The Halifax Board of Selectmen met on Tuesday, Sept. 26. Town Administrator Cody Haddad told the board that Halifax’s Veteran’s Agent Steve Littlefield has been working on Hometown Heroes. Haddad said it consisted of banners that are hung throughout town. “We were a little bit short on funding as it is funded all through donations; we just want to acknowledge a lot of people came together at the end and made some donations to push the project over the finish line. There was also an organization who donated quite a large amount of money and they previously operated an organization to assist veterans in the area and then they moved out of State, and they gave the balance of their funds… to Halifax,” Haddad said. Selectman Jonathan Selig added a special shout-out to resident Mary Gravinese who “put the call out that more funds were needed.”
Regarding the contract for the Highway Barn project, Haddad told the Selectmen that the winning bid is with Cape Cod Builders in the amount of $289,000. The Selectmen voted to approve the contract. They also approved a contract for the buildout of the municipal maintenance shop in the amount of $26,200. Resident Frank Johnston, who is also a member of the Finance Committee, asked where the contracts came in relative to the original budgets. Haddad said that the Highway Barn Project is coming in right at budget and noted that they would be using $20,000 of Chapter 90 funding. The shop project is under budget.
Haddad mentioned that a Special Town Meeting would be held to deal with several items including the reclassification study as well as the Regional Schools Agreement. He said that there were also potential zoning changes due to the senior center project. The Selectmen voted to set the Special Town Meeting for Thursday, Dec.14.
Haddad provided an update regarding the need to change the Regional School Agreement per the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Haddad said that town counsel had reviewed the most recent draft and that they provided some proposed changes that were submitted to the schools. “It has to pass for all three schools; it really comes down to the way the pre-K is set up right now. It had been run as a regional program although it wasn’t laid out as a regional program in the actual agreement so DESE came back and said if you want to continue to run this, it needs to reflect accurately in the actual agreement,” Haddad said. He told the Selectmen that the Superintendent would be attending a meeting to explain the specifics.
Haddad brought up some proposed changes to the operating hours at Town Hall. “Previously Town Hall was open Monday through Thursday, 7-4 and then staff would work a half day on Friday, although the building wasn’t open to the public. So, over the summer, offices have been open Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday 7-4:30 and then on Tuesdays until 6:30.” Following the trial run, Haddad said that he put out a survey to everyone in Town Hall regarding their preference. He said that 75 percent said they would like to stay with the changes that occurred over the summer. “With that being said, my recommendation would be to make the hours we have now, a permanent solution,” Haddad said. The Selectmen voted to approve the revised hours that were trialed over the summer.
Haddad told the Selectmen that the previous Board had approved $450,000 in ARPA funds for upgrades at the Water Treatment Plant. “It was an oversight, we thought it had been $600,000; we had been planning for $600,000,” Haddad said. The Selectmen approved the cost increase. “This is the American Rescue Plan Act funding that came from the Federal Government… basically as a stimulus to municipalities, cities, counties across the country as a result of the Covid pandemic, so the town received probably in total around $2 million. A lot of that has been allocated… we had been accounting for that $600,000 for this project,” Haddad explained. He continued, “the portion that came from the County was more designated for the purposes that the Federal Government had laid out in addition to revenue replacement, which was broadband, water/sewer infrastructure, so this falls directly in line with the water infrastructure.” The Selectmen voted to approve the $600,000.
The Selectmen were asked for a letter of support for Hybrid Programming for a Council on Aging Grant. “It’s a hybrid program that, depending on the individual and how they want to approach it, it would give the opportunity for homebound people to have some type of programming at home,” Council on Aging Director Darlene Regan explained. “That’s awesome,” Selig said.
Haddad provided the Selectmen with some updates at Town Hall including some recent office moves. He pointed out that the Selectmen were meeting in a new meeting room. He also told the Selectmen that he submitted a Com

The Plympton Elementary School Committee met on Monday, Sept. 8. “Over the summer I was approached by a member of the gardening club here in town, who is also one of the neighbors of the Dennett Elementary School who happened to know the Dennetts. And she was concerned about the situation around the flagpole and around the dedication slab to the Dennetts. Just wanted to pass along some ideas for how we can rehab the area and maybe we can make this one of our priorities for the grounds during the course of this year… so we can get that back up to snuff and give the respect and honor to the Dennetts for all they’ve done for the town of Plympton,” Chair Jason Fraser said.
