Hello Dolphin Community,

The beginning of November means the end of the fall athletic season for many of our teams. It also means Senior Games and events for our teams, where we honor the contributions of our senior athletes to their respective teams. Our seniors play an important role on our teams and in our high school to set the culture, reinforce norms, and serve as role models for the next generation of Dolphins. Several of our fall teams are currently in tournament play. If you are interested in supporting our Dolphins in the tournament, please check out the schedule and get more information by following this link.

November also marks the fact that students have been in school for a full two months. There have been just over 40 school days thus far, which makes it a good time for us to check in on a few of our goals for the year. I was preparing for a presentation that I will be giving to the School Committee on Monday and was looking at our District Attendance Data. As I have mentioned many times before, there is a direct connection between student attendance and achievement. Simply put, students who come to school regularly do better in school, have better academic outcomes, and—as research shows—better life outcomes.

As of today, all of our attendance trends for this year are ahead of last year! Last year, our average attendance rate at this time was 94.7%, and this year it is 95.3%. Similarly, our chronic absenteeism rate (students missing 10% or more of school days) last year at this time was 18.6%, and as of today, it is 15.5%! That is great news. It was already down last year from the year before, and it continues to head in the right direction. Thank you for your help and support in ensuring your children are present in school. If you need any support getting your child to school, please reach out to your child's school for assistance.

Finally, I wanted to provide everyone with a quick update on the M.E. Small Building Project. Over the last couple of weeks, the Building Committee selected an Owner's Project Manager (OPM), whose job is to help the district manage the building project, work with the state, protect the district's interests, and act as our construction expert. The next phase is to hire a Designer to conduct the Feasibility Study. We are currently in that process. Once the Designer is hired (by the end of the calendar year), they will lead the Feasibility Study process. This will include opportunities for input from a wide range of stakeholders on the future of the M.E. Small School. They will be required to study a wide range of options including, but not limited to, repair, replacement of MES, consolidation with Station Avenue Elementary School at the SAE site, consolidation of MES and SAE in a new build at a new site, or use of existing Yarmouth property/buildings to address student needs. More to come—stay tuned.

Thank you for your ongoing support,

Marc J. Smith, Ed.D.

Superintendent

As part of a recent grant that they received, the Cape Cod Collaborative created a Family Resource Guide. The guide provide collects a wide range of available supports in the region (crisis, mental health, health, food, etc.) all in one place should any family need to access one of these services. 

You can access the guide by following this link. The Collaborative is currently working on having the document translated into a variety of languages and we will share those once available.