Opinion

To the editor: When people hear about food stamps, they often think people are lazy. It has quite the stigma.   To get and keep food stamps you have to work and or volunteer 20 hours of your time. Many people who are on food stamps help each month to keep food on the table for their family or for themselves. I myself work but look forward to the extra help each month.  During the government shutdown I went through the whole month of October…

To the editor: On behalf of the Marblehead Friends of the Performing Arts, we want to extend our deepest gratitude to everyone who attended our 5th annual Rock the Arts gala. The turnout and support were truly remarkable, and we are so grateful to each of you who made this one of our best fundraisers (and parties) to date! We would like to give a special shoutout to those who donated their amazing in-kind services, including the band, 5X Fast, for the incredible music that…

To the editor: While many people often associate the continuing changes from the COVID-19 ppandemic with lasting increased health measures, other long-term effects are repeatedly overlooked. Across the country, chronic absenteeism (when a student misses 10% or more of the school year) has been on the rise and Marblehead Public Schools are no exception. A study by Return to Learn Tracker found that the percentage of chronically absent students in Marblehead rose from 7% in 2017 to 19% in 2025. This drastic increase in absenteeism…

To the editor: Marblehead takes pride in being an inclusive, compassionate community, yet awareness of our special education in the public schools remains limited. Through my research and interviews with local educators, advocacy leaders and School Committee board members, I learned that our schools are deeply committed to inclusion, yet funding and staffing limitations make it difficult to support every student. When budgets are tight, special education positions are often the first to be cut, School Committee member Henry Gwazda told me. This results in…

To the editor: As Marblehead approaches another budget override, the Massachusetts Municipal Association’s recent report, A Perfect Storm, reminds us that all town budget deficits are alike (but strong town budgets are strong in their own way for the Tolstoy fans out there).  Across Eastern Massachusetts, costs are outrunning revenues. Proposition 2 ½ limits property tax increases to 2.5 percent a year. But since 2021, prices in the Greater Boston area rose by 6.9%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That gap is…

To the editor: I write to publicly thank Greg Dana for his years of dedication to Marblehead Public School students. Greg retired from teaching math in 2019 after more than 45 years at Marblehead High School. (He himself is a graduate of MPS.)  He continued to work part time in the MPS theaters until September of 2025. It is this second job with the Marblehead Public Schools, in arts and drama, which occupied his many evenings and which have gone unrecognized and unacknowledged, for which…

I want to extend heartfelt congratulations to the Marblehead Rotary Club for the tremendous success of this year’s Marblehead Rotary Club 5K for Mental Health. The event, held Nov. 2, brought together over 200 runners on a beautiful course winding through Marblehead’s Historic District, starting and finishing at Crocker Park. Following the race, participants and supporters gathered at the Boston Yacht Club for the awards ceremony for a celebration of both athletic achievement and community spirit. Now in its fourth year, the 5K has become…

To the editor:  On Veterans Day, Nov. 11, Americans expressed gratitude for the military service of the living. On this day in Britain, designated as “Remembrance Day,” the people of the United Kingdom honor the memory of those who cannot be thanked in person. In the thousand-year-old Norfolk village of Thorpe Abbotts, England, incongruously situated adjacent to verdant fields of sugar beet, thatch-roofed houses, half-timbered buildings and narrow winding roads, stands a small, nondescript, block-shaped building.  Next to it, here in the heart of East…