West Bridgewater School Committee Approves Handbooks, Goals, and Staff Agreement

WEST BRIDGEWATER -- September 8, 2025, West Bridgewater School Committee approves handbooks, staff contract, and superintendent goals on opening-year night. The committee voted unanimously on all items at its September 8 meeting, including the middle-senior high school student and athletic handbooks, school improvement plans for all three school levels, and a memorandum of agreement with West Bridgewater Education Association Unit B covering secretaries and clerks with salary advancement and a modest longevity increase. Superintendent Mark Baudwell reported the district sits at 225 school choice students against a budgeted 230, a gap worth roughly $25,000 in state funding, and said kindergarten and four other grade levels are closed to further enrollment to protect class size. The committee heard a proposal to pilot an in-house online math course for up to five upperclassmen who exhausted available full-year math offerings, with teachers Mr. Hyde and Ms. Daly providing instruction via office hours and a college-style platform at a cost below the district's existing $350-per-student Ingenuity contract; a memorandum of agreement on teacher stipends is pending. On the MSBA elementary building project, Baudwell set an October 23 schematic design submission deadline and said the School Building Committee would vote the following evening on whether to pursue a construction manager at risk or design-bid-build delivery method. The committee also received a capital update on 49 newly installed cameras at the middle-senior high school, up from 39 prior feeds, along with a new key fob access system, with Howard School's front-door electronic lock identified as the next security priority.