Dear Bedford Public Schools Community,
The upcoming weeks include many important events that may be on people's minds (including Election Day on 11/5, Special Town Meeting on 11/18, and the FY26 school budget presentation slated for 11/26). During this time, I urge each of us (including myself!) to take the time to enjoy each other, nature, get rest and have some fun. In that spirit, I share some fun from Halloween yesterday (Can you guess which staff member is the green alien at Lane School?). I also look forward to joining the 6th grade and JGMS staff at Nature's Classroom next week and hopefully catching some of the post-season sports action for field hockey, boys soccer, cross country and possibly football (check schedules here)--Go Bucs! Finally, don't forget to set your clocks back when Daylight Savings Time ends on November 3rd and enjoy that extra hour of sleep if you can.
Best,
Cliff Chuang 莊 宏 毅
Superintendent, Bedford Public Schools
- October 31-November 1: Diwali
- November: Native American Heritage Month
- November 1: All Saints Day
- November 1-2: Day of the Dead
- November 3: Daylight Savings (clocks "fall back" one hour)
- November 5: Election Day - No School for Students; Professional Development Day for Staff
- November 11: Veteran's Day - No School
- November 20: Transgender Day of Remembrance
- November 27: Early Dismissal
- November 28-29: Thanksgiving break - No School
- December 23-31: Winter Break - No School
- December 25: Christmas
- December 26*-January 2: Hanukkah (*starts at sundown of December 25th)
- January 1: New Year's Day - No School
- January 2: School Back in Session
We are in one of our rare 3-week breaks between School Committee meetings: no meeting this week, no meeting next week. However, I neglected to share previously that we welcomed Vivian Liu as the BHS student representative for 2024-2025 at the October 22nd meeting (pictured with outgoing student representative Shreyes Shivappa, photo credit: Principal Galante). The next School Committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, November 12th. The school committee meeting schedule and supporting materials can always be found at School Committee - Meeting Schedule & Supporting Documents.
In an effort to adhere to the town's Environmentally Preferred Procurement Policy and school sustainability and health goals, the Food Services Department is moving away from single use foam lunch trays and hard plastic trays in our cafeterias. We applied for and received a gift from PlasticFreeRestaurants.Org in the amount of 1,600 Ahisma stainless steel trays (a value of over $12,000). The cafeterias will start transitioning to these trays on Dec 1st, 2024. This transition is estimated to save ~$8,000+ spent on foam trays annually, with 220,000 single-use disposable serveware (4,500 lbs of plastic) eliminated from the trash. More importantly, the American Academy of Pediatrics has reported that leeching chemicals and microplastics used in plastic food materials adversely affect children's health. We are grateful for this in-kind gift from PlasticFreeRestaurants.Org.