Tag: Newton North high School

  • After first state championship win since 1972, Newton North gymnasts ready for New England meet

    After first state championship win since 1972, Newton North gymnasts ready for New England meet

    While the rest of Newton North High School rushes home for the day, the girls’ gymnastics team is just getting started: leotards on, pink fuzzy socks flying through the air as the gymnasts hurl themselves across the gym.

    This weekend, they will trade leotards for orange sunglasses, wigs and headbands as they represent their school at the New England Interscholastic Girls Gymnastics Championship, riding the high of their state championship win last weekend — the first time the team has claimed the title since 1972.

    At practice before Saturday’s competition, the girls circle around their coach, Cassie Ford, leaning on each other’s shoulders and oohing and aahing as they listen to the logistics of meet day.

    “These girls don’t even realize how athletic they are,” Ford said as gymnasts tumbled and swung behind her.

    Before practice begins, the team blasts a variety of songs on the speaker — “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore and “Anaconda” by Nicki Minaj — as they tape each other’s ankles and yell at high school boys trying to claim the gym for a game of lacrosse.

    “We’re a very bubbly team,” senior Nika Jayanth said. “We’re always cheering for each other and having fun.”

    “Our energy is contagious,” teammate Simona Batista-Ciani added.

    The team of 15 takes turns practicing each event: floor routines, beam, vault and bars. Each time another gymnast steps up, hands in the air, ready to run,  the team erupts with cheers and chants as chalk dust rises into the air.

    Their recent historic win was fueled by that same energy, the team and coaches said.

    “We knew the stakes,” Batista-Ciani said. “The last time the team won was 1972, so we were like, ‘OK, we can do this.’” 

    The celebration matched the intensity of practice.

    “On the way back, we were blasting songs on the bus, dancing around and passing the trophy,” Batista-Ciani said.

    The gymnasts’ energy is palpable, with chalk-soaked footprints scattered across the gym floor from dancing, gossiping and cheering between exercises.

    “We feed off each other’s energy,” teammate Greer Howard said. “When everyone’s excited, it motivates the whole team.” 

    Although the practices are filled with laughter, the team’s skill and discipline remain clear.

    “I broke the school record on floor at states,” gymnast Lucia Grabski said. This weekend, she plans to perform a similar routine to “Skyfall” by Adele, hoping to match the skill and energy of her last performance.

    Nika Jayanth practices gymnastics with a teammate. Photo by Celine Hijazi

    Beyond gymnastics, the athletes are already thinking about their futures.

    “I’ve broken pretty much every bone you can imagine – that’s what made me interested in learning about the body,” teammate Julia Brown said, explaining her plans to pursue a career as a physician assistant.

    Between routines, the girls sit on bulky tumbling mats with textbooks open, scribbling down homework before jumping back into rotation.

    Ford said the team’s balance of talent and teamwork has been key to their success.

    “Their work ethic and teamwork are what made the difference this year,” Ford said. “We have depth. Even if someone makes a mistake, the rest of the lineup can keep us strong.”

    As practice winds down, the music fades and athletes leave, clothes covered in chalk, laughing as they head into the parking lot.

    This weekend, the stage may be bigger and the stakes higher, but based on the team’s practice, Newton North appears ready, complete with orange wigs, cheers and all.

    ****

    This story is part of a partnership between the Newton Beacon and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • ‘I’ve been fortunate’: Newton North High School Basketball Coach Paul Connolly steps down after 24 years

    On the basketball court, Paul Connolly has a booming voice. He’s making swift calls and giving players sharp guidance. His native Massachusetts accent bounces off the walls of the gym far louder than all the sneaker screeches and dribbles.   

    But when he sits down to speak about the end, of his choice to step down from his position as head coach of Newton North High School after 24 seasons with 456 wins, two state titles in back-to-back years, and two more state finals appearances—including one last month, in a 55-52 loss to Franklin High School—he barely whispered. 

    “I’ve gone through a little bit of a grieving process. I’m very emotional,” said Connolly, 60. He motioned to his open backpack beside him, where he had a few rogue tissues on top of an empty box. “Twenty-four years is a long time, but I know in my heart that I’ve made the right decision. I’m at peace with it.” 

    He’s been reaching for the tissues often. Since his announcement March 18, his phone has been blowing up with texts from former players and other coaches sharing the impact he’s had on their lives and careers. 

    One of those texts came from Tommy Mobley, who watched Connolly throughout most of his childhood. He was a water boy for the team while his older brother played varsity from 2007 to 2010, and played on the team from 2012 to 2015. Now, Mobley works in the Boston area as a consultant.

    “He’s so disciplined, and he does an incredible job of holding all of his players to a really high standard, and he doesn’t cut it short,” Mobley said. “I still try to use that mentality, just in my own job and the way that I socialize and treat my friends and family, I should always bring my best.” 

