A round-up of the latest Wellesley, Mass., schools news:
Drive-thru high school graduation mulled
Town officials have begun discussing the possibility of a drive-thru Wellesley High School graduation that could involve families of graduates driving in a line that might snake through town (possibly Babson College to the high school). Graduation on the school calendar was slated for June 5, but of course the state has ordered school buildings closed through the rest of the school year.
Town officials, from the Board of Selectmen to Health Department to school, fire and police departments, will need to sort out whether such an event will be safe. Under one scenario, diplomas could be handed out as grads’ are driven by school administrators and teachers, socially distanced from each other.
WHS graduation will be on the agenda for the May 5 School Committee meeting.
Hardy Elementary has new principal
The Wellesley Public School system has announced the hiring of Grant Smith as the next principal of Hardy Elementary School come July 1. He joins Wellesley from Winchester’s Vinson-Owen Elementary School, “which was named in honor of Winchester’s famous family of figure skaters, who died tragically in an air plane crash en route to an international competition.” Smith has served as principal there since 2011, and earlier in his career was an elementary school teacher.
Smith will succeed Charlene Cook, Hardy’s principal since 2013.
Wellesley Public Schools Superintendent David Lussier says the system had 2 very strong finalists to choose between (“A nice problem to have.”).
Smith appears to be a mild-mannered principal by day, but may have a secret life as a superhero. We’re just confused about how he could be BOTH Robin & Superman, as appears to be the case in the video below about this man of many disguises.
School Committee office hours are back
The School Committee has mastered Zoom and will be holding office hours with the public again. The next one will be May 4 at 10am. Here’s how to participate.
One topic for discussion could be surveys issued by the school system to parents/guardians and students (grades 7-12) about how the remote learning process is going.
Other big topics discussed at the School Committee this week included proposed budget cuts (furniture and tech purchases are likely to be held off to slash the capital budget by 25%, as requested by the town) and the complicated system of refunding families for fees associated with sports and more (the business office is going to have a huge workload in front of it).
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