May 28, 2020
Dear Shrewsbury Families & Colleagues,
I am communicating updates to you through this email and this five-minute video message, which includes information about our planning for summer and next fall and our budget situation.
Please note:
1) At last night's School Committee meeting, which can be viewed in its entirety here, the administration provided an update on ways we are honoring the Class of 2020, remote learning, and special education issues, and also reported on the serious budget crisis we face next year (for the budget report, click here for the introductory slides and here for detailed financial information). I will keep you updated as the our financial circumstances evolve as we learn more about the levels of reduction from state funding and whether any additional federal funding will be provided.
2) Congratulations to the Shrewsbury High School Speech & Debate team, who earned second place in the state championships! This is a remarkable achievement for the team, Head Coach Marc Rischitelli, and the assistant coaches given that due to the pandemic the team members had to shift from in-person competition to performing virtually over videoconference, which is an excellent example of adapting to challenging circumstances and persevering. Congratulations as well to three SHS students who won individual state championships: Sophia Peng (Informative Speaking); Haleema Siddiqui (Poetry Reading); and Pranav Vadlamudi (Play Reading).
3) Time is running out: Please log your minutes of physical activity as we attempt to reach the goal for our community to complete 2,002,000 minutes of physical activity during the month of May to honor the great SHS Class of 2020. Click here for the link to quickly log your minutes (you can make entries for previous days as well). Please take a few minutes to add your physical activity to the total!
Finally, I hope that all of our families and staff who celebrated Eid al-Fitr earlier this week had an enjoyable holiday. Also, in case you missed it this past Monday, we had several SPS students participate in our town's virtual Memorial Day ceremony, which you can watch here.
Thank you for your continued support of the Shrewsbury Public Schools.
Respectfully,
Joe Sawyer
Superintendent of Schools