On April 14, the Medford School Committee voted to ratify a contract with the Medford Teachers Association. The motion passed with all present members voting in favor.
“I think the teachers union and the negotiating team from the school side did a great job getting the contract settled,” Medford Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn, who abstained from the negotiation because her sister is part of the school system, said. “I am just really, really excited that we got to this resolution.”
This contract extends the school day by 15 minutes for elementary, middle and high schools, providing additional time for classes and enhanced support.
“It’s actually a really big deal, and it adds up to several whole days of extra learning every year, which is important,” Jenny Graham, vice chair of the school committee, said. “This is going to fix a lot of problems that we have with our school day.”
Members of the teachers association voted to ratify the contract proposal on April 8 after three months of negotiations with the school committee.
“This was actually much faster than a typical contract negotiation,” Graham said. “There was never any sort of hesitancy around what we were trying to do and why.”
Graham describes the teachers association as generally supportive of the new measures but emphasized that the negotiation period was necessary to work out the details of the contract, including case loads and prep time.
“It just takes a lot of time to make the kind of change that we’re making,” Graham said. “Fifteen minutes sounds really small, but it’s really transformational for the district, so [there were] lots of questions that had to be worked through and fine-tuned.”
The ability to increase teacher salaries and fund the extension of the school day was made possible by the passage of ballot Questions 7 and 8. These tax overrides, passed in November 2024, enabled the city to collect additional personal property and real estate taxes to support the public school system.
“I’m super appreciative that the voters in Medford agreed [to pass the override],” Graham stated. “It’s the first time we’ve ever asked the voters to pay more taxes, and I think there was a lot of fear that that would not go that well.”
Graham stated that these overrides reflect the community’s values, serving as a “North Star” that guided the negotiations toward the improvements that residents sought for the school system.
“We were able to do this because the community was willing to support the schools,” Graham said. “Back in November, when we passed Questions 7 and 8, the community told us, ‘We value school.’”
By shifting the high school schedule from six to seven periods, this change will greatly expand students’ access to courses, especially for those in vocational programs.
“That extra period makes a big difference because it’ll allow vocational students, for example, to fit a language into their schedule where they cannot, starting in 10th grade right now,” Graham said.
“This will allow [vocational students] to fit more of the arts in their schedule, which is really important,” Lungo-Koehn said.
The additional period will also create more opportunities for integration between vocational and traditional academic programs, Graham explained.
The additional 15 minutes will also benefit middle school students by allowing for the introduction of “Challenge” courses, which would allow students and staff to engage with material in new ways, including more project-based learning.
“I do a lot of project-based work myself, professionally, and it’s just a different ball game,” Graham said. “It really does allow you to bring it all together in a way that is a little bit more like real life than traditional learning.”
In addition to adding 15 minutes to the school day, the new contract eliminates six early release days from the academic calendar while also introducing two full professional development days for staff.
According to Graham, the shift will increase the amount of time that students can have with their teachers.
“Two more professional development days for our teachers mean that we’re going to be able to better prepare our teachers to teach in the classroom, and it’s going to obviously then penetrate and be better for our students,” Lungo-Koehn said.
With the additional time at both the middle and high school levels, Graham hopes students will discover new interests and develop their passion for learning.
“Not everyone loves school, and I want kids to love school. I’m hopeful that some of these changes will create just another opportunity for kids to find something they love about school, whether that’s more electives or these challenge classes,” Graham said. “I’m hoping there’ll be some kids out there who find something they love about school that maybe they didn’t know about before.”
