Dear Friends,Happy Back to School! I hope you have all had a fun and restorative summer and a smooth start to the school year for those with kiddos who headed back this week. I think I speak for many when I ask, "Why is the first week of school always 27 days long?"
ELECTION UPDATE
As we head into the school year, we also head into the meat of campaign season for the election on November 4th. As many of you know, my opponent decided to not submit nomination papers and so I am now running unopposed. I am so grateful to all of you for your support - from donations, to lawn signs, to hosting events and spreading the word - thank you! This will be a consequential election cycle for the School Committee with 7 of the 9 seats turning over. I encourage all of you to read the candidate interviews that are being published by our local papers, tune into the debates that will be coming your way soon on NewTV, and try to attend a meet-and-greet or other event where you can ask questions and get to know the candidates running for School Committee. I believe School Committee Members should be firmly rooted in what is in the best interests of students. This may sound obvious but there is variation in how candidates interpret it so I encourage you to learn about each race - all SC seats are at-large so you can (and should!) vote for every seat.
SCHOOL COMMITTEE RETREAT
We had our School Committee Retreat on August 21st, and it was great to see how eager and enthusiastic our Superintendent and her team were to dive into this year's work. An incredible amount of planning and work was accomplished this summer and there was a lot of positive energy around the many things they will tackle this year. The agenda included Teaching & Learning Department updates covering the new Math Pathways work that will be discussed at an SC meeting this fall, and new data capabilities that represent another big step forward in our ability as a district to use data to make decisions. We also spent time on details of the 5 Year Strategic Plan and the data dashboard we will use to measure progress. I'm really excited about how quickly we are building some data muscle in NPS. The group also discussed how the committee functions in general and I requested we consider adding regular "office hours" for SC members to be available to teachers and staff at schools at times that are most convenient for teachers. We currently hold four forums per year at schools, but I'd love to see this greatly expanded with the goal of SC members gaining a deeper understanding of what teachers are experiencing every day in their classrooms and increasing communication and transparency. School Committee Meetings start up on Monday, Sept 8th and I know you are all dying to tune in! Link is here! See you at 7pm! As always, please don't hesitate to reach out with questions, concerns or just to talk schools. I'd love to hear from you! Alicia
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