a couch to sleep on or a ride or anything when I was on the streets."
Wednesday, 10 Oct 2018 - I was needing to use constantly. I had just left the clinic, and so now I had even more of a habit because I had the heroin on top of the methadone. I was sick every two hours around the clock.
Tuesday, 9 Oct 2018 - "I’ve been with several people while they overdosed, and rescue breathing worked. I can think of five: three times in a car, two times in a house. Three are dead now."
Monday, 8 Oct 2018 - "When I was younger, I was an A student, in the 98th percentile on all the tests. I did ballet. You wouldn’t have thought I would end up the way I did. All my teachers thought I had a lot of promise and would do well in life."
Thursday, 4 Oct 2018 - For many years, Mount Everett has been the little school that could in regard to the robotics competitions aspect of its STEM work. The school’s robotics team, called “Hyperspace,” has competed against teams from much larger suburban schools from towns like Lexington and Lincoln -- and won.
Friday, 28 Sep 2018 - At first, Dr. Ford seemed a familiar stranger, someone I might have taken classes with or lived near, someone I’d seen but not known—until she spoke, that is, and I knew her, because she was painting me a portrait of myself.
Wednesday, 12 Sep 2018 - Instead of waiting to see where Zuckerberg and his fellow billionaires decide to bestow their riches next, how about we advocate to eliminate the myriad tax tricks so that there is more tax revenue to support public education.
Monday, 27 Aug 2018 - There was not the population for a dedicated vocational school and, over time, the number of programs offered dwindled. Now individual fields will not be stressed so much as the habits of mind and preparation to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.
Saturday, 28 Jul 2018 - My selfish wish is that Granik worked a little faster; she’s released only four movies in fourteen years, and these days I’m hungry for artists who focus on the heart.
Thursday, 7 Jun 2018 - Recipients will be called the Chang-Chavkin Scholars after Arnie Chavkin and Laura Chang, founders and funders of the program and part-time residents of New Marlborough.Students selected will receive a total of $60,000, $15,000 per year for all four years of college.
Friday, 25 May 2018 - I felt a big pull to do something in a community, to come back here, and make a difference, the way my coaches made a difference for me.
Thursday, 26 Apr 2018 - There are many reasons why young people aren’t going into carpentry in greater numbers. But locally there are at least two programs beginning, perhaps, to change that, at Lee High School and at Monument Mountain Regional High School.
Friday, 13 Apr 2018 - The Railroad Street Youth Project’s South Berkshire Community Health Coalition is partnering with the Center for Motivation and Change in New Marlborough on a three-part training for parents who are concerned about their child’s drug and/or alcohol use.
Monday, 19 Feb 2018 - 'This structure means families, school and health care staff work together and support for children is aligned at home, school and in the community.' --Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School Principal Mary Berle
Wednesday, 7 Feb 2018 - Would that all history were put across this way, and would that Americans were taught the simple, brutal, unadorned truths of our collective pasts, as they happened, and not as we would want them to have happened.
Sunday, 21 Jan 2018 - This is not a whodunit thriller; the first line is “The baby is dead.” By the end of page two, readers are clear who’s killed him.
Tuesday, 26 Dec 2017 - It’s a tricky business, the building issue, but it’s an opportunity, ultimately, to create the space that would move programming forward. The structure of this building is a real barrier to innovation. -- Amy Rex, principal of Monument Mountain Regional High School
Sunday, 19 Nov 2017 - Only 15 percent of Berkshire Hills third graders met or exceeded expectations in reading ability, compared to a state average of 47 percent, with 25 percent meeting the same threshold in SBRSD.
Tuesday, 31 Oct 2017 - Liberals have not come up with, and do not seem to be working toward, a common vision that any and all American citizens would be welcome to get on board with.
