Dear Shrewsbury Families, Colleagues, & Community Members,
Today, most Muslim families are observing Eid al-Adha, and on behalf of our school district I wish everyone celebrating a joyful holiday with your family.
Today’s date is also an important date in American history, as 81 years ago today about 160,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy on D-Day, beginning the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe in order to, as General Dwight Eisenhower wrote in his letter to the troops, achieve “the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.” Today we remember the courage and sacrifices of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who fought in World War II to defeat fascism.
Please read on for information on the SHS Graduation, celebration of exceptional efforts by staff, gratitude for our retirees, and an update on my evaluation by the School Committee and the accompanying feedback surveys.
1) Congratulations to the Shrewsbury High School Class of 2025! The SHS Senior Class recently marked the completion of their time in our school district with the Senior Picnic, Senior Prom, Commemoration, Senior/Faculty Dinner, and Graduation. Our students, faculty and staff, and administration worked hard to make these first class events to celebrate this important milestone in our graduates’ lives. You can view the Graduation ceremony here and the student-produced Senior Video here, and you can read my remarks to the class here. On behalf of everyone in SPS, best wishes to our graduates for future success, and thank you to their families for supporting them, to our entire community for providing the necessary resources, and to all of our staff who provided them with an excellent education from preschool through high school.
2) Honoring exceptional efforts by our staff: This past Wednesday, the School Committee and State Representative Hannah Kane celebrated several SPS staff members, two of whom were honored at the state level for outstanding performance and others who were recognized for heroic life-saving efforts. Noelle Freeman, our Director of School Nursing, was congratulated for being named the Massachusetts Nurse Administrator of the Year. Albert Muñoz, Adjustment Counselor at SHS, was commended for being a recipient of the Massachusetts 2025 Latino Educators Shine Award for excellence. Michele Crouse, Pamela Johnson, and Kayleigh Webert (SHS School Nurses); Richard Doherty (SHS Physics and Engineering Teacher); and Officer Trevor Andrews (Shrewsbury PD School Resource Officer) were recognized for saving the life of an SHS student who experienced a heart event, including administering CPR and shocks from an automatic defibrillator. The student’s family reported that only 1 in 10 people who experience this issue outside of a hospital survive, and many of those have lasting brain damage – our student not only survived but has no adverse effects thanks to our staff’s fast, expert response. Click here to view all of these outstanding professionals being recognized at the meeting.
3) Gratitude for our retirees: This past Wednesday, the School Committee also recognized SPS staff who are retiring at the close of this school year. These individuals served our district for a collective 349 years, and we are grateful that they chose a career that made a difference in the lives of our community’s children. Thank you to school secretaries Helen Kvaracein (Sherwood) and Lynda McBride (Floral Street); paraeducators Ruth Haynes (SHS) and Renee Solis (Spring Street); teachers/professional staff Whitney Archambealt (Art at Beal & Floral Street); Matthew Fall (Special Education at Oak); Donna Ferris (Health at SHS); Pamela Johnson (Nurse at SHS); Heather Leger (French at SHS); Kimberly Nikula (Health at Oak); Anne Ross (Grade 4 at Floral Street); Sandra Sorenson (Nurse at Coolidge); and Debra Stanwick (Grade 3 at Floral Street); and district leaders Rob Dunn (Middle Level Social Studies Coordinator); Noelle Freeman (Director of School Nursing); Thomas O’Toole (Director of Performing Arts); and Scott Yonker (Assistant Principal at Oak). You can see details about their years of service here, and view that portion of the School Committee here. Thank you to all of our retirees for their service!
4) Update on my evaluation and accompanying feedback surveys: The School Committee recently completed my annual evaluation. You can view the evaluation document here, and the presentation of the evaluation by the School Committee here. I am grateful to the School Committee for their thorough review of my performance and for their comments.
As part of my evaluation process, as I have done from time to time in the past, I offered the opportunity for families, community members, and staff to provide anonymous feedback regarding my work as your superintendent. Soliciting anonymous feedback can be informative and helpful, both in terms of constructive criticism and what stakeholders find to be effective. While this year’s staff data was generally consistent with what has been submitted in the past (this year’s data here, previous survey here), the feedback from the parent/community survey was extremely different.
As the School Committee members referenced in their remarks during my evaluation, it appears from the date and time stamps and similarities in language that a small number of individuals used the anonymous survey platform to make repeated submissions with the lowest rating and with comments highly critical of me or other SPS staff. You can view the family/community ratings from this year’s survey here, and the previous survey here. Similarly, SPS offered families, community members, and staff an opportunity to provide feedback regarding the culture and climate of our schools in November. This was also an anonymous survey and it also appears that there were very similar multiple submissions with highly critical comments on the SHS portion of the survey. Given the privacy rights of our students and personnel, I am working with our district’s legal counsel regarding the redaction of comments from both these surveys that identify students or families or staff and should not be released publicly. However, you can view a number of examples of the kinds of critical comments about me that were repeatedly submitted here, along with a sample of some comments with other perspectives.
Over my 28 years serving SPS, the last 16 as superintendent, while I am proud to have enjoyed a high level of support from families, community members, and staff, there of course have inevitably been some who have been dissatisfied with my leadership. Please note that should you wish to provide any feedback about my leadership to the School Committee at any time, please reach out to them – their contact information is here.
Thank you for your continued support of our public schools.
Respectfully,
Joe Sawyer
Superintendent of Schools