Goals for the 2023-2024 school year
What are some of your goals as the interm superintendent this year?
We have a number of new people on our leadership team, so supporting [them] to make sure that they're successful is really important. Working closely with the Wayland Teachers Association to make sure that teachers feel supported is really important, and also working in partnership with our school committee to make sure that they are supporting the schools, and that we make the best decisions for Wayland. Whether it's about budget or programs, it is really important to connect with residents in the community. So over the next few weeks, I'm having meetings at each school with parents and family members about what they're looking forward to, questions they have and to share our goals. We also want to make sure that we have enough supports in place for social and emotional needs. I mentioned belonging, but there's also the social and emotional part of school as well as ensuring we have academic programs that meet the needs of students.
Could give an example of how you plan to support the teachers as well as the School Committee?
I meet every other week with the leaders of the Wayland Teachers Association to hear what's on the teachers’ minds, their concerns and how we can support them. [On Oct. 18], at Loker School and on Thursday, [Oct. 19], at Wellesley High School, we're meeting with parents to talk about our goals for the year surrounding diversity, equity and belonging and supporting the social emotional needs of students. Strengthening special education is [one] goal, so parents can hear about that at the meeting. Mostly what I like to do is answer questions because I find people like to ask questions, which is good.
Could give us any specific examples of programs you're running to meet the social and emotional needs of students?
It varies by level. For example, there's a lot of training going on in the area of supporting students around mental health. There's some training called dialectical behavior therapy that's taking place, which started before [I was hired], where a lot of the psychologists and other counselors are getting trained to provide additional support to students with mental health needs. I think that mental health has also been a priority in Wayland over the last several years. For mental health in general, we’re focusing on making sure there’s enough staff and specialized programs for students who need them. But before I can come up with recommendations for improvements, I really need to work with people who are already here and say, “What do you need?” Then I think about what's worked in the past and if we have the resources to add programs and resources, which we won't know until we get the number for our budget.
According to a school committee meeting, we know that the budget for the 2023- 2024 school year is a little tighter than usual. Do you plan to make any changes with the budget?
Most of the budget in a school district is to pay for the personnels’ salaries. Those decisions were made last year, so there's very little money left besides personnel. You really can't change a budget for a current school year coming in because so much of it is personnel [budgets] and those decisions are made going into the year before. Yes, the budget is tight, but we have enough staff, employees and teachers.
What will the 2024-2025 school budget look like?
Great question. We're going to start working on that soon. We’ll start coming up with the recommended budget to present to the School Committee in December, so the budget in Wayland starts really early on. I'm used to a much later process.
Do you have any other ongoing projects that you want to highlight?
There's a lot of focus on early literacy right now, which includes identifying students who need support and refining what literacy support is. We're really trying to focus on diversity, equity and belonging, and I attended a training for elementary teachers the other day, which was very well done. Around academics is the focus on early literacy, and around mental health is the focus for professional development.