Board electionScheduled
Waltham's next biennial city election, including School Committee seats
Waltham
Waltham's next citywide election, which fills School Committee seats, is set for November 2, 2027.
Official source · verified Aug 19, 2026
District overview
Waltham Public Schools
Funding structure, how it compares to peers, and where major projects stand.
What is the district working through?
High-school improvement, special-education costs, and leadership changes
The Committee approved a new Waltham High principal, a successor superintendent contract through 2031, new science and CTE policies, and a FY27 budget while responding to high-school accountability and special-education cost pressures.
Waltham High has a new principal
The July minutes name Douglas Conard as principal while the district continues work on graduation, dropout, scheduling, and accountability concerns.
The district requested $1.3 million for a special-education deficit
A rise in out-of-district placements led the Committee to request additional city funding.
Middle-school science changes to OpenSciEd
The Committee approved the curriculum in February.
Several family-facing policies changed
The Committee approved a high-school phone policy, emotional-support-dog rules, meal-charge revisions, and LGBTQ curriculum opt-out/accommodation language.
Monthly backup-resource folders and Spanish translations were not recursively collected. Four hearing notices with changing Google-generated bytes were reviewed once and excluded from recurrence, while the corresponding agendas/minutes remain monitored.
Where the district stands
Additional city funding requested for special educationverified
$1,300,000
The request addressed an out-of-district placement deficit.
DESE boiler/HVAC grantverified
780,000 $+
Minutes report more than $780,000 for upgrades at multiple schools.
Major projects
Waltham High improvement and program redesign
State initiative and local redesign underwayThe district is responding to a low accountability rating and graduation/dropout concerns while reconsidering the high-school schedule and Program of Studies.
Final high-school schedule and improvement-plan decisions
- Accelerated Achievement Initiative reported
- Graduation/dropout gap reported
- Schedule change remained under consideration
Funding
District operating budget and state support
No single project total is stated.
Northeast Elementary inclusive playground
Committee approved proceedingThe Committee authorized the inclusive-playground project after an earlier presentation estimated its cost at about $1.65 million.
Design, procurement, and construction
- Cost estimate presented
- Committee approved proceeding
Funding
Project funding described in the official minutes
Earlier estimate approximately $1.65 million.
Local elections & school board members
Elections & votes
School board members
- Marisa MendonsaSuperintendent and Clerk[email protected]
Recent news
Recent alerts by topic
This overview uses the full English agenda/minutes corpus linked from Waltham's official archive for the trailing-year window.
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