It is with deep sadness that we inform you of the passing of Nicole Downs, a beloved math teacher and former field hockey coach at Marshfield High School. After a long illness, Ms. Downs has left our school community having made immeasurable contributions to our students' lives and education. Nicole will forever be in the hearts of the Marshfield School Community. Our warm thoughts and condolences go out to all of Nicole's family, friends, colleagues, and students during this difficult time.

Congratulations to Mrs. Pam Habel, South River Kindergarten Teacher, who is this week's Educator of the Week. Mrs. Habel is everything you’d hope for in a kindergarten teacher! Her kindness, generosity, and genuine care for her students and the entire staff make her an invaluable part of our community.. Her compassion and creativity shine through the day. She goes above and beyond to ensure that her kindergarteners feel loved, supported, and excited to learn every day. Pam spreads positivity throughout our entire school. We are so fortunate to have such a dedicated teacher as part of South River School.

Dismissal schedule for Friday, December 20, 2024 will be as follows:
11:00 a.m. Marshfield High School
11:15 a.m. Furnace Brook Middle School
12:05 p.m. Daniel Webster, Eames Way, Governor Winslow, Martinson & South River Elementary Schools

No school for PK students.

Breakfast and lunch WILL NOT be served.

Like weather forecasting, the school closing decision process is not a perfect science. However, I believe it is important for students and families to understand how it works. I hope this FAQ document answers your questions.

Who makes the decision about whether or not to close school?

As Superintendent, I am responsible for the final decision. I work with District staff to monitor state and local weather forecasts and consult with officials from the Marshfield Police and Department of Public Works who provide updates to me on snow removal operations, neighborhood road conditions, and any power outages.

What time do I make the call?

My goal is to make the decision to open, close, or delay by 5:30 A.M. or earlier if possible. I try not to wait any longer as families then have little time to make arrangements for childcare, and some of our staff may have already left for work. Also, while I know there is often an interest in having a decision the night before, a lot can change overnight. I will try my best to make a decision as early as possible.

What information is gathered to aid in the decision?

There are multiple factors used in deciding whether or not to close school. Information on road conditions, snow accumulation predictions, building conditions such as electricity and heat, parking lot conditions, air temperature and wind chill, and estimated times from the Department of Public Works and Marshfield Police as to when roads, walkways, and parking lots will be cleared of snow and ice are all considered. I also consider the number of children who walk to school and our many student drivers.

Are Remote Days a Possibility this Year?

Remote days are not currently permitted as a substitution for in-person days by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).

What is a delayed opening?

Rather than close school for a whole day due to short-term weather situations, there may be days when the beginning of school will be delayed one hour or two hours. School will simply start later by the length of the delay. Bus pickup, therefore, will also occur later. For example, if your child is normally picked up at 8:00 A.M., during a two-hour delayed opening, your child will be picked up at 10:00 A. M. Lunch will still be available, and dismissal will be at the regularly scheduled times.

What happens to Pre School during a delayed opening?

When a delayed opening is called, Pre School classes are cancelled.

What are parents’ / guardians' responsibilities?

The safety of your child is paramount. On days when weather conditions are questionable, but school remains open, parents are free to exercise discretion and keep children home from school. Parents of young drivers are asked to reinforce winter weather driving skills: allowing

extra travel time, reducing speed, and not worrying about being late.

How are days made up?

As per State regulations, students must attend school for a minimum of 180 days and the school year must end by June 30. If school is closed due to weather, the day will be made up at the end of the school year.

How do power outages affect the decision?

Inclement weather can affect the timeline for utility companies to restore electricity. If all school buildings have electricity, the goal will be to open school. Other factors also influence the decision, including whether a large number of neighborhoods are without power.

How is the public notified?

Announcements about school closings and delays are posted as outlined below. Please be advised that, depending upon the severity of the storm, school and district administration offices may also be closed in addition to cancelling classes for students.

· District website : www.mpsd.org

· Thrillshare Communication: Voice call and email (email translated)

· WBZ TV and Radio (Channel 4)

· WATD 95.9

· WHDH Channel 7 and 56

· WCVB Fox 25 and Channel 5

I will try to send periodic updates via thrillshare and social media whenever possible should the storm extend for any period of time beyond the day or should the storm result in continued questionable community conditions.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Marshfield students in grades PK-5 have a chance to show off their creativity by submitting names for Marshfield's snow plows. Students may work as a class, team, or individually to create and submit their entries. Entries are due January 10, 2025! Contest winners will be announced in mid-January. Submissions will be reviewed and selected by the Marshfield High School 2025 senior class officers! Submit your entry HERE.

