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.
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.
Monday, 25 Sep 2017 - There are more than 900 kids living in poverty in the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the Berkshire Museum where veiled protesters have decried the ‘tremendous loss’ of paintings.
Saturday, 16 Sep 2017 - "The writer is in the business of making discoveries, and whatever we can do to help her make those discoveries is fruitful. But the writer must surprise herself." -- Poet Jayne Benjulian
Sunday, 3 Sep 2017 - It’s unusual, if not unheard of, for four distinct organizations to join forces on such a long-term, time and manpower-intensive venture, especially on a shoestring budget.
Tuesday, 15 Aug 2017 - From September to June, one of every three students at Muddy Brook and one of every four at Monument Valley receives two meals for free or reduced price per day. That translates to 100 meals missing for those families, per child, during the 10 weeks of summer vacation.
Sunday, 14 May 2017 - “The kids come home filthy dirty and falling asleep at the dinner table, and that is what summer camp should be.” -- Kim Hamberg Wilder, mother of two boys and a sales associate at Barnbrook Realty
Monday, 20 Mar 2017 - “Daddy’s Home 2” will star Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Linda Cardellini and John Cena, with two big gun additions of Mel Gibson and John Lithgow.
Saturday, 18 Mar 2017 - “This proposal would devastate working families. It is painfully short-sighted and makes a mockery of the President’s promise to make our country safer and to support inner cities and rural communities alike.” -- Jodi Grant, Executive Director Afterschool Alliance
Wednesday, 15 Mar 2017 - "I Am Not Your Negro" is a masterpiece of fleshed-out storytelling, presented through a collage of images. It runs like a journey through James Baldwin’s astute mind.
Saturday, 11 Feb 2017 - White trash: He and she are our neighbors and fellow citizens, and their inability to make a decent living in this town is due to attitudes and policies far outside their control.
Saturday, 3 Dec 2016 - “We’ve always been about the needs of individuals, whether they want college or not. We ask what they need to thrive and see their future, not as something abstract, but concrete, now, here.” -- Ananda Timpane, executive director of Railroad Street Youth Project
Friday, 11 Nov 2016 - Meet me at a candlelight gathering tomorrow, Saturday, November 12, at 5 at the Mason Library in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and bring your kids. We need to show them what the opposite of a bully looks like.
Saturday, 1 Oct 2016 - “We should be celebrating the fact that when they get to high school, our students are leading the pack. Teachers do above and beyond. It’s not about a damn test; it’s about the kids.” --- Southern Berkshire Regional School Committee member Charlie Flynn
Tuesday, 27 Sep 2016 - "We are punished over high stakes tests that do not augment our kids’ educations but only give the state more control over local funds. This is all about power and the market forces at play with high stakes testing companies, forces that did not exist before No Child Left Behind [2001].” --- Maria Rundle, Southern Berkshire Regional School Committee member and mother of three students in the New Marlborough Elementary School
