Education Improvements

Education – Curriculum – Policies – Support of Music and Art – Cell Phone Policy – Financial Literacy – Bullying – Partnerships with Early College Programs at MWCC and with Monty Tech programs including plumbing, electrical, and carpentry.

Question: I do want to cover education, because that’s a big deal. Education, when you came in, people were still complaining about Gardner schools. Now, when you talk about it, the city of Chicago actually had a conference, and Dr. Pellegrino mentioned that of 40,000 schools, Gardner was mentioned. Now, tell us about some of the improvements in the last few years, like the curriculum, the policies on cell phones, bullying, the partnerships that have been fostered, the construction that’s occurred, the support for the music and art.

Answer: Our schools are where we build the future of our city. I often say that one of the reasons why I’m sitting in the seat right now is thanks to my AP government teacher, John Gardella, who our senior year said that we had two options to do for our final project in AP government, was to either intern on a local campaign and write a weekly reflection paper on the work that we did on that campaign, or write an 18-page research paper at the end of the year once the AP exam was done. And I took what any high school senior would do, and I did the internship rather than having to sit and write a research paper, although I did have to write plenty of that after for my degrees. But it really opened my eyes to what local government could do. But when you look at the curriculum that we’ve adopted here in Gardner, in terms of adding financial literacy as a graduation requirement, so that people know how to balance a checkbook on top of just your reading, writing, and arithmetic. The cell phone policy that’s been put in place is being copied by many other school districts, not just in Massachusetts, but around the region and the nation, just to stop distractions from our students that are there. Bullying is always an issue that we’re gonna take to the forefront of everything and make sure we’re addressing as best as we can. I do wanna highlight some new partnerships for our early college program. And with Mount Wachusett Community College through the early college program, but I do wanna highlight the Monty Tech partnerships that we’ve had through the MVP program, which is where our students at Gardner High School who want to get into the trade and different tech fields that weren’t able to get into Monty Tech can now go to Monty Tech every other week and take their shop classes. So they’re graduating with a Gardner High School diploma and industry credentials through Monty Tech’s program so that things could happen and open doors for them that were closed before. And by opening up those right now with electrical plumbing and carpentry and looking at future expansion properties, we can get students into these tech education classes and that weren’t able to access them before.

We’ve talked about a lot of the upgrades to our school buildings with the Gardner High School auditorium, the Gardner High School gym, the middle school lockers, the roof, the other improvements that are there. But probably one of the things I’m most proud of is our music and our arts and how we’ve been able to invest in those. Bringing back the elementary school band program, that was something that was a real priority of mine and was able to do in the first budget that I was able to put forward for fiscal year 2021. Because in fiscal year 2020, the budget was somewhat set by the time I took office. That was when we just had to get through things because the budget was passed in August. A lot of our budgets were late that year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But getting to a point where we could bring that program back in and now we have over 200 students participating in that. That’s a third of the elementary school. And you’re only allowed to do band there in grades three and four. So to have a third of the elementary school in a program only offered to third and fourth graders when you have pre-K through fourth grade in that building shows you how much the students are interested in that program. And we’ve already started to see the benefits of that with them taking home silver and platinum medals at the different festivals that they performed at. Our arts being boosted through investments made by the Williams Rockwell Fund, particularly at the high school and the ceramics and photography and fine arts classes that are there. But also exposing our students to different arts opportunities. Like we just sent the drama club on a field trip to go see Wicked on Broadway in New York City. That’s an opportunity that some students may not have. So these investments that we make in our students in the long run really have been helpful for sure. And I’m really proud of that.

Question: And from a standpoint of achievement, Gardner Public Schools have gone from a tier three when you took over as mayor to now a tier one.

Answer: Exactly. And that’s because of the resources that we’ve been able to put into giving our students opportunities for success. Not to define our students and tell them this is where you’re going, but to give them the toolbox to decide where they see themselves going in the future and set their own paths for themselves. And I’m really proud that we’ve been able to make that much of an increase.

From a 2023 interview – When Gardner went to Tier 1 designation

Question: Let’s talk about educational achievements. Recently, the city of Gardner has been commended for its achievements in education. From physical buildings to teachers to its programs of instruction, please elaborate on what Gardner has accomplished.

Answer: You know, one of the biggest things that I can say about our educational achievements in Gardner is back, I mean, two years ago, for a decade before that, Gardner was considered a level three district by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Now, there are four levels in which the state’s Department of Education grades a school district at, with four being the worst, and if you reach level four, the state takes over your district in receivership, and level one being the best. For years, Gardner was stuck at a level three district. Our test scores just weren’t there. This year, we’re up to level one. We’ve completely skipped level two altogether and gone up to a level one district. We’re no longer being monitored. There’s ways that we’ve improved. Our test scores are back up. And it’s because we’ve been willing to invest in our students and give them new ways to learn their education, be it through the innovative pathway programs that we’ve, you know, done, and I call those trades for non-trade schools. We do those in manufacturing, in nursing, in woodworking. We’ve begun programs in fire science now as well and computer and IT. Those are all ways that now students can get industry credentials in their regular curriculum and then really updating that curriculum to make sure it meets a modern 21st century learning environment and modern 2023 education that’s there. And by doing that, we’ve set our students up for success in whatever field they choose to go to in the future.

Question: What advice would you give to other cities on how to do this?

Answer: I think the biggest advice is that your schools are your biggest asset. If you can’t invest in your future, then why bother going out to find new businesses? Why bother going out to help the housing production in your locations? Why bother fixing the roads? Because if you don’t have the investment made in your younger generations and give them a reason to want to stay, then your population is just going to continue to go out and you’re not going to be as sustainable or nearly as successful in the future because you’ve just lost all of your future planning.

Benefitting Arts in Gardner – from a 2023 Interview

Question: The City of Gardner is increasingly becoming an even more art-friendly community. What are Gardner’s accomplishments with regard to the arts?

Answer: The first thing that comes to mind when it comes to seeing how we’ve benefited the arts is our reinstitution of the elementary school band program, where we have over 200 students now participating in that program to the point where we can’t have a single concert on one night just because there are so many students that one, don’t fit on the stage and two, their parents don’t fit in the crowd. So that’s an excellent problem to have, the one that I wouldn’t even call a problem, that we now have students really expressing themselves on the concert stage. At the same time, utilizing things like the Williams Rockwell Foundation funding and different city funds that we’ve been able to implement new art programs in our school directly, either through a new art teacher at the elementary school, through new enrichment programs in our other schools, purchasing a new kiln for the high school’s ceramics classes, new drawing tables at the middle schools, new art display cases for art shows, and that’s just in our schools. Now you add that the city is working with GALA, the Gardner Area League of Artists, for a potential location in Gardner. Once the school committee votes to declare some of our old school buildings as surplus and the city takes full ownership of those from the superintendent’s department, the new public art opportunities that we have, beginning with the mural over underneath the Route 2 railroad bridge over behind Hannaford, that will be completed this year with the other half being done shortly, as well as some other new murals that will be painted throughout the city as well. It’s something that we want to show people that you can be creative and you can find yourself here, no matter if it’s on a sports field, on a stage, behind a canvas or behind a paintbrush, or just going out in the city and finding a place that you can find yourself in because other people have chosen to express themselves and give those new amenities that are there. That’s the goal that we have here.