Good luck and have fun!

Click here for more information!

Thank you to our entire MHS music departments for staging two wonderful concerts this past week. The students were tremendous! We are fortunate to be in a community that supports the arts so fully!

Thank you to the amazing MHS Art Department, to North River Arts Society, and to our talented students for this week's amazing art show.

A reminder that the Special Town Meeting is December 16 at 7:00PM at Marshfield High School. Among the important articles are articles regarding the Martinson Elementary School Roof Replacement project. A complete list of warrant items can be found here.

Our first Belonging Team Meeting took place this past Monday. It was a great start, as we reviewed goals for the year and went over a brief overview of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and how they intersect to form tSEL (Transformative SEL). We will continue later next month with this work and will update the community on our progress. Thank you to all who attended the first meeting. Here is the presentation that guided our work. We will be diving deeper into what is currently happening in the areas of SEL and DEI in our district during our January meeting.

We are proud to share the District-wide Belonging Team for 2024 - 2025. Belonging is one of the pillars of our strategic plan, and our approach to belonging is tied closely with wellness and the social-emotional learning needs of our entire school community.

Essential Questions and Goals for the year:

Essential Questions:

• How do we establish our social-emotional learning (SEL) practices to include engagement and education of the community, staff, students, and families on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)?

• What are the intersections between DEI and SEL?

• How can our District-Wide Wellness Team inform and support our work in DEI and SEL?

• What do we need to do to have an interdisciplinary approach to SEL that includes DEI throughout the school system?

• How do we create a safe environment for having difficult conversations?

Goals of Year 1:

• Establish a District-Wide Belonging Team

• Establish a Building-Based Belonging Team at each building

• Create Mission, Vision, Theory of Action, and Community Agreements for the District-Wide Belonging Team

• Conduct Equity / SEL Audits

• Engage in Community Dialogues as part of Audits, including discussion of use of social media and Wellness (Digital Wellness)

• Organize and Run Mosaic Event (March 27)

Celebrate Marshfield's rich multicultural community at Mosaic! Whether you want to showcase your culture as an exhibitor or explore the many cultures that make Marshfield special, there's something for everyone. Enjoy live performances, music, raffles, and more! Sign ups will open in January. Mark your calendar for this vibrant event!

Student voice in everything we do at Marshfield Public Schools is important and valued. To further student voice throughout the district, I am happy to announce the formation of the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council (SSAC). The SSAC meets with ​the Superintendent monthly, and Assistant Superintendents and other leaders (when they are available) to advise, to provide feedback, and to present viable solutions on District initiatives and programs.

Sample topics the SSAC will discuss:

• Approaches to increase student voice

• Approaches to promote cultural competency, inclusion, and diversity

• Approaches to help students cope with stress and pressure

• Approaches to promote student wellness

• Approaches to increase social opportunities for students

• Approaches to increase academic opportunities for students

• Approaches to improve transitions between schools Approaches to improve school culture

• Other...

SSAC Membership – Members selected by MPSD Principals

• Eight Students from Marshfield High School (two from each grade)

• Six Students from Furnace Brook Middle School (two from each grade)

• Two Fifth Grade Students from each Elementary School (attend evening meetings in December, February, April, and June)

Membership cycles from 7 - 12 grade. It is reestablished each year at the elementary schools and grade 6.

SSAC Members may be asked to present or to be present at some School Committee Meetings and other events as determined by the SSSAC and members will play an important role on the Belonging Team.

Our first two meetings were wonderful. We began to formulate a student voice survey, created community agreements for our work, got to know each other better, and looked at the role of this important team. Here the team is in action last week:

Our Learning Walks this year will revolve around Deep Student Engagement, Task Development, and Learning Environment for Students. The District Leader established look-fors are inspired by Amy Berry and her book Reimagining Student Learning, From Disrupting to Driving. This is a multi-year focus, which will involve all stakeholders.

In a nutshell, we will focus on those elements in the classroom that move students from disrupting to driving learning, while also focusing on the development of strong tasks to engage the students within a culturally responsive climate that promotes inclusion.

These lookfors are being unwrapped at staff meetings across the district. This week, we engaged in walks of Marshfield High School, Daniel Webster Elementary School, and Governor Winslow Elementary School.

Great Elementary Winter Concerts, which will continue next week..this one at DWS

The Doors of MHS...A wonderful and festive place!

The building construction class. Installing a trail bench at the Ferry Street parking lot.

The open area will be filled with compost/loam next week. Perhaps flower containers in the spring.

Students fascinated by my Bulldog Christmas Tie! I had such a great time with this!

Thank you for your nominations!

The Marshfield School Committee and MPSD Leadership team are excited to review the nominees to select the district’s 2024 Wall of Honor induction class. The purpose of this honor is to foster pride in our system through recognition of individual achievement of former students, teachers, coaches/advisors, administrators, school committee members and friends of the Marshfield Public Schools. Questions can be directed to WallofHonor@mpsd.org.

In October, I was proud to present my goals, which were unanimously approved, for the 2024-2025 School Year. These goals reflect the Mission, Vision, Core Values, Pillars, and Strategic Objectives of our 2023- 2028 Strategic Plan. Each goal aligns with a Strategic Objective in the Plan. The goals are as follows:

GOAL #1: Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, I will create an entry plan in order to gain familiarity with stakeholders, to identify effective past practice and potential areas for improvement, and to facilitate a successful transition into the role of Superintendent.

GOAL #2: Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, I will focus the District on student voice and engagement through the theme of “Through the Eyes of the Student.”

GOAL #3: Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, I will collaborate with district and school leaders, staff, parents/guardians, school committee members, and students to create a “Belonging Team,” which includes Social-Emotional Learning, Wellness, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion subgroups, set goals for the district and team in these areas, and begin to implement these goals within the school community.

Goal #4:

Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, I will collaborate with leadership, and when appropriate, the Marshfield Police Department and Marshfield Fire Department, to foster effective protocols, procedures, and systems throughout the District.

The complete presentation, including the Strategic Actions and Benchmarks for each goal, can be found below by clicking on SUPERINTENDENT GOALS.

I look forward to collaborating with the entire Marshfield School Community to realize these goals.

Sincerely,

Patrick Sullivan, Ed.D.

Superintendent

Marshfield Public Schools

Our targets for this year are developed from the Strategic Plan and Vision of the Graduate and are informed by on-going data gathering, including my ongoing entry-plan work. As a District, these will be our targets and focus for the year. I realize that this year we will not finish our work in any of these areas, but the goal is to make measurable improvements in all of these areas by the end of the school year.

Family and Community Engagement: All buildings will explore Joyce Epstein’s 6 Dimensions of Family Engagement looking at the communication, community collaboration, learning at home support, parenting support, volunteering, and family input in decision-making in each building.

District and School Culture: Each building will look at the level of voice and choice of staff in each building, types and reasons for celebrations, processes for collaborative decision making, structures for collective responsibilities and governance, and traditions within the school.

Student and Staff Equity Belonging and Wellness: As a district we will be reformulating the Social Emotional Learning, Wellness, and Diversity / Equity / and Inclusion teams as subgroups under one expanded Equity Belonging and Wellness team. This team will include students and families from across the district and will function as ambassadors for the work throughout the district.

Data Driven Decisions: We will continue to build our data structures throughout the district, engage in data dialogues, and analyze and explore data to make needed changes.

Rigorous Curriculum Development: We will be firmly establishing the stages of our district-wide curriculum review cycle and engaging in curriculum adoption, including the new elementary ELA curriculum district-wide.

Financial Stability: We will be looking closely at capital and operational budget priorities and working collaboratively with existing budgets as we firm up our curriculum review cycle.

Efficient and Effective Protocol, Procedure, and System Development (including safety): We will look closely at all our procedures and protocols (at least as many as we can) through a systems thinking lens and make any needed improvements.

Collective Teacher Efficacy (which is another way of saying our ability to work effectively together in teams): This is an important focus for us. Emphasizing the importance of educator collaboration is certainly nothing new; however, through research of John Hattie in New Zealand, we now can confidently say that working well together is the most important initiative in which we can engage to produce strong academic and social emotional achievement for our students. Hattie researched over 1000 meta-analysis, 50,000 quantitative and qualitative student and teacher peer-reviewed research reports, and data covering over 250 Million students world-wide, and found that the largest effect size on student achievement is made through collective teacher efficacy. Schools and districts where educators collaborated best had the highest achievement growth.