    While he was tough on the court, some of Connolly’s fondest memories play to his soft side. Perhaps his favorite was on Valentine’s Day 2002, when Connolly had just met his now-wife, Amy. In the locker room at Needham High School, Connolly’s first varsity team at Newton serenaded Amy with “My Girl” by The Temptations. 

    “He would just come out with his harmonica and start playing a couple notes, and we would just get to singing,” said Waseem Givens, a member of Connolly’s first varsity team, who went on to play for the University of Rhode Island and work as the director of youth development for the Boston Celtics. To this day, the team sings “My Girl” at annual alumni games.  

    “He would love to play music during practice,” Mobley said. “It would be oldies, and he would be joking around with us the whole time, like ‘What do you guys know about Earth, Wind & Fire?’” 

    Connolly joked that there are some things he won’t miss—especially cutting players at tryouts. But he will miss building relationships with his players and forming team dynamics.  

    “I always say it’s kind of like an artist with clay,” Connolly said. “You kind of get it and you gotta form it, because every group is different, the personalities are different, the leadership is different.”

    Connolly is proud of the program he’s built and the level of players he has produced. Many of his players went on to play in all college divisions.

    “O​​ne of the things I used to tell my players all the time is, ‘I don’t want your college coach saying, what the heck did your high school coach teach you?’” Connolly said. “And I don’t think a college coach ever said that about any of our players. And I took pride in that.”

    Some of Connolly’s players went on to play basketball professionally, including Anthony Gurley, who played internationally after graduating from college. In high school, he was the all-time top scorer at Newton North and captain of the state championship winning team in 2006. 

    “He prepared me to experience tough coaching and experience constructive criticism,” Gurley said. “When I would go to the collegiate level or the professional, it felt like nothing that I hadn’t seen.”

    While his iMessage is filled with former players, Connolly’s camera roll is full of photos of the team manager. 

    Connolly is in his 29th year as a special education teacher at Newton North. He’s long melded these two passions. One of his former students, Brendan Durkin, who is now in his 30s, has served as the team’s manager since he was in high school. 

    “Brendan is my guy,” Connolly said as he pulled up photos of his own kids alongside Durkin. He has over 11,000 photos on his phone; he doesn’t believe in deleting pictures of his kids. “Brendan’s a legend in Newton North basketball. He really is. They bring me so much joy, these kids.” 

    When Mobley was in high school, another one of Connolly’s students was a manager alongside Durkin. He has fond memories of being part of the team with Connolly’s students. 

    “The day-to-day aspect of having those guys around, it kind of humanized the team,” Mobley said. “I thought it reminded us that we’re a part of a bigger school community here, and this is just an amazing experience to get to be on a team and play a game we love together and bond.” 

    Connolly knew coming into this season that it would likely be his last year. His players, though, were shocked when they found out. 

    “He’s been coaching North for longer than I’ve been alive,” said Teagan Swint, captain of Connolly’s final team. “I grew up always seeing him coach at Newton North and assuming he’s always going to be there. It was kind of shocking to hear he’ll be stepping down.” 

    What’s next for Connolly, he isn’t sure. At 60 he’s “entering the fourth quarter” of his life, as he puts it, and still not sure what he wants to be when he grows up. He will still be working in the special education department at Newton North. He’s considering going back to his roots as an assistant coach, but he’s looking forward to a new challenge and “seeing what’s out there.” 

    “It’s been a great run. That’s the only way I can put it,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate.” 

    This story is part of a partnership between the Newton Beacon and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Newton North scribes take to the stage for the 18th Annual Playwrights’ Festival

    Theatre Ink ‘s 17th Annual Playwrights’ Festival, Newton North High School, June 7th, 2025 – Photo by Elizabeth Plese

    The ambient lighting dims, and a spotlight shines on three distinct characters in front of a dystopian backdrop, as a night of world-molding drama and comedy begins. 

    Newton North High School’s 18th Annual Playwrights’ Festival, presented at the school Thursday through Saturday, showcased eight plays created entirely by the students.

    Each play was a 10-minute, one-scene act covering concepts ranging from grappling with queer identity to finding existential purpose, with sets spanning from a Louisiana hair salon to a spaceship floating about the cosmos.

    “This is one of the most unique productions in terms of being student-written and student-directed,” said Michael Barrington-Haber, a theater teacher at Newton North and the technical director for Theater Ink, the school’s teaching working theater that prizes inclusion and cooperation.

    “We have student designers who do the lights, the set, the sound, the costumes, the hair, the makeup, the props,” Barrington-Haber said. “It’s all student-run.” He has been a part of Theater Ink for 21 years and has contributed to the playwrights’ festival since its inception 18 years ago.

    “It all started when one student said, ‘Hey, I got this play and I’ve never written a play before,” said Adam Brown, the director of Theater Ink. “And so I read it and I’m like, ‘Hey, we should do this play.’ We reached out to other kids, and they wrote about five or six plays, and that’s how the festival was born.”

    Brown, who has been an active participant in the theater department for 24 years, helps the student playwrights develop their ideas and organize the page-to-stage process.

    At first, Theater Ink had around five students get together and workshop their plays. Now, the school receives anywhere from 10 to 30 submissions a year. It tries to accept between eight and 10 shows. The student writers submit their works to a blind panel of judges made up of their peers, faculty and alumni.

    The students begin their process in September, and throughout the year they get together in groups to edit. This is all before auditions and set design. The festival has its own part-time student tech crew.

    “It’s basically a year-long process,” said Maya Macomber, a graduating senior from Newton North who has written for the festival all four years of her high school education. She is a co-coordinator of the festival and the writer and director of the play “Milkyway,” a situational comedy in which three friends accidentally explode Earth and must search the cosmos for another planet to inhabit.

    “It’s amazing to see something I started thinking about in September, at the beginning of the year, actually happen on stage now in June,” Macomber said. “It’s a really cool process to get to see my play go through all the steps of it.” Macomber plans to major in film and television production at Chapman University in the fall.

    Julia Bartow Fuchs, a junior at Newton North and a co-coordinator of the festival, wrote and directed “The Screen Door to the Sea,” a deeply personal story of unrequited love, friendship, and letting go. This is her third year writing for the festival.

    “It’s a nine-month process,” Bartow Fuchs said. “You’re just sort of in it for this whole time, and then it’s like you’re coming up for air at the end… Everyone comes together at the end, and it’s so surreal.”

    With 18 years under its belt, Theater Ink aims to amplify young voices regardless of experiences and backgrounds.

    “What’s really special about this is the voices of students,” Brown said. “It’s their voice…The plays that you’re seeing are coming from them. Their experiences, their ideas, their thoughts, their creativity, and that’s what makes it really special.”

  • Newton North basketball star Teagan Swint scores over 1,000 career points

    Teagan Swint, shown here with his father, Rob Swint, is the first player in Newton North history to score 1,000 points. Newton North High School Twitter

    Most students would see a 9 a.m. school start time as an opportunity to get more sleep. Not Teagan Swint.

    Well before school starts, he’s in the gym lifting weights or shooting free throws. He wakes up, drives to the gym, showers and heads to class. The team is on the court six days a week—four practices and two games—but Swint is there by himself on the seventh. 

    “He’s one of these kids that loves the solace of being in the gym by himself and hearing that ball go ‘swish,’” said head coach Paul Connolly. 

    It’s this work ethic that led Swint to become the 19th player in Newton North High School history to break 1,000 points in his high school basketball career. The team co-captain achieved the feat in the first quarter of the team’s Feb. 11 game against Weymouth. While scoring 1,000 points wasn’t necessarily a goal—Swint said he’s much more focused on the team’s successes—he was excited to break the threshold once he realized he was within its reach. 

    “It felt cool, it’s something you think about a lot,” Swint said. Because he was only 3 points away from the milestone at the start of the game, “it was something I knew was going to happen, and in that way it was cool.” 

    Reaching 1,000 career points is no easy feat for a high school athlete, Connolly said. Swint has played in roughly 75 games over the course of his three years on the varsity team—he was out for about 15 games his sophomore year because of a foot injury. 

    “I’m really proud of him,” Connolly said. “His work ethic is fantastic. He’s a real leader, kind of a silent leader, but he’s becoming more vocal, more confident. And then obviously, his ability to put a ball through a basket makes us tough. He makes us a good team.” 

    Beyond putting up points, Swint’s place as captain makes him a role model for young players. Freshman Henri Van de Velde first met Swint while practicing at the Y, and sees him as someone to look up to. 

    “He’s a good leader,” Van de Velde said. “He’s a really nice person and gives some great advice.” 

    Swint’s co-captain, Nicholas Spinelli, played alongside Swint from the start: third grade basketball, where Swint’s dad was their coach. Watching Swint grow has been “amazing,” Spinelli said. “He’s just so good now.” 

    “Off the court, he’s one of my closest friends, and just seeing his mindset and how he is so constant—I’ve never seen anyone put in more work,” Spinelli said. “He’s always here. His car is always the first one in the lot. He’s confident … it’s awesome to see that.” 

    Swint is committed to play basketball next year for Johns Hopkins University, where he plans to study applied mathematics. For now, though, his eyes are on the playoff season, which kicks off Thursday with a game against Cambridge Rindge and Latin.

