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Marblehead Public Schools opens Monday, Aug. 31, for all grades, PreK through 12.
That is all five schools on the same day. There is no staggered kindergarten start, no separate first day for the high school and no half day to ease into it. Everyone goes Monday.
New teacher orientation was Aug. 26, and all staff had professional development days Aug. 27-28.
The June override, and why your fall bills look the same
Voters approved a $15 million Proposition 2½ operating override June 9, 4,278 to 3,594, or 54.3 percent in favor. It was the town's first operating override since 2005.
It does not change what families pay this year.
The school-side relief in the override package — eliminating the full-day kindergarten fee and leasing computing devices to students — is funded beginning in fiscal 2028. That corresponds to the 2027-28 school year, not this one.
So full-day kindergarten still costs $4,120 for 2026-27. A family that voted yes in June and expected the fee to vanish when school opened should plan on paying it.
The budget actually governing this school year went the other direction. Fiscal 2027 eliminated 18.25 full-time-equivalent positions, or 22 positions in all, 9.3 of which had been filled. District officials have cited enrollment in explaining those decisions; districtwide enrollment has fallen by roughly 24 percent since the 2016-17 school year.
New face at Glover, an opening in the business office
Mary LeBlanc, the new Glover principal, is the only leadership change inside a school building. She has been in the district 24 years and worked as a literacy coach at both Glover and Brown before taking the job Aug. 3.
The turnover is at the central office. Michael Pfifferling, assistant superintendent for finance and operations since June 2024, is leaving for Andover, where he will hold a comparable post beginning this fall. He ran the district's finances through two punishing budget cycles and worked with town officials to pare the $47.6 million fiscal 2027 school budget. His last day in Marblehead had not been announced as of publication.
The vacancy changes nothing on Aug. 31. It shapes what comes after — who answers budget questions, when fee decisions get made and how quickly the override's second-year promises hold up.
Elsewhere the administration is unchanged. John Robidoux remains superintendent under a contract running through 2028, with Julia Ferreira as assistant superintendent for teaching and learning and LisaMarie Ippolito as assistant superintendent for student services.
School by school: what time, and when to visit
The district reset arrival and dismissal times in August 2025, and those are the times Marblehead has been running on since. The district has not posted a single consolidated 2026-27 bell schedule covering all five buildings, so confirm the exact minute with your school before Monday.
Brown Elementary School. First bell 8:05 a.m., second bell 8:10 a.m., dismissal 2:30 p.m. Mary Maxfield is principal. Open house is Sept. 24.
Glover Elementary School. Same as Brown: first bell 8:05 a.m., second bell 8:10 a.m., dismissal 2:30 p.m. The drop-off window here has previously run 7:55 to 8:05 a.m., which gives a sense of how tight the elementary morning is. LeBlanc is new this year. Open house is Sept. 24.
Village School. Starts earlier, around 7:50 a.m., and dismisses roughly 15 minutes before the other elementary schools, near 2:15 p.m. Scott Williams is principal. Open house is Sept. 16.
Marblehead Veterans Middle School. Start time around 7:50 a.m., dismissal 2:30 p.m. Worth flagging: the school's own schedule page lists an 8 a.m. start, so the two published figures do not agree. Matthew LeVangie is principal. Open house is Sept. 10 — the first one of the year.
Marblehead High School. Runs first, starting at 7:45 a.m. and dismissing at 2:37 p.m. Michele Carlson is principal. Open house is Sept. 23.
When those times were set last year, the Marblehead Education Association objected, arguing the change should have been bargained rather than imposed.
The practical advice for that opening week: build in a cushion. A 10-minute discrepancy is the difference between walking in and walking in late, and the elementary and middle school windows are only about 20 minutes apart.
The first six weeks, in order
The opening stretch is choppy, and the two short weeks catch people every year.
There is no school Friday, Sept. 4, and none Monday, Sept. 7, for Labor Day. Week one is Monday through Thursday. Week two starts Tuesday. School is closed again Monday, Sept. 21, for Yom Kippur, and Monday, Oct. 12, for Indigenous Peoples' Day.
