SAUGUS — In comparison to the Dec. 5 School Board Committee meeting where superintendent David DeRuosi read Saugus’ less-than-stellar district review report for a packed room, Thursday’s final meeting of the year brought some happier news.
After student representatives gave their presentations to the committee, the meeting’s open session began with the School Committee Chairman’s report, which included chairman Thomas Whittredge giving his congratulations to both Saugus High School’s cast of Pippin on a successful opening weekend, as well as the district’s cheerleaders for coming in third at their national competition at Disney World.
In an effort to tie up some loose ends before the end of the year, the superintendent also gave his bi-weekly report and co-led a discussion on the district’s future use of textbooks and online learning materials with Director of Curriculum Brendon Sullivan.
As the district prepares for its massive move in the spring, several of the committee members were interested in hearing about how much progress had been made in updating student textbooks.
“Moving to a new building, you’re not going to bring old textbooks with you, but there are procedures we need to go through … to properly dispose of these materials,” DeRuosi told the board about how the transition to newer learning materials would take place.
The committee also discussed its difficulty in finding substitute teachers, something DeRuosi called “a national problem,” and unanimously voted to raise the substitute teaching wage from $80 to $90 per day in the hope it might increase Saugus’s competitiveness in comparison to other districts and entice more substitute teachers to come to Saugus schools.
The board also voted unanimously to accept a gift from member John Hatch, who volunteered to donate his $800 school committee salary to the district, splitting it equally between the Athletics and Fine Arts departments.
“I made a choice to donate my school committee salary to the departments for personal reasons,” he told the room. “So I would appreciate it if you guys would adopt this for me.”
