Malone Pays Visit to Peabody's Higgins Middle School

Secretary of Education Matthew Malone was in Peabody Wednesday morning, making a brief stop before heading up to Cape Ann for a forum.

Massachusetts Secretary of Education Matthew Malone stopped by for a visit in Peabody Wednesday at Higgins Middle School and liked what he saw. Malone praised faculty and staff for their innovative approach to teaching, despite some obvious challenges with the old school. Malone first spent several minutes with administrators, staff and local and elected officials talking about plans for the new middle school and several other ongoing programs as well as transitioning into the Common Core curriculum. Malone offered advice on various points, often drawing from his own recent experience as a superintendent, such as encouraging the city to try and secure maximum flexibility to have movable classroom walls in the new building in order to …

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West Boys, South Girls This Year's League Champs

The champs in this year's elementary school basketball league were the West School Boys and the South School Girls.

After the buzzer sounded last week in the championship game for the Peabody Recreation Department’s elementary school basketball league, the boys from the West School and the girls from the South School were the victors. The final championship game was played March 18 at Higgins Middle School in the James Geanoulis Tournament. The tournament runners-up were the West School Girls and the Welch School Boys.

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Should Your Kids be Videotaped While Riding the Bus?

The Peabody Public Schools are hiring two bus monitors to rotate between all the city's school buses and help maintain discipline and safety, but there's also the suggestion of installing cameras as another solution.

Should Your Kids be Videotaped While Riding the Bus?

The Peabody Public Schools are hiring two bus monitors to rotate between all the city's school buses and help maintain discipline and safety, but there's also the suggestion of installing cameras as another solution.

It wasn't actually the focus of the discussion, but rather a suggestion from one School Committee member at saving some money while keeping eyes on the situation at all times -- what about installing surveillance cameras in city school buses instead of hiring bus monitors? Estimates showed it would cost $10,000 per bus to place a monitor on each vehicle and committee member Dave McGeney wondered if a cheaper option could be installing cameras or some combination of the two. He said video equipment is not as expensive as it once was and asked for a report from district's transportation company, Salter, what it might cost to mount cameras and set up a system. The reason for the discussion was because the board was considering embarking on a …

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J

8:32 am on Saturday, March 23, 2013

Bonnie-Jean I don't think Johnny is saying it's ok that your daughter is being bullied and neither am I. I think his point is that she needs to learn how to stand up for herself rather than letting them get to her. When I was in school all the bullies were kids that had either drunk or trashy parents that didn't care about them at all. Many of these bullies got smacked around by their parents all…   more ›

Storm Closes Peabody Schools Today

City schools have been cancelled for the day due to the coastal storm blowing through the area with several inches of heavy snow, ice, sleet and freezing rain.

There's no school in Peabody today. Superintendent Joe Mastrocola has called off school today in Peabody due to the coastal storm blowing through the region, dropping several inches of snow, ice, sleet and freezing rain. This makes six snow days this winter for the Peabody Public Schools, including two days in October for Hurricane Sandy. School has similarly been canceled at Bishop Fenwick High School and the St. John the Baptist School.

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Brown Students Collect State Recycling Title

Students at the South Peabody elementary school recycled more material per person per school than their peers across the state last fall.

The Brown School is the winner of the 2012 Massachusetts Recycle Bowl. It's sort of like a Super Bowl for environmentally-conscious schools. The award from the Keep America Beautiful Recycle Bowl Contest will be presented Monday, March 18 during a brief ceremony at the school with a representative from the Washington, D.C.-based organization and school officials. The nationwide contest spanned four weeks in October and November during which students kept track of recycling efforts and reported them to contest officials. The fifth grade and Environmental Eagles participated in the contest. As state champions, that means Brown students recycled more material per person per school than their peers across the Bay State. "We recycled about …

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Top School Department Salaries in 2012

Here's a look at the highest-paid Peabody teachers, administrators and support staff in 2012.

Buckley Named New Peabody High Principal

Veteran Peabody educator and city native says leading the high school is a "big job," but he has great staff and students to work with and is excited to get started.

Tanner City native Eric Buckley will be the next principal at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School effective July 1. Schools Superintendent Joe Mastrocola announced the news at Tuesday night's School Committee meeting. The selection itself did not appear to come as a surprise to anyone -- Buckley is highly regarded in the district, where he has worked for the past 22 years. "It starts with the students. I've been so fortunate to have such good students along the way," Buckley reflected Tuesday night. He added, smiling: "I know Mr. Mayor, when I first started my career, you were sitting in C395 in the first row, I think it was the third seat." Bettencourt said after the meeting that the class was Contemporary Affairs and he and Buckley …

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Finalists Named for Carroll and South School Principal Jobs

Three finalists apiece will be interviewed for the two elementary school principal positions. Out of the six, three candidates currently work in the district.

The superintendent's office says there are now three finalists each for the open principal positions at the South and Carroll elementary schools. Interim principals were hired at both schools in recent months, following the promotion of Cara Murtagh to Assistant Superintendent from the Carroll last summer and the retirement of Maryellen McGrath from the South at the end of January. The South School finalists are Katelin Kennedy, Matthew Fusco and Tracy Smith. Kennedy has been at the school for nine years, the last three as Assistant Principal before serving as Interim Principal as of Feb. 1. Fusco is the principal at Great Oak Elementary School in Danvers and Smith is an eighth grade housemaster at Higgins Middle School, where she has …

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Peabody Schools Back Open Tuesday

The city's elementary schools, middle school and high school will be open again Tuesday morning. The emergency parking ban, however, will remain in effect overnight and possibly longer if needed.

The Peabody Public Schools will be back in session Tuesday. Mayor Ted Bettencourt told Peabody Patch Monday afternoon around 5 p.m. that all the schools were cleared and some last touches were being performed to sidewalks. He said the high school was the last of the schools to be cleared this afternoon. "That was the last one and I think we're ready to go," he said. A notice to parents from Superintendent Joe Mastrocola was scheduled to be sent out via the ConnectEd system shortly, according to Bettencourt. He said over Sunday and Monday city plow crews focused on clearing bus stops, crosswalks and sidewalks along the "major walking routes" to and from the city's eight elementary schools and the middle school and high school. Additionally…

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