Silver Lake
pre-K program
Superintendent Jill Proulx said that the Silver Lake Regional School District has presented a warrant article for Plympton’s special town meeting in the fall. “It asks the town to approve the incorporation of our pre-K program… into the Silver Lake Regional School District which is how we have been operating for many years. In addition, the Regional Agreement had a number of items, legal regulations, that needed to be updated because it had been a while since the Regional Agreement had been revised and updated to meet State regulations.” Fraser said that town meeting was October 18 and asked people to go and support the new Regional Agreement. He added, “If we don’t pass the new Regional Agreement, we are going to be in a heap of trouble here at the local level because our pre-K program will cease to exist as an incorporated program and we’re going to have to come up with a way to do it in house ourselves and pay for it as well.” Fraser did say that the new agreement came with a price tag of about $40,000 for Plympton. He said it had less to do with the inclusion of the pre-K program and more to do with adding an administrator responsible for the preschool program.
New Playground
Regarding the new playground at the Dennett, Director of Business Services Christine Healy said, “We believe the playground is complete. We got a chance to take a peek out there. It looks lovely, it was a long, long process.” Fraser said, “I would just like to publicly thank Peter [Veneto] for his leg work that he did at the beginning, at the dreaming phase of the playground. We met with a lot of different consultants, we came up with a lot of different designs, we heard from a lot of parents who wanted re-designs, we went back to the chalkboard and redesigned things until we could best meet the needs of what the playground was designed for and it was a three-fold operation – we were trying to make it developmentally appropriate for a K-6 building… we were looking for safety; there was no fill below any of the structures in our old playground… and the one that was nearest and dearest to my heart was accessibility for all students, regardless of who shows up at the doorstep of this school, now they will be able to play with their friends on this playground.”
School solar project
Regarding the solar project, Fraser said the school had signed all agreements necessary including the purchase and lease. “They are hooked to the grid and they are up and running at this point,” Fraser said.
During the Report of Standing Committees, Fraser provided an update for the Legislative Update saying that they were able to successfully pass the free school meals for all. He said there was a “decent amount of funding” for schools in the State budget. “The one thing I would ask you to look at is the Mass rural schools right now are making a major push for additional funding and we actually do benefit from that legislature… this year we saw a tripling of rural aid and last year, Silver Lake, but it’s mostly Plympton, got around $71,000 in rural aid so we should expect to see close to triple of that last year… a bill right now would call for that to be multiplied by four more,” Fraser said.
Principal Peter Veneto provided the Principal’s Report saying that enrollment stood at 251 students to start the year. He said that students have been earning tickets for “demonstrating expected behaviors at class, recess, pretty much everywhere at school.” Assistant Principal Christine Marcolini explained that the classrooms work toward filling their bowls with tickets in order to earn a class reward. “And then their tickets get transferred into the big Dennett rock… and the kids are so excited about it and they’re looking to see ‘well how much further do we have to go to get the whole school reward.’”
Veneto said that as part of the playground project they received a new donation of a giant Adirondack chair and a friendship bench from C.A.S.A. Veneto said they also received a check for $10,000 from an anonymous donor. Regarding staffing updates Veneto said Melissa Ritter is now teaching Grade 1, Kirsten Myers is the new Math Interventionist, and Hannah George is a new paraprofessional. He noted that he is still trying to fill the building substitute and 0.4 art teacher.
Proulx and Assistant Superintendent Ryan Lynch presented jointly on the state of Curriculum and Assessment. Proulx said that they had a busy summer with hiring including the addition of the new Director of Student Services, Dr. Christine Panarese, as well as a new Assistant Director of Student Services. Proulx said they were in the process of hiring a new Director of Business Services as Healy will be retiring at the end of December. “We’re very sad that she will be retiring but we are very grateful that we’ve had her to help us get through some difficult times,” Proulx said of Healy. She also said that the daily sub rate has been increased and should hopefully aid in securing substitute teachers.
“We continue to monitor the social and emotional needs of our students through the analysis of data. We had two data points last year, teachers worked in groups to examine their student data and then implement interventions in the classroom,” Proulx said. She noted that Second Step was implemented in the Middle School and high school students participated in the Anti-Defamation League training.
“We also examined support team practices across all the schools and this year it will be a big focus of ours to develop greater consistency and effective practices across all of our schools to make sure that all students are receiving interventions regardless of whether or not they are special education students or not… if a student is experiencing difficulty or struggles… that goes through the support team process and the support team works with staff to help identify ways that this child can be supported in the classroom and beyond,” Proulx told the Committee.
She provided some updates on the curriculum as well. She said that a technology plan was created last year and would be implemented this year. Proulx also said that all the schools now have instrumental lessons. She also said that they would be working to close achievement gaps as well.
Lynch thanked the staff for the work that was done over the summer. He said that 11 Dennett teachers spent three days talking about “how best to meet the needs of students… and co-teachers’ interventions and support.” He also credited specific staff members with their work on the science curriculum over the summer.