← School Committee · 2026-07-28 · School Committee Meeting
Report: Personnel
Agenda original PDF
Minutes original PDF
ents will return on September 2nd, and kindergarten students will return on September 8th. 1. Report: Personnel Superintendent Berman presented the personnel report from the packet, noting the very busy time of year for principals, hiring teams, and the business office. Many of the new hires are a result of the 17 additional positions funded by the override. She also noted there were some resignations, as this is typically a time of year when families move and 1 people make career changes, and she reviewed the district's remaining open positions. Discussion included: what the candidate pool looks like this year, the ongoing difficulty in hiring for special education positions, and how our starting salaries are more competitive than they have been. 2. Report: Enrollment Updates The Superintendent shared the enrollment report from the packet and offered to answer any questions. 3. Report: Winthrop Playground Update Superintendent Berman gave an update on the status of the playground at the Winthrop School. She discussed: the timeline to have the playground completed this fall, the stakeholders involved in the planning gro
Transcript
▶ 3:59 Speaker 5: Great. Thank you, Chairman Kelley. I have quite a few announcements tonight, so I apologize in advance. Before we get started on the ones that are listed, I just wanted to report a few things that are happening on campus so far this summer. Ed Stations and our Summer Learning Academy are in full swing. We've had a great turnout this year at The Lincoln, which is our elementary site, and the middle school, which is our secondary site. And students are continuing their learning, and it's truly just very nice to see. DPW, in addition, is doing lots of works to our buildings and our grounds, including cleaning and some projects that have been outlined. A detailed report will be provided to you once those summer projects are complete, and we can share all of the information and all of the good work that's being done. In addition, IT is also working in our buildings, repairing and replacing equipment across the district. And I'm just thankful for everyone who's putting in the time to ensure that our buildings are ready to welcome students and staff that first, well, I guess last week of August, so on August 31st. Which reminds me, I'll just begin the reminders that our educators return to work on Monday, August 31st, and Tuesday, September 1st, to engage in professional development. I know August hasn't hit yet, so it seems a little bit early, but just figure I'd say that out loud. Our students in grades one through 12 and our pre-K students will return on Wednesday, September 2nd, and our kindergarten students will come back after the Labor Day holiday, on September 8th. Next week, the parents and our educators will be receiving a midsummer update that will include this information as well as some other reminders. So now I will jump into what is listed. In front of you, you have the personnel report in your packet. I'll just preface it by saying that you can see that it's certainly a very busy time of year for our principals and our hiring teams and the business office as well. Many of the hires that have occurred recently are the result of the 17 additional positions brought to us by the override. You will also see that we have had some resignations, and this is typical This is the time of year when often some families are moving and people are making some career choices and different decisions. So we do see that movement. I do want to highlight that we have had many of our teaching positions that have been filled across the district. I'm really excited about that. In addition, many of our administrative positions have also been filled. So that includes the Director of Academics 6 through 12 for STEM, our Director of Visual and Performing Arts and Student Activities, the Winthrop Assistant Principal and Elementary Curriculum Coordinator position, and the Lincoln Assistant Principal. So those have all been filled. And then I usually wouldn't share the open positions. However, I did a cross-reference of what's on SchoolSpring and with the principals today. I just feel like it's important given the time of year, that I'm just very explicit on what's open in each of our schools. All of the positions that are discussed are accounted for in the FY27 budget and listed. Many of the following positions that I'll share currently have finalists or are in the interview process, but someone hasn't signed on the dotted line yet. We still have both first and second round interviews that are occurring also this week. So frankly, we need two special education/early childhood teachers. We are looking for a dual certification for that, and many of our early elementary educators hold that. Horace Mann's fully staffed. Hoover is fully staffed. Lincoln has two special education teachers, and we also are looking to finalize our family and community social worker. Roosevelt is still looking for an assistant principal, a second-grade teacher, a fourth-grade teacher, two special education teachers to work with in our DLC program, and two paraprofessionals. Winthrop, because of a recent shift in change, they are looking for a fifth-grade teacher. However, they already have a pool of candidates from a prior search. So that just occurred. So they're pretty close to that, and they have a grade three long-term sub that they're looking for. The middle school has three special education teachers, a sixth-grade science teacher. They are currently in the process of looking for a replacement for an assistant principal and an MLL teacher, so that's a multilingual learner teacher. MHS is fully staffed. And then district-wide, we do have one multi-language learning teacher that's for elementary. We're looking for a .4 general education music at the elementary. And then we are looking for an elementary speech and language pathologist and an elementary special education coordinator. And then we also have our daily student supports and para positions that will be posted shortly. We have a few that are moving from maybe one elementary school to another based on needs of students, but we're working within our budgeted amount of staff to be able to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our children. So, that is the personnel report. Again, more than I would usually state or share, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.
▶ 9:15 Speaker 1: Any questions about the personnel report? Ms. Roszie Thomas.
▶ 9:19 Speaker 2: A couple. So, it seems like there are many positions open at Roosevelt, like you said at the beginning of your explanation around the personnel issues. Are there many finalists and many about to be filled there?
▶ 9:33 Speaker 5: I'm hopeful, yes. Okay. I do think that general education classroom teachers at the elementary level have gotten a number of candidates. We have been able to get candidates to fill positions who are qualified and ready to hit the ground running. We continue the trend of having difficulty staffing some of our special education positions- Mm-hmm ... especially some of those working with our special populations. Mm-hmm. And some of our specialists, you'll see in the speech and language pathologist. Although we, I think, hopefully have a candidate for that as well. Fingers and toes crossed. So, yep.
▶ 10:10 Speaker 2: In terms of this year in comparison to previous years, how are we doing in terms of hiring up?
▶ 10:17 Speaker 5: Yeah. I guess it's looked a little different in past years, just because we've had cuts and we've had movements in different ways. Mm-hmm. However, I would say the candidate pool in those general education positions that I shared are- Okay ... it is bigger, but we're still struggling in some of those areas.
▶ 10:33 Speaker 2: All right. Because I know that across the state, every municipality virtually had to tighten their belt this year, not just Melrose. I mean, Melrose was very fortunate to get the override passed this year. So our situation's actually quite different, but it's a great time to hire because so many other towns and cities are laying off educators. So this works to our advantage. I don't know if you're seeing any of that.
▶ 10:56 Speaker 5: I think so. In discussing with the principals, and again, just looking at the qualified and certified people- Yeah ... I do think we are seeing some of that. I do think some people who hold some of those specialized licensures- Yeah ... if it's maybe special ed, they also have an elementary ed or a middle school, and oftentimes they're looking to do that as opposed to continuing in that special education realm.
▶ 11:19 Speaker 2: Or they're going to the highest bidder kind of thing too? Yeah. All right. How are we doing with our new contracts in terms of being competitive? Have you seen any change?
▶ 11:29 Speaker 5: Yeah. From what I understand, and Ken Kelley can correct me, I don't think we're getting potentially the same pushback as we had in the past. I think when we have a candidate who has a certain number of years that we're able to give them credit for in a prior district, I think it's a much better situation than it was in past. Okay. And I don't know if, Ken, you want to add anything to that question?
▶ 11:49 Speaker 2: No, you're correct. Our starting salaries are more competitive than they have been in the past, and we've had less pushback for people starting in those early steps. Okay, great. Thank you.