Welcome to the Island, Jaime Curley!
We congratulate you on your selection as the first woman to serve as the superintendent of the Island school system, and we congratulate the All-Island School Committee for running a thoughtful, if sometimes divided, selection process.
As you will no doubt learn, the Island is a place that comes together and that carries an intense pride for its schools and the diverse and talented students who attend them. Last Friday night, you could feel that pride as Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) was packed for a sold-out performance of the school musical, and just down the hall the gym was rocking as the boys’ varsity basketball team clinched a league championship.
But the Island is also a place of resilience, and we don’t sugarcoat big challenges when they are looming on the horizon –– and there are indeed some extraordinary challenges that our school administration, our teachers, and our students are all facing.
The good news is your background as an educator in the Old Rochester Regional School District in Mattapoisett will suit you well to serve the Island. Our understanding is that you rose through the ranks there by placing value on diversity and developing an expertise in and a gift for understanding the psychological pressures and challenges of young people in a time of deep division and uncertainty.
This age of anxiety can, of course, be found in just about every corner of the country. But the challenges it brings can feel acute here on the Island. There is a rising tide of anxiety over affordable housing among many year-round families, which often causes disruption in students’ lives. There are waves of educational challenges around equity on an island with a high level of economic disparity, made more stark when the wealthy, elite summer residents arrive. And there is a current of cultural division in which more than one-third of the students do not speak English at home and fill up English language learning classes, a reflection of the vibrant and hard-working Brazilian immigrant population that has surged over the last two decades.
Many in that community share a pervasive fear of deportation by masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) agents, who have carried out raids on various parts of the Island. Some of those detained had their documentation and applications for citizenship in order, but were nevertheless rounded up. The uncertainty has caused some to self-deport. And it has caused many families to ask friends and neighbors with citizenship to pick up their children at school, or avoid public gatherings and church services out of fear that ICE may be targeting schools.
But in the face of all these challenges, you are surely already getting your head around the fact that front and center is the reconstruction of the high school. If the proposal passes, it will be the largest civic project the Island has ever seen, at a whopping $333 million total estimated cost. The project, which is partly hinging on Massachusetts School Building Administration (MSBA) reimbursement funding, will head to towns this summer for an Island-wide vote on the rest of the financial burden. Clinching that state funding and convincing the towns to get behind the sprawling construction project will not be easy.
Already the community has been discussing the potential impacts of funding on municipal budgets and worries over a rise in taxes. Others fear missing out on a crucial opportunity to replace the aging school building, and a unique chance to get matching funds from the state. Some of that discourse has been town-specific, which bears its own challenges.
Fortunately, you won’t be navigating this landscape alone. On top of the Island’s multiple school committees, there is a high school building committee consisting of representatives from the Vineyard towns and schools that you can tap about the ongoing process. So you have some good advisors to help you navigate the way forward.
It is very clear to all of us that the All-Island School Committee is placing an immense amount of confidence in you, and that they made this decision with a great deal of deliberation. The decision was between three candidates, but ultimately came down to just you, in what seems to have been a narrow vote.
It’s also worth pointing out that you won’t be the newest addition to the Island schools for too long, and you have a solid chance to build your own team. There’s an ongoing search for a new principal to lead MVRHS after interim principal Sean Mulvey announced in December he won’t take the permanent position. The news came just one week after Pete Steedman, director of the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School, announced he’ll be taking a position in Hyannis after the end of the school year.
And amid these times of change, we want to encourage you to be mindful that you will be serving an Island with five school districts that are demographically quite different from Old Rochester. According to the state Department of Education, the student population of Old Rochester Regional High School is nearly 90 percent white. The Vineyard is proud of its diversity, which begins with the very first Islanders, the Wampanoag, a Native American tribe historically centered in Aquinnah. There is a long and distinguished history of Black families who call the Island home, both year-round and in the summer, and there are vibrant celebrations of this heritage.
Another stark difference is that your former job in Old Rochester was in a place where only one percent of students don’t speak English as a first language. As we have already shared, that percentage is much higher here, where Brazilian Portuguese is heard everywhere, and where Brazilian families — a quarter of the Island population — have made the Vineyard their home.
And they are feeling unsettled as never before. They express genuine and debilitating fear about the possibility of being detained in ICE operations, after agents arrested 20 people last May. Most of those apprehended were community members who were caught up in the flurry, and only a few had actual criminal records outside of the civil charge of overstaying their visa. But the whole group was taken away aboard U.S. Coast Guard vessels. Even before ICE’s arrival, false rumors led workers to stay home, and some students to miss school.
We don’t want to scare you. Every one of these challenges comes with an opportunity for you to succeed, and for all of us to come together to celebrate our diversity and to keep the community spirit that defines the history of the Island.
Cooperation and holding each other accountable will be crucial. And there is a lot at stake for the Island. Our shared future and our most valued resource –– our children –– are in your hands.