Thumbs up to Sanford High School boy’s varsity soccer team, other volunteers and those who contributed loam and lumber to repair the damage done by a vandal to one of the soccer fields at Shaw field on Monday. Someone who apparently had too much time on their hands and

too few brains drove a car through the fence and etched circles into the grass turf over the weekend.

Thumbs up to cities of Biddeford and Saco for hosting a ceremony this Saturday to dedicate the pedestrian bridge, which opened late last year, that links the two cities’ mill districts. The ceremony symbolizes the cities’ desire to work together as they develop their respective

mill districts into one, vibrant community. It is much more beneficial to citizens of both cities if Biddeford and Saco view one another as collaborators rather than competitors.

Thumbs down to the implementation of the Smarter Balanced Assessment, which suffered from middling to dismal participation rates in York County and beyond. The test was designed to assess the Maine Learning Results in elementary, middle and high school students.

However, the rollout was marked by a misguided opt-out movement and school districts who didn’t effectively communicate the purpose and usefulness of the test. Hopefully, with a new test coming soon, parents and administrators will have learned a valuable lesson and Maine will make a smoother transition to proficiency-based education.

Thumbs up to the Old Orchard Beach field hockey team, which picked up its first win in two years on Tuesday against Waynflete/McAuley. The Lady Gulls put in plenty of hard work over the past two seasons and it finally paid off for them. Congratulations to coach Shauna

Gagne-Regan and the entire Old Orchard Beach field hockey program.

Thumbnails is a Friday feature of the Journal Tribune’s opinion pages. If you want to respond, feel free to write to the Readers’ Forum via e-mail (jtcommunity@journaltribune.com) or by dropping your letter off at our office.