    “I just want to live in the moment,” Swint said. “We’re in the playoffs right now, and I think our team is good enough to make a deep run. I try not to think about any extra stuff that’ll make you tense up and not play as well, so you just gotta stay present in the moment and give your all every day at practice.” 

    This story is part of a partnership between the Newton Beacon and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Young people sound off on Newton’s new ‘Tobacco-free Generation’ policy

    Newton North High School senior Tija Brown first heard of Newton’s new tobacco ordinance—which will prohibit anyone born after March 1, 2004, from purchasing tobacco and nicotine products in town—from two of her teachers arguing about it in AP Statistics.  

    Brown, who serves as a teacher’s assistant for the course, was passing out worksheets about Massachusetts’ November ballot question on legalizing psychedelics. One of Brown’s teachers was thrilled that something was being done to prevent young people from getting addicted to tobacco, and the other claimed people’s ability to make their own decisions was their constitutional right. 

    The Newton City Council approved the ordinance Jan. 21 by a 19-4 vote. Newton joins several other communities that have passed generational tobacco bans, including Brookline, Malden, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield and Winchester.

    The goal: make tobacco and nicotine less and less accessible. Because the ordinance bars anyone born after a specific date from buying the products, it will eventually become impossible to do so in Newton. In 2064, there could be 60-year-olds asking their 61-year-old friends to buy a cigarette for them, like they’re college freshmen trying to get into a club with a fake ID.

    While Brown talked about the ordinance with her teachers, she hasn’t heard much about it from her peers. However, she supports it.

    Tobacco is “very addictive, and can be addictive super fast, and I would say people start getting addicted at younger ages,” said Brown, who hopes to study biology on a pre-med track in college. “Banning them from buying it at the younger ages is very smart so it prevents the younger people from ever developing an addiction.”

    Nine out of 10 adults who are addicted to nicotine started before they were 18, according to the American Cancer Society. Because young people’s brains are still developing, it is much easier for them to get addicted to nicotine.

    At Newton North, Brown said she doesn’t see many people smoking cigarettes; students gravitate toward Juul products, which contain “nicotine salts from tobacco leaves,” according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. One Juul pod has roughly the same amount of nicotine as a pack of cigarettes, according to the National Library of Medicine. A Juul pod lasts roughly 200 puffs — anywhere between a few hours to one day depending on the user. 

    Sophia Keohane, a 20-year-old Newton native, remembers exactly when vaping became all the rage. “It was kind of like ice cream,” she said. 

    “By the time we started learning about the dangers of tobacco, people were already vaping,”  Keohane said. 

    While Keohane does not smoke or use tobacco, she doesn’t think the ordinance will have its intended effect because young people can go to neighboring towns to buy cigarettes or vape products. She sees the ban as “another example of the legal system trying to make up for things that should be compensated with education.”

    “After a certain point, it becomes a little ridiculous, and I think we need to start focusing on educating children and telling them what is OK for their health and best support them there and then allow them to make informed decisions after,” Keohane said.

    Brown said her tobacco education was limited to discussions in eighth and ninth grade health class, by which point students who were vaping were already addicted because of the high nicotine content in those products. She barely remembers the lessons and thinks “they could definitely get better.”    

    Tobey Lowe, a 22-year-old graduate of Newton North who works as a quality assurance coordinator at a dietary supplements company, said he feels “half and half” about the ordinance. While he believes the tobacco industry is “criminal” in how it targets people’s addictions, he isn’t sure this ordinance is the most effective way to curtail that.

    Lowe, rather, thinks “you’d have to go after the companies themselves” and educate young people better on the dangers of tobacco in order to limit its use. 

    “Targeting an issue like this can’t be so localized,” Lowe said. “People can drive even 10 minutes away and get the product.”

    Michael Sheen, the owner of Lake Smoke & Vape in Newton, shares Lowe’s sentiment. While Sheen does not think the ordinance will have a significant impact on his business—most of his customers are over 30—he worries that the ordinance will only increase “black market” nicotine sales, which he feels are more dangerous.

    Sheen has been in the e-cigarette business since 2013 and went into it with the intention of “getting people off the cigarette.” He said he “firmly believes” e-cigarettes, while not ideal, are safer than traditional nicotine products.

    According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, e-cigarette aerosol tends to have fewer harmful chemicals than traditional cigarettes but still contain nicotine and other cancer-causing chemicals. The long-term effects of e-cigarettes are still being studied.

    A Newton resident himself, Sheen first heard about the ordinance through word of mouth from fellow smoke shop owners. He was frustrated that the City Council didn’t send them a notice or give them a chance to discuss the ordinance. 

    “People that are going to want to smoke are going to smoke,” Sheen said. “At least when they come in here, I can talk to them and try to get them off of cigarettes.”