Superintendent's Message
Marc J. Smith - Dennis-Yarmouth Regional Schools
Coming Together Again
Good Afternoon Dolphin Families!
After having finished a full week of school with students, I want to share how excited we have been to have your children back in school with us. I was able to get out and visit all the schools on the first day, and this picture does a great job of capturing the energy that was present all across the school district. These two, arriving on separate busses, ran to each other and grasped in a full embrace. When a staff member asked one if they were ok, one student replied, "We just haven't seen each other in so long!" How cute is that!
As I traveled across the district the first day, I saw interactions just like this one occurring everywhere. From teachers and staff welcoming back students with warm smiles, checking in on their summer adventures, commenting on spurts of growth, or accepting a hug from a student who missed them to students connecting with peers like these two or high fives, hand shakes, and other joyous greetings at the upper grades, to new students and families being welcomed into the school and provided with supports to ensure they were successful and felt as though they belong. It reminded me of the importance of relationships and human connection. Schools are a place focused on student learning and without a priority placed on the development of meaningful relationships within and among students real learning can't take place. In talking with the staff at the beginning of the year, I mentioned that relationships are a Core Value that drive my leadership and it was great to see them on display as students arrived.
During the School Committee meeting this Monday (9/11), I presented my Entry Plan to the Committee for approval. An Entry Plan is essentially a plan designed to help a new leader learn about the organization that they are leading prior to developing any strategy for growth and improvement. Over the coming months there will be opportunities for you to share with me your thoughts and perspectives on D-Y. These opportunities will include face to face meetings, virtual meetings, and a survey. I am very much interested in gathering as much information on the district as possible and hearing from as many different folks as I can, so please share with me your thoughts when these opportunities arise.
Until then, have a great week and thank you for a great start to the school year!
All the best,
Marc J. Smith
Superintendent
Update on EA Shelter
During an earlier message, I shared that an Emergency Access (EA) shelter had been opened in our school district. I have directly, and indirectly, collected a few concerns from some segments of the community and I would like to address those and provide some updated information.
- A team from the school district went to the make initial contact with the families that are living in this shelter. Despite some of the concerns that have been raised, most families that we have made contact with have had medical records with them including vaccination records.
- In a connected idea, please also know that families (US born or otherwise) have always had the ability to opt out of vaccinating their children. That is not new. You can see it in the law here (scroll to the second page, section C). Further, several Civil Rights statues and the McKinney Vento Act do not allow us to deny a public education to any child for any reason.
- The families have been placed in our community with little to no resources that many of us would consider basic human necessities. As far as we have been able to ascertain thus far, their does not seem to be direct or indirect support from the state being provided to these families. We will be working to organize a humanitarian support effort to ensure the children housed here have the basic necessities they need. For those interested in supporting this, please be on the look out for more information to come.
- As you can see from data available on the Department of Elementary Elementary and Secondary Education listed here, nearly 1 in 4 D-Y students do not speak English as their first language. D-Y as a school district has been supporting the needs of migrant families for quite some time. We have systems in place supported by very talented people that are very skilled at what they do. A few school-aged migrant children residing at one hotel in Yarmouth is not going to compromise our existing infrastructure.
- Finally, I have heard some unfounded fears regarding physical safety. Here in D-Y we do not believe that students born in another country are any more prone to violent behavior than students born in the US. There is no data to support this belief. As a result, there is no reason to apply any "special" discipline provisions than we do for any other children in our district. Similarly, for families we will take the same approach regarding school safety that we take with all families, vendors, staff and the community at large.
Finally, while I understand that this topic has many connected political issues upon which folks have differing opinions, please know that public education must rise above politics. As superintendent, it is not my role to insert myself in issues related to immigration, sheltering, local ordinance regarding zoning, etc. These items are all outside my control. My moral and legal responsibility lies with the education of all school-aged children that reside (permanently or temporarily) within the school district.
I appreciate your support in that effort.
Best,
Marc
Community Information
The Town Planner for the Town of Yarmouth would like to share with families that the Draft Yarmouth Open Space & Recreation Plan now available for review at: https://www.yarmouth.ma.us/686/Open-Space-Plan-2023-Update