May/June 2025
Dear Nauset Community,
I would like to take this opportunity to extend a profound sense of thanks and gratitude for the gift of serving as Superintendent of the Nauset Public Schools for the last four years. This has allowed me to continue to do the work that I love to do, while at the same time, be able to enjoy and experience the true gift of what it means to live on Cape Cod.
I am incredibly respectful of our four communities, and the value that they have, and continue to place, in educating their children. Our communities have their priorities in exactly the right place. Children are our future, and our towns continue to recognize and support that, fiscally and otherwise.
I have loved watching our community schools nurture and educate their children in close partnership with their parents, while acknowledging and supporting the individual community values. I have especially appreciated the hard work of so many to ensure that each of our schools is a special place where children can grow and thrive.
The outer Cape is, indeed, a special place. It is someplace where there is a picture that is priceless at every turn, on every road, and where there’s a beach at the end of most roads. But it’s the people and the communities that breathe life into our schools. This is someplace where great value and appreciation for the land and water around us, and the abundance it all provides, is treasured.
I would like to thank the staff of Nauset Public Schools for their outstanding dedication to the Nauset Community. You have shown time and again, your commitment to children and doing what is in their best interest.
Finally, I would like to thank our NPS school committee members, and particularly our Chairpersons across NPS for their guidance. I have appreciated the relationships, the laughter, and the camaraderie. Dr. Brand will quickly realize how fortunate he is as he gets to know all of you better.
With profound thanks,
Superintendent Brooke Clenchy
Dear Nauset Community,
Nauset Public Schools is pleased to announce that Ms. Victoria M. Saldana will be the new Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, effective July 4, 2025.
Ms. Saldana brings over fourteen years of experience as a curriculum leader. Currently, she serves as the Assistant Superintendent of Norfolk Public Schools. Previous educational leadership experiences include Director of Curriculum, Assessment and Instruction, Elementary Assistant Principal Grades 3-6 all for Norfolk Public Schools as well as Interim Elementary Assistant Principal K-5 for John F. Kennedy School Franklin. Ms. Saldana began her professional career as a Pre-Kindergarten Teacher for the Groton Community School.
Ms. Saldana’s academic credentials include a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education as well as a Masters Elementary Administration Pre-K-6.
Ms. Saldana believes that transformational leadership is built on collaboration, continuous learning, and meaningful partnerships. True educational progress happens when educators, administrators, families, and the community come together around a shared vision of excellence for all.
Ms. Saldana is eager to join the Nauset Team. She is also deeply committed to her new Cape Cod Community.
We are delighted to have Ms. Saldana join our NPS family.
I would also like to extend a note of thanks to the Search Committee, and the joint leadership of Principal Guditus and Principal O’Shea, whose collective efforts have resulted in this critical and successful hire of Ms. Saldana.
Kind regards.
Superintendent Brooke Clenchy
Congratulations Alyia!
Sometimes in life, you get lucky. Nauset Public Schools got lucky almost two decades ago when Alyia Vasquez was enrolled in school by her mother, Liberty. In the words of her guidance counselor, Stephen Boskus, “ Alyia Vasquez is, without question, one of the most exceptional and exciting students I have
worked with during my thirty plus year career. Positive, bright, engaged and giving, she is an
asset for our school and the greater community. Alyia is a leader without trying to lead and she
“raises the level of the game” in each course she takes.” Every person I spoke with to prepare for this evening, in fact, mentioned Alyia’s intelligence, curiosity, creativity and positive outlook.
Alyia is indeed intelligent and hard working. Her official grade point average is a 4.72, she is ranked first in her class of 200 students, and she has taken 11 AP courses. She has won 12 different academic awards, including the departmental awards in science, English, math and history. She was recognized by Big Future for “National Hispanic Award,” and “National Rural and Small Town Award.” And, I know it will shock everyone listening to hear that Alyia is president of the local National Honor Society. Next year, Alyia will enter Columbia University as a biochemistry major and Spanish minor.
Also notable is how Alyia achieved all this success through not just hard work, but by having curiosity and creativity as well. Alyia is a genuinely inquisitive student who is a standout in every classroom, radiating a quiet confidence. Her natural curiosity drives her to ask thoughtful questions and explore subjects thoroughly. For her final project in AP Biology last year, and in a heartfelt tribute to her journey with Type I diabetes, Alyia meticulously embroidered a pancreas, turning her personal experience into a piece of art that symbolizes her resilience and strength. Alyia’s interests extend beyond the classroom; for instance, one science teacher noted “she wonders how decaffeinated coffee is made.” Her curiosity and creativity are demonstrated in many
areas of her life, from her hidden talents in drawing, writing, playing the violin, to her interest in film.
Alyia is an active participant in numerous extracurricular activities that support our community and environment. For example, she is a leader within the Coastal Oceanography After School Team (COAST), she volunteers with Marine Fisheries Research and Massachusetts Audubon, and she has added the challenge of an independent study in advanced molecular biology by participating in the Wolbachia Program. Through this immersive lab series, Alyia will collect arthropod species in our local community, obtain DNA sequences of potentially new genetic strains of bacteria and contribute this data to a national genetic database (I’m not even sure what that all means!). Alyia’s unique extracurricular activities reflect her commitment to both academic excellence and community service.
All of these unique accomplishments, and there are many more, reflect Alyia’s intelligence, hard work, curiosity, creativity and positive outlook. For their support towards all her success, Alyia would especially like to thank, at school, her history teacher Andrew Clark, and , at home, her mother Liberty, “who was always there helping me and would have been even if I wasn’t doing well.”
Sometimes in life you get lucky. Nauset Public Schools has been lucky for the last two decades to have Alyia enriching our educational community. And, I predict very soon, the whole world will be lucky as Alyia brings her whole self to problem solving the challenges in the world. Congratulations to Alyia!
