MALDEN PUBLIC SCHOOLS: New Assistant Superintendent named for Teaching and Learning

New Superintendent Dr. Sippel taking part in statewide mentoring and support program

By Steve Freker

Though her commute to work will be nearly identical, since both her former and present operational bases are located in the heart of Malden Square, her duties will be quite different moving forward for a key, new local Malden central office school administrator. Malden Public Schools has welcomed a new Assistant Superintendent to its ranks – Komal Bhasin – who will serve as the point person for Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment. Bhasin was introduced as the new Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning at the recent Malden School Committee meeting. She was formally approved for hire at a special meeting of the School Committee held in August, just before the official start of the school year.

Bhasin was called “a critical member of my leadership team” in an informational message shared with the district’s staff by first-year Superintendent of Schools Dr. Timothy Sippel shortly after her confirmation for appointment by the School Committee.

The new Assistant Superintendent comes to the Malden Public Schools from “right around the corner” – as a former highly ranked administrator with the Mass. Department of Secondary and Elementary Education (DESE), whose main headquarters is located – at present – directly across the street from the Malden Public Schools central office at 110 Pleasant St. in Malden Square. For the last five years, Bhasin has served as Chief of Schools and Senior Associate Commissioner at the DESE, which oversees all public schools and sets statewide school policies in the Commonwealth. In this role, her focus was supporting the improvement efforts of educators and instructional leaders at the school and district level across the Commonwealth, with a particular focus on meeting the needs of multilingual learners.

Superintendent Sippel told the members of the MPS community, “Prior to working at DESE, Ms. Bhasin was a highly effective middle school principal for over a decade, most recently in the Lawrence Public Schools,” he stated in his message to the district staff. “Before becoming a school leader, she was a middle school science teacher and also taught phonics-based reading interventions.”

At DESE, Bhasin oversaw the Kaleidoscope Collective and Deeper Learning Initiatives. Previously, she served as the principal of UP Academy Leonard, a district public school with Lawrence Public Schools. As principal, she led a school previously placed in state takeover for chronic underperformance to achieve “Level One Status.”

Before that, she was the principal of Excel Academy Charter School in East Boston and also previously worked in school-turnaround initiatives in greater New Orleans, La., which focused on methods and practices to restore operational stability in the New Orleans region in the aftermath of the destructive Hurricane Katrina.

Bhasin appeared at the podium after being introduced by the Superintendent at the School Committee meeting. “I’m just honored and excited to be part of this team and deeply committed to the success of students of Malden,” she told the School Committee members and the audience. “Thank you for the opportunity to work here and I look forward to our collaboration in the future.”

New Superintendent will be part of a statewide collaborative providing mentoring and support

Superintendent Dr. Sippel reported at the first School Committee meeting that he is participating in the Mass. Association of School Superintendents (M.A.S.S.) New Superintendent Induction Program (NSIP), which is a three-year program providing mentorship, instruction and support to new superintendents statewide. NSIP is a collaboration between DESE and M.A.S.S. DESE and other state resources provide the bulk of the funding for the program. The mission of the program includes: “By teaching replicable best practices, providing expert coaching that goes well beyond mentoring, and offering multiple opportunities for deep collaboration with peers, NSIP helps superintendents sharpen their focus on teaching and learning, transform their visions into positive student outcomes, and become successful instructional leaders capable of promoting substantive and realistic change at the school level.”

At the September 9 School Committee meeting, Dr. Sippel introduced his coach from the NSIP program, Cynthia Paris, who attended the meeting and came to the podium to greet the School Committee and audience – and reported he had already attended meetings in collaboration with the program.

According to its Program Structure statement, outlined on its website – www.masssupt.org – “NSIP seeks to ensure that each superintendent begins their first year with a strong entry plan for engaging stakeholders and gathering the information needed to develop a widely-understood and focused strategy to accelerate student learning.”

This is believed to be one of the first times a newly hired Malden Superintendent of Schools has participated in the NSIP program, which has been in place for about 12 years.

Many lament elimination of Band and Spanish classes at Beebe School

Several speakers spoke out against elimination of Band and Spanish classes at the Beebe K-8 School this school year at the Malden School Committee meeting. Some of the speakers were students from the Beebe School, who said they were disappointed with the elimination of the instruction at their school, having enjoyed the classes the previous school year. Also included among the speakers who spoke out against the elimination of the Music/Band classes were Ward 3 Councillor Amanda Linehan, whose ward includes the Beebe School and whose child attends the school, and Deb Gesualdo, President of the Malden Education Association (MEA), herself a Malden Public Schools Music Teacher at the middle school level at Malden’s Linden STEAM Academy.

Councillor Linehan told the School Committee she also had a music program, having earned a Music Studies scholarship to the University of Connecticut in her college years.

Malden High School Graduation Day for 2025 changed from June 8 to June 1

At the School Committee meeting (September 9), the members voted unanimously on the motion of Vice Chairperson Jennifer Spadafora (Ward 3) to amend the official Malden Public Schools calendar. Specifically, the School Committee voted to change the date of the Malden High School Graduation Day for the Senior Class of 2025 to Sunday, June 1 from Sunday, June 8. The previous MPS central administration had set Graduation Day a week later than the traditional first Sunday in June date, due to what ruled in reference to learning time hours. A review has been held since the start of the new academic year and the change was made.