Natick Public Schools addressing ‘digital wellness and learning’; Plus, Game Changers, Code of Conduct & Memorial school updates

The Natick School Committee had a jam-packed agenda for its first regular meeting following the start of the new school year, so where to begin in recapping it? Since the meeting kicked off with a series of public comments regarding tech use in the schools, and Supt. Dr. Melissa Spash later discussed a related new committee, that’s as good a place as any.

(See the Natick Pegasus recording for all the action.)

During citizen speak, Mary Hopkins as well as the two following speakers identified themselves as being with Schools Beyond Screens-Natick, one of more than 200 chapters nationwide urging school districts to take a fresh and hard look at how they are using technology in education. She said it is “great that Natick is beginning an audit of educational technology” and offered a handful of questions that the group hopes the audit will address. These focused on areas such as finding out the cumulative daily screen time for students (including at home), and how devices are used during unstructured time or as behavior management tools. She was followed by one Natick school parent who questioned the use of videos and other technology in teaching math, and another pondered “Why do 5-year-olds need iPads at all?” after looking into what Lilja Elementary School has in store for her four-year-old son when he’s old enough to attend.

Later in the meeting, Supt. Spash shared a brief update on how the district is addressing the use of technology and artificial intelligence under the recently published 5-year Strategic Plan. She said Christopher Cook, director of curriculum and instruction, and Dennis Roche, chief technology officer, are going to lead a committee on digital wellness and learning. Goals this year are to bring various interested parties together, review current research and models, completing an inventory of the district’s technology tools and practices, and develop a roadmap for the remaining years under the strategic plan.

On a related note, Spash noted that 6th graders at the middle schools will not be bringing their Chromebooks home. They got used to this practice in fifth grade, where that was also the practice. Chromebooks are issued to all Natick Public Schools middle school students.

Asked by a School Committee member whether the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has issued guidance to schools on technology use, Spash said nothing that she’s aware of. Though she said good research and practices are emerging, and that Natick schools will seek to come up to speed on that.
 

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Student Game Changers

 
A group of Natick High students impressed with a presentation and update on Game Changers, a program done in partnership with Northeastern University focused on preventing relationship violence, including dating violence, sexual harassment, and assault (student presenters were Nora Shine, Sophia Luoni, Jake Ciavarro, and Jude Teja). Game Changers began as an extra curricular group that attracted 25 applicants in 2017 and 100 in 2025. Due to the increased popularity of the program, it is being taught at Natick High as a course rather than a elective for the first time this fall, and has 10 sections. The discussion-based program includes peer-to-peer work and capstone projects.
 

Code of Conduct

 
A formal code of conduct is being added to student handbooks, with input from counselors, teachers, administrators and union reps, among others , said Dr. Art Fergusson, executive director of behavioral health & student safety. The School Committee is asked to approve any significant changes to student handbooks, which is why Fergusson presented to the elected body. The plan is centered, Ferguson said, on teaching students about their rights and responsibilities, and a focus was on providing common standards across schools, with room for schools to administer discipline based on their own culture. Formal approval is expected later this month.
 

Memorial Elementary School updates

 
Natick Public Schools continue to work their way through the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) process on a future version of Memorial Elementary School. A list of possible architectural firms has been narrowed down to three, and they will now enter an interview process with the MSBA’s Designer Review Panel, on which Natick has 3 of 16 seats.

For those in the community watching this project evolve, October and November will be big in terms of deciding on what’s called the education program, according to Supt. Spash. “This is a very critical document that’s going to outline what we build, and it’s really the document that the school has quite a lot of say on,” she said.

A presentation to the School Committee is slated for Oct. 19, and then a dedicated public hearing on this topic with community input is scheduled for Oct. 26, with a vote expected in early November. While the School Committee has already voted on the scope of the project in terms of number of students and classrooms, etc., the decisions now are about how the building itself will be laid out.

One thing that Natick Public Schools leaders are bringing into the Memorial project is the experience they had working with the MSBA on Kennedy Middle School, which opened in 2021. Matthew Gillis, assistant superintendent for finance, said NPS recently had a post-occupancy evaluation meeting about Kennedy with the MSBA to share feedback on what it’s like to be in the building now, and what NPS might have done differently. While Gillis didn’t share any of that feedback during his brief update at the School Committee meeting, he said that the exercise should be valuable in working on the Memorial project.