Dear Students, Families and Staff,
As we began our school year, we surely did not foresee the depth of the issues with our new transportation provider, STA. We share the frustration of students, families and schools with the delays and cancellations related to STA. Our district transportation team has been working nearly non-stop since the first week of school to alleviate these issues. This has been a huge lift, and it would not be possible without our partners who quickly stepped up and stepped in to cover canceled routes.
These transportation issues were even more frustrating because we’ve otherwise had a very strong start to the school year. While transportation will continue to be a focus of our team for the foreseeable future, it’s also important that we highlight many of the positive things happening in our District. Just in the first few weeks, we’ve seen some amazing things:
As part of our Show Up Manchester attendance campaign, our schools have been putting a strong emphasis on good attendance. Initial data reviews are showing an improvement in daily attendance this September versus last September.
Every school participated in – and a lot of students, families and staff attended – CelebratED MHT last weekend at Veterans’ Park. With performances, awards, artwork and demonstrations, our students and staff showed what makes our schools so amazing.
Our district leadership team met with business leaders for the State of the District, to provide an update on our progress and our goals for the upcoming school year.
We’ve seen our students continue to succeed and excel, and we kicked off the year with an amazing event, gathering all of our staff at the SNHU Arena.
Just this week, we announced our first dual-language immersion program, a Spanish-English offering, that when up and running would be the only such program in the state of New Hampshire.
Again, all of this is just within the first few weeks of school! This year, I have framed our work around two words: “deliberate optimism” – the idea that we can be intentionally positive in everything we do. While busing has been a major challenge for all of us, I still see a lot of reasons for optimism all across our schools. We have a great year ahead of us, and we’re just getting started.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Chmiel Gillis, Ed.D
Superintendent of Schools