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Public comments at Sharon meeting cover FLES, kindergarten fees, special-education complaint and staff negotiation concerns
Summary
Dozens of residents, teachers and staff spoke during public comment at the March 5 Sharon School Committee meeting, urging preservation of elementary Spanish instruction, reduced kindergarten fees and follow-up on alleged special-education failures.
A wide range of residents, staff and students addressed the Sharon School Committee during the meeting’s public-comment period on March 5, raising concerns about potential program cuts, special-education services, labor negotiations and district communications.
Several parents and teachers urged the committee to preserve the elementary FLES (elementary world-language) program. Pam Ritecki, speaking for the elementary Spanish team, said the program supports literacy and sentence structure skills: "The elementary Spanish program addresses skills such as sentence structure, identification of story components, use of transition words, comprehension of words, and context," she said. Multiple parents said they had visited FLES classrooms and described enthusiastic student engagement.
Other speakers pressed the committee to restore or reduce the fee for full-day kindergarten. Katie Conroy said the town previously accepted funding to support full-day kindergarten and urged a committee discussion about lowering or eliminating the fee rather than shifting the burden to Town Meeting.
Several speakers raised concerns about cuts to physical education, librarians and instrumental music. Georgianne Lewis and Wendy MacArthur said these programs support students’ social, emotional and digital-literacy skills. Heather Murray, an instructional assistant, said the district had provided incomplete information during IA contract negotiations and that bargaining had been hampered by late and partial document delivery.
A parent, Alexandria Belcher, described an urgent situation involving her six-year-old son, Matthew. She said he had been out of school for a month, that she believes Department of Children and Families (DCF) found the district’s Cottage School negligent in a child-safety incident, and that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has opened an investigation. "My son cannot be out of school anymore than he already is. He's regressing, and he needs help," she said. The statements were presented as the parent’s account of filings and inquiries; the committee did not make an independent statement about DESE or DCF actions during the meeting.
Several speakers referenced recent state-level guidance on diversity, equity and inclusion. Tobin Asclar cited a Feb. 27 joint release from the governor and the attorney general reiterating that Massachusetts schools may continue certain diversity and inclusion practices within the law. Jay O'Brien urged removal of some on-campus signage and referenced a federal reporting website (ndei.ed.gov) while saying he and others had filed complaints; his comments included explicit references to federal executive orders and potential federal funding risks.
Other public-comment topics included concerns about consistency in committee communications, a request for more grant-writing to support curriculum needs (Zena Frost), and advocacy for maintaining library staffing to support media literacy (Wendy MacArthur).
The committee did not act on public comments during the session; many speakers asked for follow-up from the administration. Several committee members acknowledged the concerns and asked staff to provide additional information about special-education services, enrollment projections and program-level impacts of proposed cuts.