Student Voice and Engagement in the Teaching, Learning, and Leading: Also featuring prominently in effect size are strategies that make learning visible and explicit to the students. That brings us to our theme for the year, “Through the Eyes of the Student” and our greatest focus for the year, which is student voice and engagement in the teaching, learning, and leading throughout our schools. There is nothing more paramount and important this year than continuing to foster an environment that places students first and which provides them with a culturally responsive and inclusive environment that promotes student agency and voice.

Elementary report cards and progress reports are being translated. Printed copies will be sent home next week.

The next ELPAC meeting February 3rd from 6:30pm-8:00pm at DWS.

After a 4-day lay off with no sports at MHS, the Rams are back and preparing for their Winter Sports

Seasons. We have 361 student-athletes registered and ready to get underway for their seasons. Tryouts and practices resumed on December 2nd and the Teams have been busy getting ready.

Both Girls and Boys Basketball Teams are returning a good number of returning starters. On the Girls Side, Senior Tri-Captain Maddie Devin is looking to continue her scoring prowess while also contributing on the defense side of the game as well. Senior Corinne Daley and Sophomore Maeve McDougall return and will see action up front as they did as freshman.

Boys Basketball returns scorer and ball handler, Jake Brilliant. The Senior is again expected to lead the way for the Rams. Seniors Drew Fortin and Brady Lauria will also supply offense and hustle at both ends of the Court. We are also looking forward to celebrating Coach Bob Fisher as he starts the year, 4 wins short of 700 on his career.

Girls and Boys Hockey also look to continue with their winning ways this year after 2 deep runs in the State Tournament last Year (Final 4 for the Girls and Elite 8 for the Boys). Junior Morgan Murphy again will lead a very talented stable of goalies for the Rams. Up front Kayla Leonard and Sarah McIntyre will be counted on to score goals.

Boys Hockey, after graduating 14 players off of last year's team, will look to its goaltending and defense as they reload. Liam Fullam also leads a talented goalie squad for the boys and Jon Sullivan leads a very talented defensive squad for the Rams. The Rams are very fortunate to have talented scorer and playmaker, Jack Doherty back up front.

The Gymnastics Team, fresh off of back to back Patriot League Titles, will look to 3-peat with Olivia

Audette, Annie Spencer and Mallory Nappi leading the way for the Rams.

Girls and Boys Indoor Track return veteran runners and track competitors on both Teams. Eleanor

Angeles Whitfiled, Meredith Miller and Isabelle Flynn return for the Girls Team. Nate Looney, Graham Heinrich and Matt McCabe return for the Boys. Both Teams look forward to Team and individual success.

Swim/Dive is also looking to repeat as League Champs. Audrey Hannigan, Aidan Parry and Georgia

Pearson look to lead the Rams back in the pool this year.

Wrestling is looking to build off of last season's success as well. Allan Archibald, Liam Dillon and Paul Sheehan are grapplers to watch for Marshfield this year.

Please click on the link to access the Marshfield Public Schools PTO Page. Thank you to the PTO for all of their work in supporting Marshfield Public Schools.

How to Parent an Anxious Child

Register Here

Technology Troubles: Too Much Time Online!

Register Here

Responding to Challenging Behavior

Register Here

Discover a variety of exciting events happening across the Marshfield community! Our Community Events page is regularly updated with fresh listings, so there's always something new to check out. Don't miss out—take a look today!

Click here for more information!

Are you, or someone you know, interested in joining our fantastic team of educators? We would love to add you to our dedicated team of Substitute Teachers. We also have a few ESP, SESP & Tutor positions we are still looking to fill. Click the link(s) below to learn more:

Employment Opportunities

Dec 16 - Special Town Meeting (MHS)

Dec 20 - Holiday Break Early Release

Jan 2 - Classes Resume

Jan 8 - District Wide Early Release

Jan 20 - Martin Luther King Day (no school)

Jan 24 - MHS/FBMS Semester 2/Term 1 Ends

Jan 31 - MHS/FBMS Report Cards

Eames Way School

Governor Winslow School

Daniel Webster School

Martinson Elementary School

South River School

Furnace Brook Middle School

Marshfield High School

Marshfield High School Counselor Connection

Email: psullivan@mpsd.org
Website: www.mpsd.org
Location: 76 South River Street, Marshfield MA 02050
Phone: (781) 834-5000