Refuse District Waits Beacon Hill Vote

By MANDY LOCKE

Less than three weeks before the close of the fiscal year, the Island's waste handler is anxiously awaiting legislative authorization to correct its financial missteps.

For Island Graduates, The Time of Their Lives

Not an Empty Seat at the Tabernacle; Sun Breaks Out

By KATE STAMELL

Proud families and friends filled the Tabernacle Sunday afternoon to honor and support the accomplishments of the Class of 2003 at the Martha's Vineyard Regional High School.

At Charter School, an Affirmation of Doing Right

By C.K. WOLFSON

It was as if the buoyant mood and fellowship at the Martha's Vineyard Public Charter School's graduation created a force field that staved off Saturday morning's threatened rain. More than 150 smiling, mingling people gradually made their way across the grass behind the volleyball court, and handshake by handshake, hug by hug, ambled into the large white tent.

A federal civil rights investigation of the Oak Bluffs and Tisbury schools has cited both for failing to meet the instructional needs of their growing population of Brazilian students.

The investigation was triggered by a parent complaint in November which alleged that the schools' lack of trained teachers, interpreters and appropriate materials was shortchanging Brazilian students.

They stepped outside the classroom walls. They coached youth basketball and soccer teams.

Charter School Graduates Five Students

By MANDY LOCKE

The five sit around the schoolyard picnic table as naturally as a family at the dinner table. Such an easy rhythm pulses through their exchanges that the new addition to their group thinks this handful of Island teenagers is, in fact, family.

And that, they agree, is exactly the point. It's all part of the Martha's Vineyard Public Charter School experiment.