Patrick C. Daly, Superintendent

Good evening parents and families, I hope that everyone had an enjoyable weekend. I'm happy to share that our teachers and administration have been working through the weekend on the development of a plan that will lead to more structured learning for students that will begin to take shape this week with new modules scheduled for Monday, April 6th. Tomorrow each Principal will be meeting with the leadership team at each school, comprised of general education and special education teachers, in order to thoughtfully finalize the schedule for students and to answer any remaining questions. For tomorrow we ask that students continue to explore the enrichment resources that have been shared. My hope is to have some additional structured guidance on Tuesday for the remainder of this week and then a distinct plan in place for our new remote learning schedule for Monday, April 6th. This week I will be sharing some additional guidance for parents and families. Most importantly, I want ...

Dear North Reading School Community, It's been another very eventful week for us and I appreciate the efforts of everyone in our community. I want to thank all of the doctors, nurses, drivers, food and grocery workers, safety, town administrators and other essential providers in our community for all that they are doing to support us during this challenging time. I have been continuously impressed with the dedication of our food services team who prepared lunches for our families this week as well as our digital learning team who prepared Chromebooks for those who needed them. I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of creative and inspirational and motivational thoughts that have been shared with me from our school community, including the giving and thoughtfulness of so many individuals. Many have expressed the positive aspects that they are thankful for in these otherwise challenging times. I'm in a group of friends posting daily thoughts of gratitude. It's been a won...

Good Afternoon North Reading Families, I am writing with a very brief update on an extension of the school closures in Massachusetts that was just declared by Governor Baker and Commissioner Riley a few moments ago. The original closure was declared through Tuesday, April 7th,  and that has now been extended through Monday, May 4th . There are clearly decisions being made at the state level in response to the rapidly changing data on this virus, the result of which was that superintendents and educators learned about this extension at the same time as everyone else.  As promised by Commissioner Riley, we are expecting further documentation and guidance tomorrow morning from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that will speak to our responsibility and ability to provide an equitable educational opportunity for  ALL  students. We will be working diligently to unpack that information in the days ahead, an...

Good afternoon North Reading Parents/Guardians and School Community, I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone-- parents, teachers, and students-- for such a remarkable response in these challenging and unprecedented times. From what I’m seeing online and on social media teachers have compiled incredible resources and parents are assisting students in engaging with these enrichment activities. This has worked very well this first week and I appreciate everyone’s hard work and support. Dr. Downs has helped to compile many of these resources on this site . As we look to the next two weeks, through April 7th, we must begin to consider that there is a possibility that the recommendation will be for schools to remain closed for a longer period of time. We are awaiting further guidance from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) about what teaching and learning will look like in the event of an extended closure. I will be meeting on Monday with a large gr...

Out of an abundance of caution, our schools will be  closed March 13 to March 27, 2020 as we continue a deep cleaning and disinfecting of all buildings. I am in contact with the North Reading Board of Health who continues to work with us and advise us on next steps.  Until further notice all events and activities are cancelled and there should be no staff or students reporting to the buildings.  All afternoon and evening activities for this period of time are cancelled. We have compiled this list of FAQs that will be regularly updated. We hope that you find this a helpful resource in these unprecedented circumstances. Thank you to my amazing administrative team and our union and town leadership, as well as our school committee, who have all contributed and supported the development of this document. This document will be continuously updated so please check in periodically. Once again, at this time no known COVID-19 illness is present in our schools and this action ...

Good afternoon, Please see the attached letter from the Merrimack Valley Superintendent's Association. North Reading, along with other member districts, have decided to close all schools through at least March 27, 2020. I realize that there are many questions and so I ask you patience over the next few days as we finalize the FAQ document that our incredible Administrative Team has been working on all day. This document will hopefully address many of the questions that parents, teachers, and students will have about what those two weeks will look like. I will say at that this time that North Reading Public Schools will treat these two weeks (March 13th through March 27, 2020) as non-school days that will be paid days for all employees who would have been regularly scheduled to work on those days. Pay will follow the typical weekly and bi-weekly pay schedule that employees are on. If you do not have direct deposit you will have your check mailed to you. The schools are cl...

Good afternoon North Reading Public School’s Community, As previously communicated, at this time there are no known instances of COVID-19 illness present in our schools. However, we have been receiving information this morning about staff members who may have been in close contact with those exposed to COVID-19 as well as students and staff who have recently returned from travel to countries now designated overnight as Level 3. Out of an abundance of caution, I have made the decision to dismiss North Reading High School students beginning at 12:40 p.m. today and North Reading Middle School Students at 1:00 p.m. today in order to begin a deep cleaning of the schools. Our elementary schools will have already dismissed by this time due to the previously scheduled conferences (which are now cancelled.) We will remain closed tomorrow, March 13 th , at all schools so we can do a second deep cleaning and disinfecting of all buildings . I am in contact with the North Reading Board of...

Good evening, Please see the attached informational update from the Town Administrator, Michael Gilleberto. As noted, there are no known cases of COVID-19 for staff or students in the North Reading Public Schools. At this time we will continue to operate our schools and classes as we would typically do with increased focus on handwashing and prevention, as has been previously shared. There will be changes to performances, events, and trips and this will be communicated via our building principals. I will also be providing updates regularly to centrally communicate some of these cancellations/modifications to events.  Please also understand that there will be some changes, for the time being, to our use of parent volunteers and for parent and community attendance and participation at school events and performances. For those events that we are not cancelling we may restrict attendance from anyone not typically in the schools (educators and students) in order to comply wit...

Good evening, Please see the important message, links, and information below from Town Administrator, Michael Gilleberto with respect to our Town’s unified response to COVID-19. Additionally, I would like to share how this will impact North Reading Public School District events. At this time the MIAA is still holding events, including the Girls Basketball Championship games scheduled for Wednesday, March 11th. At this time I will remind everyone of the Governor’s recommendation that is shared by the MIAA: “The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) is moving forward to conduct the Basketball and Hockey Championship games scheduled on March 10-15. In accordance with the recommendations from Governor Baker to mitigate COVID-19, we encourage participants, spectators, workers and community members to practice good personal hygiene.  We support the recommendation for -those over the age of 60- and those with underlying health issues to stay away from ...