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 There is one key issue that must be addressed immediately and that is the teacher’s contract. Education is the nucleus of our community and first and foremost that falls into the hands of our teachers. Your children will spend 30% of their adolescent life with a teacher. The better we prepare our children academically and with general life experiences the more chance they will be successful.

As with all contract negotiations there are always more than one request for discussion let's resolve the top two as soon as possible. It seems necessary the school budget must find a percentage increase since the 2025 budget has already been approved. Moving forward the city will plan accordingly for the additional increase in the 2026 and 2027 school budgets. 

We need a well-structured budget that allocates competitive salaries, effective use of funds and fosters a supportive learning environment.

We are faced with a shortage in educators and other positions, there are too many vacant positions. Special education positions are at the top of the list. Are our starting salaries comparable with similar size cities and demographics? Certainly, a major contributing factor to filling vacant positions. 

Is the increase in homelessness in our hotels starting to become a burden regarding cost?

Not only Investing for higher learning academic skills, but we should also provide more funded programs for those interested in extended Arts, Music and STEM subjects.

This may be done through federal, state or private grants. However, Methuen hasn’t had a grant writer for years. The position pays for itself ten times over and allows funds to be used for additional education and outreach programs. Grants in addition will allow for elderly programs and sponsored events.

I intend on meeting with the superintendent to understand and define the metrics and benchmarks to capture the results of our education system on a yearly basis and compare it to previous years as well. For instance, only examples, graduation rate, grade point averages and college acceptance statistics. 

Accountability of our educators goes hand in hand with our student body exercising all aspects of respect to our educators. We will continue to track and document disrespectful and suspension actions and they will not be tolerated.

A student body representative does play a role in the school committee meetings however we should create a diverse group of students from 7th grade up to understand the challenges. As a parent I thought I was aware of everything my children were discussing with other children and what they do when not in the household. I was a very active parent and in later years I found out we didn't know half of what was going on. Today's social media has multiplied this by ten!  We need to get the inside scoop and stop a small problem from becoming a big problem.

Do Methuen residents realize "History" has been removed for our schools curriculum? Were the residents asked if this was in the best interest of their children? How will they learn about the Bill of Rights, that clearly guarantees for civil rights and liberties to the individual—like freedom of speech, press, and religion.  Civil rights law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin.