■A battle between the selectmen and school Superintendent Ronald Fitzgerald is shaping up in Amherst over the control of the town’s educational cable television channel. The selectmen last night blasted Fitzgerald for asserting in two memoranda to the board that the regional school district had responsibility for operating and programming Channel 8.
■A folk singing festival was held Sunday afternoon in the geriatric unit of Northampton State Hospital. A group calling themselves The Barrel entertained approximately 50 patients who enjoyed the concert and refreshments that were served.
■Home schooling is on the rise across the country, and perhaps nowhere locally so much as Amherst, where the number of students being educated at home has more than doubled in the past two years. Some 63 of Amherst’s 3,700 students are now taught at home, and school officials are finding it increasingly difficult to monitor their progress.
■A local agency is spearheading efforts to buy and renovate an apartment house on Hawley Street for use by mentally disabled people. The Gazette learned yesterday that a nonprofit corporation created by Service Net Inc. has secured a $600,000 federal Housing and Urban Development grant for the project at 36-38 Hawley St.
■City schools are poised for change this fall, with several new administrators in place — including a new principal at Bridge Street School — and the School Committee expected to settle the long-discussed idea for a later start time at Northampton High School.
■When school starts in September, students at Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School will be greeted by a new superintendent. Jeffrey R. Peterson, a former assistant principal at Chicopee Comprehensive High School, was hired in June to replace Arthur Apostolou, who is retiring Aug. 31 after 18 years at Smith Voke, the past four as superintendent.