Dear Shrewsbury Families, Colleagues, & Community Members,
Upon the completion of the school year earlier this week, I want to thank our staff for their skillful efforts throughout the year to help our students learn and grow academically, socially, and emotionally; our families for being supportive partners in your children’s education; and our community for providing the resources necessary to do this important work.
I continue to be very proud of the quality of education that we provide to our community’s children and adolescents. As we begin the summer school vacation, please know that our educators and leaders will be engaged with ongoing learning, including through our district’s annual summer professional development institute next week, graduate coursework, conferences, and workshops as we strive for continuous improvement and work to implement our strategic plan, and make the most of our community’s investment in public education through effective long-term planning.
We also will be offering robust summer programming for our students. If you are interested in enrolling your child in one of our summer enrichment, reading, or robotics programs, you can find information here on how to enroll in these terrific opportunities!
Please also note the following:
1) At last week’s School Committee meeting, we recognized several student state champions. Congratulations to the following students:
- SHS Speech and Debate state champions: Nuha Salam, Dramatic Performance; and Vasudevan Lakshmanan, Extemporaneous Speaking
- SHS DECA business competition state champions: Arthi Kannan, Principles of Hospitality and Tourism; Griffin Walsh, Principles of Marketing; and Emmanuel Yu, Principles of Entrepreneurship
- SHS Science Fair state champion: Nichelle Thinagar for Creating a Soft Biomimetic Robotic Snake With an Anisotropically Frictional Skin Design for Rubble Search and Recovery earned the top prize Sanofi Grand Award at the Science and Engineering State Fair along with a bid to the International Science and Engineering Fair
Our community is proud of these students’ remarkable accomplishments!
2) The School Committee also accepted multiple generous gifts last week, including the following:
- $35,000 from WIN Waste Innovations for career technical education opportunities for students
- $10,000 from an anonymous donor to the Colonial Fund, getting us to the amount needed to purchase an Anatomage Table for our high school biological science courses
- $8,000 from Lexus of Northborough to assist with start-up costs to add Boys Volleyball as an interscholastic sport at SHS in the spring of 2026.
These gifts brought the total of philanthropic donations and sponsorships to over $300,000 for our district for this school year, allowing us to further advance our strategic goals through these alternative funding sources. A huge thank you to all of our generous donors!
3) The Massachusetts Statewide Graduation Council was formed by Governor Healey to gather feedback regarding a new state graduation requirement for public high schools, now that passing the MCAS test is no longer a requirement for a diploma. The Statewide Graduation council has launched an online survey to expand opportunities for public input. Students, parents and caregivers, educators, school counselors, businesses and community residents can complete the survey at this link, or by visiting Mass.gov/K12GradCouncil by June 30, 2025.
4) Updated feedback information: In my last update, I communicated that SPS offered families, community members, and staff an opportunity to provide feedback regarding the culture and climate of our schools in November (results from choice items were reported publicly in December, see here). Similar to my recent evaluation survey, there were a series of highly critical entries in the SHS comments portion of the survey that based on similarity of language and timing appeared to have come from the same source(s). Given the privacy rights of our students and personnel, I worked with our district’s legal counsel regarding the redaction of comments that identify students or families or staff other than myself and should not be released publicly. That process is now complete and those survey results can be viewed here.
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.
5) The first day of the new school year will be Wednesday, August 27: While summer vacation has just begun, it will fly by, so here is a reminder that the first day of school for students in grades 1 through 12 and in the RISE Program will be Wednesday, August 27. Preschool and kindergarten students and their families will visit their new classrooms on August 27 and begin school on Thursday, August 28. Click here to view next school year’s calendar, and click here to see versions of the calendar translated in multiple languages.
Thank you for your continued support of our public schools. All the best for celebrations of Juneteenth, Pride Month, and Independence Day, and I hope you have a terrific summer season!
Respectfully,
Joe Sawyer
Superintendent of Schools