Hello Dolphin Community,

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Holiday Season and that the start of 2026 is going well for everyone so far. Last night, we had the honor of recognizing D-Y staff that have been working in our district for 25 years or more. In preparing for last night, I did some calculations. There are over 50 staff in D-Y with 25 or more years of service to the district still working for D-Y. If you add up their total years of service, it equals, 1,369 years of service to the students and families of Dennis and Yarmouth. That is truly remarkable. As I said to this group last night, D-Y is a great district because of its people, and we are so very fortunate to have such a wealth of collective wisdom and experience. I was honored last night to be part of a celebration that recognized our district's appreciation for these individuals.

The month of January begins our budget development process. We post all of our budget meetings and related budget documents on our district website here. We (myself and our Finance Director) gave our first presentation to the School Committee on January 6th. There is still a lot of information that we do not have that influences our budget (state aid, costs on health insurance, some unsettled contracts); however, our preliminary estimate for the operating budget increase presented on Monday was 6.35%. This unfortunately did not include any initiatives that we would like to advance for the district, it simple was the cost of a level service budget. Between now and the next School Committee meeting (1/26), we will refine the presentation and work with the Finance Sub Committee of the School Committee to determine what, if any, of our priority initiatives may be able to be requested in the budget. I will continue to provide updates here and we will post the full meetings and presentations to the website.

Finally, later this winter and into the spring, I would like to host a series of superintendent information/listening sessions. The purpose of these sessions will be to open conversation between myself and the school community. Each will be focused on a single topic. They will begin with a brief presentation, but the majority of the time will be an opportunity for me to hear from the school community in order to better understand their perspectives as it relates to the topic of focus. In order to help plan for these events, I am hoping that everyone will complete the short survey in the section below (Titled Superintendent Listening Sessions Survey). This will help me with timing as well as to prioritize topics.

Thank you for your continued support,

Marc J. Smith, Ed.D.

If you could please take 3-4 minutes to complete this survey and provide me with some valuable information to support my planning, I would greatly appreciate it.

Survey Link: https://tejoin.com/scroll/118744693