The Everett School Committee on Monday, October 19 adopted three policies that spell out how the district will choose library and classroom materials and what happens when someone objects to one, the first local step under the state’s new free expression law. The vote was 9-0 and took less than two minutes. The committee also accepted a $224,000 state literacy grant, heard an hourlong pitch for the high school’s carpentry program from its instructors and two of its students, and went into executive session on two lawsuits against the district. The open meeting ran from 6:35 to 7:42 p.m. in the Everett High School library. Member Joseph LaMonica was absent.
Book challenge rules, as the law requires
Superintendent William Hart presented a Library and Curriculum Reconsideration Policy, an Instructional Materials Policy and a Reconsideration of Instructional Materials Policy together. He said they “reflect new Massachusetts legislation on access to school library materials, the reconsideration of challenged resources and protections for educators,” and that they reaffirm a commitment “to providing all students with high quality, age appropriate, diverse and educationally valuable library and instructional materials.” The law, signed by Governor Maura Healey on August 10, requires every district to write and post a policy for selecting materials and handling challenges, keeps a challenged book on the shelf until a public hearing and a vote, protects librarians and teachers from discipline for good-faith selections, and requires districts to report every challenge and its outcome to the state.
Hart said the policies will be posted immediately “as the law requires us” and added to the student handbook in the next printing. No member asked a question before the roll call.
$224,000 for reading in grades 3 to 5
The committee accepted, also 9-0, a Reading Success Massachusetts PRISM III continuation grant of $224,000 for the current fiscal year from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Hart said the money pays for literacy instruction in grades three through five, “with a particular focus on improving student writing outcomes and expanding effective co-teaching practices,” and that the district earned a third round by performing in the first two. He said he had walked the Parlin School that day with Assistant Superintendent Margaret Adams and “we’re seeing success already in those grades.”
The carpentry program’s night
The district opened its school spotlight series for the year with the Career and Technical Education department. Two carpentry instructors and two of their students, a junior and a senior, described a program that does real work in the building and around the city: furniture assembly, hung cabinets, wall repair, and, last spring, framing new offices at the district’s flooded Vine Street headquarters. That job was the class of 2026’s capstone, done from late March into May from a set of plans, and Hart said it was recorded so the students could show employers what they built “at a very good savings to the city.” Students are now building sheds at the recreation center.
The senior said he came to high school wanting to work on cars, was told there was no automotive program, and took carpentry instead: “I honestly love building stuff with my hands.” After the October 1 job fair that the city and Suffolk Construction brought to the high school gym, he said, he has three trades in mind instead of one, after talking to a millwright and an electrician. The junior said carpentry was her first class on her first day of high school and is now “my favorite part of the day.”
Other points from the presentation:
- Brunt Workwear, a Massachusetts boot company, donated enough steel-toe boots to outfit the entire carpentry and advanced manufacturing programs, with a supply the instructors said will last years. Students keep the boots when they graduate.
- A new elective, Girls in Trades, grew out of the annual Girls in Trades conference the program attends. Its first guest speaker was the chair of the program’s advisory committee, who went from the Army into the carpenters union. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC installers and masons are lined up to follow. The instructors said the trade unions they work with are aiming for a workforce close to half women by 2030 or 2035, “so if we don’t have talent for them, that won’t ever change.”
- The junior and a classmate from advanced manufacturing proposed a monthly Girls in Trades club for middle schoolers, because the three-day high school exploratory “might be a little challenging to figure out if you want to do that in that short amount of time.” Vice Chair Marcony Almeida Barros, member Robin Babcock and Chair Samantha Hurley all endorsed the idea.
- Carpentry seniors can add OSHA 30 to the OSHA 10 every Chapter 74 program requires; 16 of 18 did this year. The program is adding the Home Builders Institute pre-apprenticeship certification, which unions have told the instructors is “the next best thing” to work experience for an applicant.
- Recent trips: a remodeling industry career day with more than 50 vendors, where students tried plumbing, electrical and tile work, and a precast concrete plant tour in Wilmington.