The School Committee's first meeting of the year is Thursday, Sept. 3, at 6 p.m.
Looking further ahead: Nov. 3 is a no-school day, for conferences in grades PreK-8 and professional development at the high school, with evening conferences for PreK-8 on Nov. 10. The first early-release day for all grades is Nov. 25, ahead of the Thanksgiving break Nov. 26-27. February break runs Feb. 15-19 and spring break April 19-23. The year is scheduled to end June 16, 2027, with an early release, and the calendar holds a spare day in reserve if snow days pile up.
The town's charter and private schools start on their own calendars
Four other schools in town open on schedules of their own, which matters to any family with children in more than one of them.
Marblehead Community Charter Public School, the tuition-free public charter at 17 Lime St. serving grades 4-8, appears to line up with the district. Its board-approved 2026-27 calendar is posted on the school's website, and the first breakfast and lunch menu of its year covers the week of Aug. 31 to Sept. 4, pointing to the same Monday start. Families should confirm against the posted calendar. The school runs on ParentSquare and PowerSchool, and enrollment remains open in select grades through Meg Upton, its director of enrollment and community engagement.
Epstein Hillel School, the Jewish day school at 6 Community Road known for decades as Cohen Hillel Academy, opens Tuesday, Sept. 1, and comes into the year a smaller school. It now runs pre-K through grade 6, having dropped its seventh and eighth grades, so families whose children would have been in those grades spent the summer placing them elsewhere. The school held pre-K and kindergarten orientation Aug. 26 and a transfer student orientation Aug. 28.
Its year runs on the Jewish calendar. Epstein Hillel is closed Sept. 11 for Erev Rosh Hashanah and Sept. 21 for Yom Kippur, dismisses at noon Nov. 25, and takes a Passover break April 21-30 rather than an April vacation week. Graduation is June 9 and the last day is June 10, a noon dismissal.
Tower School, the independent school at 75 West Shore Drive serving Beginners through grade 8, starts more than a week later than the public schools. Meet Your Teacher Day for grades 1-8 is Sept. 3 from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m., with the first day of classes for those grades Sept. 8. Tower's youngest students go a day behind that: Meet Your Teacher Day for Beginners, pre-K and kindergarten is Sept. 8, first day is Sept. 9, and those three grades dismiss at noon Sept. 9-11. Middle School Parents Night is Sept. 16 at 6:30 p.m. and Lower School Parents Night is Sept. 24 at the same hour.
The break calendars diverge sharply after that. Tower takes a two-week March break, March 8-19, where the district's spring break falls April 19-23. Tower also holds conferences Oct. 22, with a noon dismissal, and closes Oct. 23. Its last day is June 10, six days before the district's.
Devereux School, the Montessori-inspired school at 44 Smith St. founded in 1932, runs nursery through grade 3 in Marblehead, with a fourth- and fifth-grade program, Devereux @ Waring, on the Waring School campus in Beverly. New student orientation is Monday, Aug. 31, from 9 to 10 a.m., and opening day is Tuesday, Sept. 1. Like the district, Devereux is closed Sept. 4 and Sept. 7.
Paul Baker is head of school. Kasey Sampson, who led the fourth- and fifth-grade program at Waring for eight years, moves to the Marblehead campus this year to teach kindergarten through grade 3. Devereux's recesses also run on their own rhythm — February break Feb. 12-22 and April break April 16-26 — and its last day is June 11, a noon dismissal. The school is still accepting applications for grades 1-3.
Buses: who rides free, who pays and who can still get on
Free transportation goes to students in kindergarten through grade 6 who live 2 or more miles from their school.
Eligibility is automatic at that distance, but a seat is not. Families still have to register. That registration opened July 13 and stays open all year, so anyone who missed it in July can sign up now. The district does not send confirmations to families living 2 or more miles out.
