ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE SUPERINTENDENT

Transcript (~3 min @ 2:42)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 2:15 Speaker 1: Okay, welcome back from executive session. The school committee unanimously adopted both items. The first one deals with student confidentiality, so I won't speak to it. The second one dealt with our traffic supervisors' contract, where they've received increased pay, some sick leave closer to some similar districts, which we're hoping will help build up our pool of people looking to work for us, some uniform stipends, and just generally the goal of getting more people who want to come be crossing guards here for the Melrose Public Schools. So, thank you for the negotiating team. We were represented by the school committee by Ms. Holleran, so that was great. Thank you so much. Now we'll move into announcements of the superintendent.

▶ 2:58 Speaker 5: Thank you, Chairman Kelley. I have two quick announcements that I'd like to provide before sharing the two agenda items. So, I just would like to start and take a moment to reflect on the past year and express my deepest gratitude to all of you. It certainly has been a rewarding first year serving the district as the superintendent, and I deeply appreciate all the warmth, partnership, and support that I've been shown along the way. Our schools are truly defined by the strength of this community, and I'm so thankful to be part of this team. Over the last few weeks, I did have the privilege of attending several of our end-of-year celebrations, including the Roosevelt fifth grade kickball game. Quite warm out there, but it was really exciting and really fun to watch. I was able to see the celebration of our middle schools at the eighth grade moving on ceremony, and like many of you, watch our seniors cross the stage at graduation. I also made it a top priority to pop into classrooms the last two days of school, and I think I was able to pop into the entire district. Not everyone was always in their classroom, so I found a lot of people on the playground or in some other spaces. But it was really great to experience the laughter and learning that was going on and really continued right up until that last day. And I just want to share my appreciation for each and every educator for their dedication and their way that they were able to maintain routines and high expectations to that very last day. And just thank you to our staff, students, and families for a wonderful first year, and I look forward to seeing everyone back on August 31st for the '26, '27 school year. Second, I just wanted to give a quick update on the Winthrop playground. So, the Winthrop stakeholder group recently met to discuss the plans for the new school playground. The goal is to have a new playground ready for our students as close to the start of the fall school year as possible. This stakeholder group is made up of a variety of voices from across the Winthrop community. Dr. Tracy, the principal, is part of that, Ken Kelley, representing our school leadership, Jim Troupe from DPW, Rob Carrillo from Parks and Rec. In addition, we're also guided by the direct input of two of our teachers, a Winthrop student, and a few dedicated Winthrop parents, including a city councilor and PTO rep. So right now, this group is actively reviewing all of the proposals to ensure our new space meets all of our needs, and our immediate next step is to secure a contractor or a contract with a vendor who can commit to our really tight timeline and complete this work efficiently. So we're just moving quickly because our goal is to ensure our students have a great space to play as early in the fall as possible. So, thank you all for your continued support on that as well. And then moving into our two agenda items. You have a personnel report in your packet, and this is the time we're going to see lots of changes in that personnel report, but I'm certainly happy to answer any questions that you may have