LS School Committee splits over Sudbury Weekly outreach, takes no vote

SUDBURY -- March 19, 2024, LS School Committee splits over Sudbury Weekly inclusion in outreach list. Members spent more than 30 minutes Tuesday debating whether the local online publication belongs on the committee's approved list for advertising listening sessions, with Mary Warzinski and Kevin Matthews calling it a political blog whose inclusion would violate the committee's ethics policy and Vice Chair Ravi Simon reading from section KDD of the 2021 policy manual to argue that "all representatives of the media will be given equal access." Simon noted Sudbury Weekly's affiliations with the Eastern Mass News Alliance and MassWire and its citation by Patch and the Lincoln Squirrel. Chair Kara Endicott-Doran ended the discussion without a vote and asked Catherine Bitter to research where the Sudbury Select Board, Planning Board and Finance Committee post outreach. The committee also reviewed mid-year progress on four 2023-24 goals, launched a Matthews-Maulsby working group on the committee's website, and accepted Superintendent and Principal Andrew Stevens' starter list of six peer districts including Concord-Carlisle, Mascononet, Westwood and Wayland.