Students in kindergarten through grade 6 who live within 2 miles can buy a seat for $250 a year through the pay-to-ride program. That registration opened Aug. 11 and fills first-come. Families are notified by the end of the week they apply, and once the seats are gone the district keeps a waitlist — which is the realistic path for anyone signing up this week.
Transportation for students with specialized needs is handled through the Office of Student Services, not the general form.
A 2026-27 bus schedule is posted on the district's transportation page. General questions go to transportation@marbleheadschools.org.
Meals are free; the lunch account still isn't irrelevant
Breakfast and lunch are free for every student under Massachusetts' universal school meals program, which has been permanent since the 2023-24 school year.
MySchoolBucks still matters. The district uses it for balances, à la carte purchases and low-balance alerts, so if your child buys anything beyond the standard meal, keep the account funded.
The district also still asks families to fill out free and reduced-price meal applications even though meals cost nothing. Eligibility can unlock other benefits and affects how much money the district draws.
After the last bell
Elementary families needing coverage past dismissal have a private option running out of three of the schools. Island Roots' After School Club serves students in kindergarten through grade 6 at Glover, Brown and Village, with a program that runs from dismissal to 4:30 p.m. and a later option to 6 p.m., plus drop-in packages for families who need occasional rather than daily coverage. Transportation from those three schools is included.
Costs, registration windows and whether there is currently a waitlist were not confirmed, so families should contact the provider directly rather than assume a spot is open.
Sports began before classes did
Fall practices at the high school started Aug. 24, a week before the first day. Middle school practices begin Sept. 8.
Regular fall registration closed at noon Aug. 20. Athletes need an approved registration and a physical dated on or after July 24, 2025, which reflects the 13-month window state athletic rules allow. Registration runs through FamilyID with payment through MySchoolBucks, and fee waiver requests go to the assistant business manager.
Families who missed the deadline should call the athletic department, run by athletic director Kent Wheeler, rather than assume the season is closed to them.
Participation is unusually broad here — about 80 percent of the high school student body, roughly 700 students, plays a sport, plus about 150 at the middle school.
Portals, devices and how the district reaches you
Aspen is the hub. Student information, schedules and registration all run through it, and families who have not logged in since June should confirm their credentials work before Monday rather than during the first-week crush. Technology problems go through the district's Incident IQ help desk.
One thing the override does not fix this year: the roughly $150,000 annual lease that would put district-provided computing devices in students' hands is part of the package funded beginning in fiscal 2028. Families should not expect a new district device this fall.
For day-to-day communication, the district publishes School Committee newsletters and maintains a Digital Backpack page for flyers and announcements alongside the Aspen portal. How the district will push emergency and snow-day notifications this year — text, call, email or some combination — has not been confirmed, so make sure the contact information in Aspen is current and watch for the district's own instructions in the opening days.
Cellphones remain unresolved
State law requires Massachusetts districts to have a bell-to-bell cellphone policy in place for 2026-27, to notify families annually beginning by Sept. 1 and to file the policy with the state. What Marblehead adopted — which grades it covers, how phones are stored, how it is enforced — has not been confirmed. Read the district notification when it arrives instead of assuming Marblehead's rules match a neighboring town's.
If you're new to town
New students register through the district's Aspen portal. Bring a parent or guardian photo ID; proof of address in the form of a deed, mortgage statement or lease, plus a utility bill no more than 45 days old — cellphone bills are not accepted; custody paperwork where it applies; and a recent report card or schedule for middle and high school students.
Marblehead does not participate in school choice, so students have to live in town. Questions go to registrar@marbleheadschools.org.
This guide took real reporting time to cull — not just to gather dates, fees and schedules, but to sort what applies now, what starts later and what families still need to confirm. Contributions keep that kind of practical local work free to read for the whole town, and they help pay for the follow-up calls, document checks and editing that make it useful. While this story is still fresh, support the reporting that helps Marblehead start the year with clearer information. 🟦 Become a member here.
