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Good afternoon Newmarket parents, guardians, teachers, students and community members,
At last night’s meeting the Newmarket School Board approved an agreement with the Newmarket Teachers Association to modify contract language eliminating the “Wednesday Model”. As most already know, this year Newmarket schools have dismissed 30 minutes early every Wednesday to provide time for teachers to engage in professional development. After much discussion between the NTA and school leadership, we jointly determined that the challenges of this model outweighed the benefits. The approval of this agreement means that starting in the fall Newmarket schools will return to full-length school days on Wednesdays. The 2023-24 calendar on our website has been updated to reflect this change. If you have questions about this model please feel free to reach out to me.
On another note, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges(NEASC) report on Newmarket Junior-Senior High School is now available on the school website. This report reflects the result of years of work by NJSHS staff to reflect on and evaluate our program. A NEASC team visited our school last October. The report is an assessment of where NJSHS was at that time on the road to school improvement. Principal Korman, Patty Wons and I are all very proud of the open and transparent work our teachers have done to establish priorities for school improvement. In the coming year, you will be hearing much more about a Vision of a Graduate, school improvement planning, curriculum development and strategies to better support our students to be successful. These are all concepts that resulted from our work to align the program with the NEASC Standards.
I would like to offer congratulations and well wishes to all of our spring athletes. Newmarket softball and baseball teams are advancing in the state tournament. Both teams are playing in round 2 on Saturday afternoon. The Oyster River-Newmarket lacrosse teams are advancing through the state tournament as well. Our track athletes made us all proud at the state championships last week and 8 of our girls are competing in the Meet of Champions on Saturday. Good luck to our athletes as they compete in the post season.
In closing I would like to congratulate our soon to be Newmarket High School graduating class of 2023. Today is their last official day of school. Next week is senior week. Awards night is next Thursday at 6:00 PM and commencement will be Friday night at 6:00 PM. One of the high points of my year is shaking hands with all of the graduates.
Best regards,
Todd Allen
Superintendent