Superintendent’s Bulletin 10/2/26

Dear Colleagues,

Happy October! I’ve noticed the leaves really beginning to turn this week as we enter my favorite New England season. There’s nothing like a warm apple cider donut on a crisp morning!  (My daughters revel in sweater weather and feel the sudden desire to binge-watch Gilmore Girls.)

Thanks to the P.A.W.S. staff for hosting their second back-to-school night on Thursday of this week. Thanks also to Katie Bender and her team at the Child Lab at WHS for allowing me to join them on Tuesday morning.  

We have a busy weekend of activities on tap beginning with the Sprague Fall Fest and Movie Night on Friday at 5pm.  Also on Friday, we have WHS Football under the lights at the Track and Field vs. Weymouth at 6pm.  On Saturday, the Bates Pumpkin Fair will be held from 12pm-4pm. All great activities that help bring our community together! 

On the facilities front this week, School Committee Chair Niki Ofenloch and I participated in a meeting of the Town-wide Capital Planning Committee (“CapCom”) on Monday.  This is the group that will help guide the Town’s thinking on the many capital projects on deck for the future.  In addition to the school air-conditioning project, the Town’s needs for improved fire stations and the Department of Public Works are significant and will require a great deal of discussion and planning to move forward. I’m glad that WPS has a seat at this table to ensure our school needs will be part of this town-wide planning. 

Thanks for what you do each day to support our students, our families, and each other.

      

Best, David

October 6 – School Committee Meeting

October 12 – Indigenous Peoples Day (Schools & Offices Closed) 

October 20 – School Committee Meeting

October 27 – School Committee Meeting

Lilian Malo, Accounting Coordinator Accounts Receivable in Central Office, on the passing of her father in August.

Thiago Manso, District Registrar in Central Office, on the passing of his father on September 24. 

Wellesley Public Schools K-5 Spanish Program has been named the 2026 recipient of ACTFL’s Melba D. Woodruff Award for Exemplary Elementary World Language Program. This national honor recognizes excellence in elementary language education. For eleven years, this program has given every Wellesley elementary student access to Spanish, building a proficiency-based foundation that connects to our K-12 world language pathway.

Congratulations to Bárbara Barnett and our K-5 Spanish educators, and thank you to the students, families, and members of this Committee who have supported this work from the beginning. The program will be celebrated at the ACTFL Convention in San Antonio on November 20.

The WHS Child Lab is now accepting applications for the 2027-2028 school year. Children who will be three years old or four years old by September 1st, 2027 are eligible to apply. Please contact Katie Bender at benderk@wellesleyps.org for an application. All applications are due by November 15th.

The Massachusetts Executive Office of Education issued guidance to help districts and other educational entities plan their response protocol for interactions with federal immigration officers. We are reviewing our current internal protocol for interacting with immigration officers to ensure it aligns with the recommendations in the document. Once any adjustments are made, the district will share more information about our protocol with WPS staff.

As part of Wellesley Public Schools’ ongoing work to ensure that we are fully compliant with the digital accessibility requirements by April 2028, we want to share two draft resources that are now available for your reference. First, we have gathered a variety of materials on our WPS Digital Accessibility website, which will continue to be updated over time. Additionally, a Digital Accessibility Checklist is available to use as a handy reference when creating or updating documents, slide decks, and webpages. This checklist is a quick way to help verify that your materials feature properly formatted headings, alternative text for images, and are fully screen-readable for all students and families.

On April 28, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) unanimously approved a new alternative pathway for educator licensure. This change allows qualified candidates to waive the Communication and Literacy Skills test (CLST) if they meet specific criteria, such as holding an advanced degree, completing a state-approved prep program, possessing a comparable out-of-state license, or having two years of documented instructional experience.

This milestone is a testament to our collective advocacy, including AFT and the MTA, as well as Leader Alice Peisch, Senator and the MA Black and Latino Caucus, for their essential testimony and letters of support.

For a full list of eligibility requirements and FAQs, please visit the DESE website.

Graduate credit courses offered through the Albion Center at Idaho State University will no longer be accepted for credit by Wellesley Public Schools. This decision follows a recent message from the Massachusetts School Superintendents’ Association indicating that the program is under review due to concerns about the rigor of its coursework. While Idaho State University courses may still be applied toward professional development points (PDPs), they will no longer count as graduate-level credit within WPS for lane changes. Please reach out to Sandy Trach, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, with any questions.

As we look toward the next school year, the district will be transitioning from Zoom to Google Meet as our primary video conferencing platform for general staff use. This shift, which will take effect this summer, allows us to be more fiscally responsible by fully utilizing our Google Education Plus license. In addition, Google Meet now offers several helpful new features, including Adaptive Audio, which eliminates echo when multiple staff members join a meeting from the same room, live translated captions in over 65 languages, and a picture-in-picture mode that allows the user to view the Meet and relevant documents at the same time.

This change won’t happen until this summer, which will give everyone the remainder of the school year to explore the platform and receive assistance from the Tech Dept. Please visit the Tech Dept. contact page to submit a Help Desk ticket or to find a member of the department assigned to your building.

The MTRS has many members who do not have a beneficiary on file. This Spring, these members will receive either an email or a mailed letter (if no email address on file) asking them to designate a beneficiary.

To designate or change a beneficiary, members must sign and mail the Beneficiary Designation Form to our Main Office.

If MTRS members have questions, please email annstmt@trb.state.ma.us.

The Town of Wellesley offers an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to support employees and their families.  Effective July 1, 2025, CMG Associates is the new EAP provider (see announcement). Employees may want to access the EAP because of emotional difficulties, life stress, family difficulties, concerns about substance abuse or other addictive behavior, legal or financial problems, or other personal issues. The EAP is completely free, confidential, and available at all times (day or night, weekdays, weekends, and holidays). Employees may call CMG Associates at 888-851-7032, or they may visit www.cmgassociates.com, click on the link entitled EAP Log-In, and use the User ID: WELL.

SMART Plan (457 Voluntary Retirement Savings) 

May make changes throughout the year through the company.

Work directly through US Omni and the SMART Plan.

Email AskHR@Wellesleyps.org. The Human Resources Department is happy to assist you.  

For all Internal Job Postings, please go to “Internal Job Postings” under the Faculty tab of the District’s website. How to Apply for WPS Internal Job Postings as a New Internal Applicant