‘Override’ Class Of Belmont Educators Earn Professional Status

Photo: The ‘Override” Class of newly minted professional educators.

A quiz of teachers gathered at the Chenery Middle School on Tuesday, Oct. 9 to celebrate a milestone in their career; earning their professional teaching status in the Belmont public schools. Each in the group had successfully completed three years teaching or working with educators and had started their fourth school year last month.

And it’s a whopper of a class: 33 teachers and administrators by far the largest number of educators to earn professional status in the collective institutional memory of administrators attending the ceremony hosted by the Belmont School Committee. Mary Pederson, the schools director of human resources, said the number reflects both retirements and “that this year marks the first group of staff that was hired with the funds from the (2015) override we successfully passed.”

“And I know the students and parents in the district … are grateful we have all of you out in the schools teaching classes and helping to keep our class sizes aren’t so big,” said Pederson. Superintendent John Phelan and School Committee Chair Susan Burgess-Cox greeted and presented each attending educator with a small gift

The educators are: