Superintendent Smith Recognizes Academic Achievements

During Monday night’s school committee meeting, superintendent Sidney Smith spent much of the time allotted for superintendent’s remarks praising the hard work of Malden students.

First, he listed the of the Malden Reads column contest. Participants were asked to interview a person that intrigued them and to write an article about that person. Smith was particularly proud that none of the winners spoke English as their first language. The winner for each grade group is enrolled in an English as a Second Language program.

“When you think about the diversity that is represented in these winners, who are a group of English language learners in ESL classes, who are winning a writing contest, it says a whole lot about those kids and it says a great deal about Malden,” Smith said. “It just makes me really, really proud.”

Second, he commended junior Rebecca Jean, winner of the Girl Up award, for her participation in the model U.N.  This summer, Jean will work as an advisor to Girl Up, a campaign of the United Nations foundation that seeks to inspire American girls to learn about and to help impoverished adolescent girls across the globe.

Smith also announced that the United Nations Association of Greater Boston awarded 10 scholarships to Malden students, more than were given to students in the rest of the state. Scholarship recipients will be afforded the opportunity to take part in a summer program at Harvard Business School.

Third, Smith listed some of the colleges and universities that Malden students will be attending in the upcoming school year. Among them are Harvard, MIT, Columbia, and Stanford.

“This is an incredible list for an urban public high school,” he said to applause from those in attendance.   

In Other Committee news 

• The school department and teacher's union have reached an agreement to extend the school day for grades K-8 by 15 minutes in order to meet the state's "Time on Learning" requirement. 
• As nationwide concern over the harmful effects of concussions spread, the school committee announced that it is working on a concussion policy to protect Malden's student-athletes. 
• Irene Oliver, the school department's business manager, is leaving Malden to take a position closer to her home.