MALDEN SCHOOL COMMITTEE: Superintendent Dr. Sippel updates Entry Plan progress; Vice Chair Spadafora reviews teacher contract negotiations

In 2025, full day off on day before Thanksgiving; ‘Walk, Bike and Roll to School Day’ celebrated

By Steve Freker

He’s visited over 400 classrooms, sifted through hundreds of comments and suggestions and with the assistance of his leadership team sifted through the responses of many surveys – from each and all groups of stakeholders in the Malden Public Schools district. With the goal of formulating and then establishing a strategic plan to guide the future of the Malden district, Superintendent of Schools Timothy Sippel, Ed.L.D. at Monday night’s regular meeting of the Malden School Committee presented the latest update of his formal, personal Entry Plan as first-year Superintendent, an overview of ongoing findings and conclusions compiled over the past nine months since he assumed the reins of the district.

Supt. Sippel give a brief recap of the Entry Plan previous phases:

• Phase 1: Immersion into the Malden community (July through August 2024)
• Phase 2: Listening to Learn (August through November 2024)
• Phase 3: Learning in Action (August through November 2024)
• Phase 4: Analysis and Sharing (December through February 2025)

Dr. Sippel then explained that he and his team are now immersed in the fifth and final phase of the Entry Plan, which began in March and will continue and conclude in June: “Charting the Future of Malden Public Schools.”

Dr. Sippel said that Phase 5 will include the final identification and incorporation of “areas for collective action” from Phase 4, “including the analysis of midyear data” from the district’s seven schools: Early Learning Center (ELC), Beebe K-8 School, Ferryway K-8 School, Forestdale K-8 School, Linden STEAM Academy K-8, Salemwood K-8 School and Malden High School. The objectives of the Phase 5 process would include establishing and delineating:

• District Academic Policy
• School Improvement Plans
• Strategy for District Improvement & FY26 Budget
• Next Steps

When describing the establishment of the District Academic Policy moving forward, Supt. Sippel used a slide presentation on Monday to explain the development process, “The Malden Leadership Team has collaboratively analyzed:

• Formative classroom observation
• Mid-year data from student assessments
• Trends from teacher coaching and professional learning”

As for School Improvement Plans (SIP), Supt. Sippel stressed that these will have a high priority this year, to that end, noting that representatives of each of the district’s seven schools will be presenting the respective SIPs live at the next School Committee meeting, Monday, June 2, where members will be able to review them and ask questions.

Dr. Sippel said within the SIPs are “Areas for Collective Action” (with SIP Components), including: High expectations for all (Academic Priorities); Meeting diverse needs (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support [MTSS] Priority); Fair access for all (Scheduling Plan); Partnering with families (Attendance Priority); Nurturing a strong workforce (Professional Development); Strength and Stability (Resource Allocation).”

Dr. Sippel then outlined the next steps as to the strategy development and implementation for the district “moving forward,” as follows:

• School leaders are finishing last steps and finalizing improvement plans through May (this month), incorporating feedback through their individual, in-school surveys and discussions with students, staff and School Councils
• School leaders will present School Improvement Plans to the School Committee in June for review and approval
• The district Leadership Team will be working toward a strategy for District Improvement with an aligned FY26 Budget
• Developing a comprehensive Strategic Plan for next year

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Vice Chair Spadafora gives update on teacher contract negotiations; Malden Schools will have off a full day on Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day

Meetings are continuing between the Malden School Committee’s Negotiations Subcommittee and the Malden Education Association (MEA) teachers union on a new contract. The existing three-year contract expires on August 1 of this year. A sixth open-to-the-public session was held Wednesday evening in the City Council Chamber at Malden City Hall. This is one of the first years when a continuous series of live, public negotiation sessions have been held. Some portions of the negotiations, most notably financial considerations, continue to be held behind closed doors in executive session – not open to the public.

“We’re doing well,” School Committee Vice Chair Jennifer Spadafora (Ward 3) said at Monday’s regular meeting. “We held our fifth session on April 10 and it was our most productive session.”

“We provided some economic responses to the MEA’s financial proposals and came to some definitive agreements on some other issues that we were able to put in place, pending final contract approval,” Vice Chair Spadafora, who is also chairperson of the Negotiations Subcommittee, added.

Most notably, for the upcoming 2025-26 school year, she said, are some revised starting times for the K-8 school day; establishment of a 30-minute recess for K-6 students; the elimination of the half-day for teacher professional development most months; and the start of the full day off from classes on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day in November 2025.

Vice Chair Spadafora said the plan moving forward is to incorporate professional development work “built into the school days.” The day before Thanksgiving as a full day off from school will be new, as traditionally this has been a half-day dismissal at 11:00 a.m.

Also traditionally, schools across the district have hosted “Spirit Days” on the Wednesday half-day, which apparently will still be held, but now moved up to the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Day falls on Thursday, November 27, 2025, this year. So the new full day off from school would be on Wednesday, November 26. The Tuesday where the Spirit Days would apparently be held would be on November 25.

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School Committee approves 1-year food service contract with Aramark, continuing relationship with MPS

The Malden School Committee unanimously approved a new, one-year contract for Aramark Food Services to provide full food service for breakfast, lunch and other requests for the Malden Public Schools in the 2025-26 school year. Vice Chair Spadafora, who oversaw the discussions on this new contract, noted Aramark was the only respondent for the bid for services. She explained that this year was a “new process. In the past there was an RFP [Request for Proposals[, but this year, DESE [state Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education] is running the show.

“We have minimal to no complaints about the service [Aramark] has provided in their first 3-year contract [since 2022],” she added. “They continue to provide excellent service to our district with a lot of great reviews.”

The Vice Chair noted Malden’s 6,300-plus students receive universal free breakfast and lunch through state and federal programming.

Ward 5 School Committee member Elizabeth Hortie asked a question regarding serving sizes, specifically if middle school 8th grade students, for instance, were getting the same servings as younger students in the K-8 schools.

“We’ve researched that; the Superintendent and I were recently at the Salemwood School and we observed the meals and some of the students eating the meals,” Vice Chair Spadafora said.

Malden Public Schools Director of Finance and Operations Toni Mertz came to the podium at that point and explained that many of the food service protocols – right down to the serving sizes – “are determined by the federal government” and pointed out, when asked, that “seconds” are not allowed as free distribution, that students must purchase an additional lunch serving if they desire.