Almeida Barros, citing a governor’s executive order directing state agencies to hire more tradeswomen on public construction, asked whether the program has internships. The instructors said co-op placements during school hours are “the next big step” and will be the first item for an expanded advisory committee that meets next month. Member Joanna Garren asked how the Vine Street work was graded; the answer was workmanship and professionalism, “how they interact with the people that are asking for help.”
Hart told the committee he was “embargoed” but had received a call from the state education secretary’s office that Everett had won more than a million dollars for CTE space, “one of the highest in the state.” Three days later the governor’s office announced a $1,014,000 Career and Technical Education Annex grant to Everett High for its medical assisting and programming and web development programs, part of $14.5 million for six high schools.
Superintendent’s report
- Everett Public Schools and Salem State University signed a direct admissions agreement on Thursday, October 15 in the high school library, the district’s second after Worcester State. Seniors with a weighted grade point average of 3.0 or better are admitted without an application fee, test scores, recommendation letters or an essay; the district shares the eligible list with Salem State, which contacts the students. Asked by Babcock whether it covers every major, Hart said nursing, engineering and some science programs have additional requirements. Salem State President John Keenan told the students at the signing that the campus is “literally only 10 miles down the road,” and senior Christopher Kelly, who wants to study graphic design there, spoke for the class of 2027. Everett Teachers Association President Kim Auger, a Salem State alumna, attended.
- The first class of the Everett High School Athletic Hall of Fame was announced at halftime of the homecoming win over Revere on October 9. Hart read 14 names, among them the 1914 football team that went 13-0 and outscored opponents 600 to 0, Bobby Leo, the three-time All-Scholastic who went on to Harvard and the Boston Patriots, basketball star Pat Bradley of the class of 1995, and longtime football and basketball coach John DiBiaso, along with the program’s longtime sports historian and athletes in hockey, baseball, softball and field hockey from 1957 to 2005. The induction banquet is Wednesday, March 24, 2027 at the Hyatt Regency Boston Harbor.
- Homecoming weekend drew what Hart called one of the largest crowds in years, after a rolling rally that visited every school. The Homecoming Hustle 5K on Saturday, October 10, run in memory of former Webster School assistant principal Janet Connolly O’Neill, sent its entry fees to the breast and cervical cancer program at Cambridge Health Alliance. A pancake breakfast in the cafeteria the same morning raised money for the athletic department.
- The Kiwanis Club of Everett’s pasta dinner, which funds scholarships for Everett High graduates, was moved from this week to Wednesday, November 4, 4 to 7 p.m. at the Connolly Center. Key Club students serve and sell raffle tickets and baked goods.
- Multilingual family nights begin at the Whittier School on Wednesday, October 28, 4 to 6 p.m., paid for with federal Title I and Title III money.
- The district received the state’s Seal of Biliteracy district award, to be presented October 26 at Devens. About 60 Everett High students have earned or will earn the seal this year.
Student report
The student representative reported that seniors can buy caps and gowns for $22 until November 1, that AP Government students ran voter registration at every lunch that day, that the marching band took first place at a competition at Durfee High School on October 3, and that the football team beat Lynn 35-12 on October 16 to go 5-1.
Shore Collaborative and the rest
Hurley, the committee’s representative to the Shore Educational Collaborative, reported that Shore serves 213 students from 20 communities, 14 of them from Everett, in programs at the Henry Owens School in Chelsea, and that it has opened a second site for its older students at the former Cambridge Friends School in North Cambridge. Its adult services enroll 365 people in Chelsea, Woburn and Peabody.
The committee approved bills and payroll of $2,356,314.95 and entered executive session at 7:42 p.m. to discuss litigation strategy in two cases, DiCicco v. Everett Public Schools and Ridley v. Everett Public Schools, with Hart, Assistant Superintendent Dennis Lynch and the district’s attorney invited in. The meeting video is on the district’s YouTube channel. This account is drawn from the livestream audio and the posted agenda; names are checked against the district’s roster and published reports.
