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Date: 3/23/2022
LONGMEADOW – The Longmeadow School Committee met to discuss agenda items including Longmeadow High School’s (LHS) internship program and a potential new private school at their March 15 meeting.
LHS Principal Thomas Landers and Career Education Coordinator Erin Corbett were in attendance to discuss the success of the program which began in fall 2021. According to Landers, there were a dozen students involved in the program in fall and 19 this spring semester.
“I think there’s a good chance of us doubling that number or pretty close to doubling that number and it has to do with the education and the outreach and the excitement that Erin has built,” he said.
The program is offered to grade 12 students and gives them an opportunity to get hands-on experience in a career field that they are interested in pursuing after high school or college. The student is connected with a local business to work with and usually spends about seven hours a week at the internship.
In the past two semesters, students have worked in healthcare, engineering, real estate, carpentry, graphic design, animal science, education, hospitality management, film and video production and more.
“I was blown away by the depth and the value of the experiences the mentors had provided for our students and, in turn, by the growth that our students had made in such a short period of time,” said Corbett.
According to Corbett, out of the 12 students who participated in the program in the fall semester, three have been offered employment with their mentors after graduation.
The School Committee invited a mentor and mentee partnership that participated in the internship program to discuss their experience and success.
The meeting then shifted into Superintendent Martin O’Shea’s report.
According to O’Shea, the District Safety Team hosted a meeting in the past week. He said that they finalized reunification kits which are being distributed to schools in order to help respond to unplanned school evacuations and the subsequent need for parent-student reunification.
O’Shea also said that new active shooting training for staff is underway at the schools and fire safety classes are being conducted in the elementary schools.
After a recent meeting of the Massachusetts School Building Authority, Longmeadow has been invited into the eligibility period to address the renovation needs of their middle schools. The eligibility period officially starts Aug. 1.
“We’re very excited about that and there’s a number of tasks that we need to complete in the course of this eligibility period. It’s a 270 day period,” said O’Shea.
O’Shea said that one of the biggest tasks that will need to be completed is the formation of a School Building Committee.
To end the meeting, the committee discussed a potential new private school in town. Tate Learning Center is hoping to open a special education day school on Converse Street.
O’Shea recommended that the School Committee appoint Director of Pupil Services Jean Fontaine to work alongside the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in their review of the new school.
After this review, Fontaine would then return to the School Committee with findings and a final recommendation on the Tate Learning Center.
After a vote, the School Committee unanimously approved Fontaine for this role.
Those interested in viewing the meeting in its entirety are encouraged to visit the Longmeadow TV YouTube page.