Congratulations to Travis Dupuis who was selected as Educator of the Week! Travis has dedicated the majority of his career to special education, beginning in private schools and collaboratives, where he worked primarily with students with significant needs. He joined MPSD in 2011 as the POST High School teacher and has since made a profound impact on the lives of countless students. Travis works with an amazing team, including Ms. Griffin and Mr. Tuomisto, who do so much for our students. They too are recognized.

Throughout his tenure at MPSD, Travis has helped students navigate their post-high school plans, ensuring they have a clear vision for their futures. His strengths lie not only in guiding students and families through the adult services process but also in helping students recognize their own strengths, grow as individuals, and become active, contributing members of the Marshfield community.

Beyond the school day, Travis has played a pivotal role in developing programs at Bridgewater State University to support adults with special needs. He has also created an app, the Blueprint Universal School District Version, which assists educators in delivering personalized, research-based instruction.

In addition to his professional achievements, Travis is well-known in the community for his role as a coach. He has been a major influence on the Blizzards Hockey Team, a program that provides children with unique needs the opportunity to play hockey. He is also an assistant coach for the MHS Girls Lacrosse Team. We are grateful to have Travis on our team!

Registration is OPEN! Please register here by March 14, 2025. We are VERY excited for this new community event!

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! Mark your calendar for this vibrant event!

The winners are...

Scoop Dogg submitted by Ja'kai in Ms. LaForest 5th grade class at DWS! ("Because it is funny and makes sense!")

Snowbells submitted by Sloane in Ms. Violissi's 1st grade class at EWS! ("Because snow balls is too obvious!")

Blizzard Wizard submitted by Ronan in Ms. Masotta's 2nd grade class at GWS! ("Because it’s like magic how the snowplow clears all the snow so fast. It makes the roads safe and clean, just like a wizard with a wand! it is funny and makes sense!")

Frosty the Plowman submitted by Ella and Nora Martin in Ms. Holdgate and Ms. Frenette's 5th grade classes at MES! ("Because everyone knows Frosty!")

Ramblade submitted by Lukas in Mrs. Williams Kindergarten class at SRS! ("Because plows move snow with their blade!")

Kindergarten Registration for the 2025-2026 school year is now open! Children entering Kindergarten must be five (5) years old by August 31, 2025. Click HERE to visit the Kindergarten Registration webpage. Parents have the option to register online or in-person at their child’s school.

Please be sure to complete your child’s registration no later than Friday, February 28, 2025.

ATF dogs visited DWS to demonstrate how they work with their amazing officers. Of course they took the chance to show off their skills! There was even time for a quick pat for each pup! I’m not sure who was happier- the students or the dogs!

Thank you to the MHS team, MHS students, and to everyone who came out to see the amazing offerings we have at MHS! It was a great night.

Art Throwdown Application

Art Scholarship Donation

Jen Spaulding will be hosting a Dyslexia Parent Information Night at EWS on February 26th and we would like to invite anyone in the district that is interested to attend. Alongside myself, Ellen L'Italian and several parent and student participants, she aims to demystify the diagnosis and inform parents on how MPSD is addressing the topic through early literacy screening, intervention and progress monitoring. With students on the panel, the goal is to showcase how dyslexic students can thrive with the proper support.

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.

Our first Belonging Team Meeting took place Monday, December 9. 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)

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 Eames Way and Daniel Webster.

Georgia Pearson (Junior) In the meet vs Whitman Hanson/Silver Lake, Georgia won the 200 freestyle and qualified for the D1 State Championship meet and in the 100 breaststroke she touched out the WHSL girl for first place by .2 seconds and qualified that event for the South Sectional post season Championship meet. She was also on the winning 400 freestyle relay team. Her points helped the girls team win the meet. She is a positive person at every meet and practice!

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.

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

School nurses collaborated this week at MES to provide the life saving skill of CPR to our district wide emergency response teams. The health and safety of our community is always a top priority and we are fortunate to have so many staff members willing to prioritize these valuable trainings.

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.

Both the Girls and Boys Swim and Dive Teams kept their winning streaks going this week. The Girls Team remains undefeated with victories over both Cohasset and Plymouth. Senior Audrey Hannigan finished 1st in both the 50 Free and 100 Breaststroke while Senior Addy Rhodes took home 1st in the 100 Freestyle. Sophomore Cara McDonough took 2nd Place in 200 Individual Medley for the Rams. Freshman Cam Wong won the 200 Individual Medley for the Boys Team while Senior Aidan Parry won the 100 Free. Freshman Hank Hartwell also finished 1st for the Rams in the 50 Free.

The Girls Basketball Team will look to bounce back against Hingham tonight against League rival Hingham. The Girls lost a tough game on the road to Pembroke on Tuesday night. The Girls got strong performances on the road from Freshman Caroline Arruda and Senior’s Corrine Daly and Maddie Devin. The Boys Basketball Team defeated Pembroke at home on Tuesday. The Rams came out hot and stayed hot throughout the game. Juniors Dan Padden and Noah Feldman continued their strong outside shooting and Senior Jake Brilliant could not be stopped after repeatedly driving and scoring at the net.

The Girls and Boys Hockey Teams took part in the 16th Annual Green Cup Games against Duxbury on MLK Day. The games include youth teams from both communities and also raise money for Cancer Research. Unfortunately, the Rams dropped both games to their rivals. Morgan Murphy continues to backbone the Girls Teams in net. In the Girls victory over Quincy/North Quincy, Marshfield got goals from Senior Kayla Leonard and Junior Sarah McIntyre among others. The Boys bounced back from their defeat with a big win over Silver Lake on Wednesday. Junior Sal Camera got the win in net for Marshfield and the Rams exploded for 5 goals in the 3rd Period, including Joe Merrick’s 1st of the season, for the 7 – 3 win. Senior Anderson Dalton got the Rams started with his goal in the 2nd Period.

The MHS Wrestling Team won all 4 Matches they had as they hosted a SuperQuad last Saturday. Senior David Sheehan continues his stellar Senior Year winning all 4 of his Matches. Junior Captain Liam Dillon did the same as he continues an impressive year as well. Junior Christian Devlin also had an impressive day on the Mat as well.

The MHS Gymnastics Team split the week, going 1 and 1 with a win over Whitman-Hanson/Duxbury and following just short to a very talented Falmouth Team. The Rams scored their highest score for the season in their defeat at Falmouth. In the victory over W/H/Duxbury, on Senior Night, the Rams were led by Senior Annie Spencer, who placed 1st in the All-Around, Sophomore Sophie Neumann who took 1st on Vault. Senior Olivia Audette finished 1st on the Uneven Bars for Marshfield.

Both the Girls and Boys Indoor Track and Field Teams had this week off. The Rams scheduled Meet against Silver Lake was postponed and will be made up later this season. Marshfield will have a big League Meet next Thursday against Duxbury at the Reggie Lewis Center.

Technology Troubles: Too Much Time Online!

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Responding to Challenging Behavior

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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

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

Jan 31 - MHS/FBMS Report Cards

Feb 5 - District Wide Early Release

Feb 5 - Evening of Jazz (MHS - 7:00 p.m.)

Feb 6 - MHS Conferences (evening)

Feb 10 - 100th Day of School

Feb 11 - FBMS Conferences (evening)

Feb 17-21 - Vacation

Feb 26 - Dyslexia Information Session (EWS - 6:30 p.m.)

Feb 28 - MHS/FBMS Term 3 Mid Term

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