Thank you for volunteering your time and working hard to provide for our students and teachers in Marblehead.
I agree with The Marbleheaders For Change’s assessment about the need for more planning and honesty regarding what “fully funded” means.
We also need the present School Committee to acknowledge and take responsibility for the cost of mistakes made over the past several years. Specifically, the direct and indirect costs of terminating then-superintendent Buckey. We need to include this entire expense and understand how it directly impacts resources available for our children and schools as we plan for fiscal year 2025 and beyond.
We still don’t know why this happened but apparently, we will all be expected to pay the bill.
Providing the children of Marblehead with an outstanding educational experience is an idea that everyone in town can get behind.
Please work to clearly identify the entire cost of what is needed (all of the staff needed, all of the equipment needed, all of the extracurricular student activity costs, all of the special education costs, all of the planned/estimated facility and equipment upgrades/replacements). I would prefer to know exactly what it would take to make our school district similar to or better than other top schools in the state (Boston Latin, Lexington, Weston, etc.)
Could we study these high-performing school districts and implement their best practices?
Then, with a clear idea of the school system we desire and the total dollar cost in mind, we, as a fully informed town, can begin the hard work of figuring out how to pay for it.
Sincerely,
Michael Golden
Birch Street
