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Welcome back!
We had ourselves a week, didn’t we?
It’s that special time of year when we distract ourselves with gourds and cider donuts to delay acceptance of the realization that this year did not, in fact, turn out better than the last.
But there’s ample reason for optimism. According to the latest MCAS results, eleven children in Massachusetts can read, and fifteen can do long division. Make sure to celebrate by giving your children an extra seven hours of screen time this weekend. Go team!
Of course, the federal government shut down this week, so Americans get to play their favorite game (the partisan blame game) while job losses mount and we barrel towards open enrollment for insurance plans that cost more than a Toyota Camry but provide fewer benefits than a half-dose of aceta, acetamino, acetaminophen.
At what point are we going to accept that health insurance is just a tariff on breathing oxygen?
Anyway… here’s what we have for you this week:
Fire Department Open House To Feature Food, Fun, Interactive Experiences
Thoughts In Return? A Q&A With Bay State Textiles
Select Board Signals Support for Voc Ed Stabilization Fund
Dry Conditions Continue
FY26 Free Cash Certified at $9.4M By Division of Local Services
Support The Foundation for Educators at Lincoln Sudbury
Make sure to check your mail for the Sudbury Community Food Pantry Annual Appeal letter!
Niche Rankings Place Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School At #12 In MA
Sudbury MCAS Results: Another Mixed Bag
Events!
Let’s get into it!
Fire Department Open House To Feature Food, Fun, Interactive Experiences
NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise
The Sudbury Fire Department will open its doors to the community on Sunday, October 5, 2025, for its annual Open House at Fire Headquarters, 77 Hudson Road, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
The event, held in recognition of National Fire Prevention Week (October 5–11), gives families a chance to meet Sudbury’s firefighters and department personnel, explore fire and rescue vehicles, and learn more about the town’s public safety services.
Visitors can watch a ladder climbing demonstration, try their hand at spraying a fire hose, and check out a variety of equipment displays. Children and adults alike will enjoy hands-on activities, emergency preparedness information, and opportunities to talk directly with firefighters.
Free pizza, donated by Papa Gino’s, will be served throughout the event. Representatives from the town’s Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Hazardous Mitigation Planning group will also be on hand to share information about ongoing public safety and resilience efforts.
Thoughts In Return? A Q&A With Bay State Textiles
FEATURES
By Sudbury Weekly
Those drop boxes you see at Sudbury’s public schools are more than just a convenient place to recycle your used clothing. Sudbury Weekly caught up with Bay State Textiles, the people behind the boxes, to learn about the program, how it impacts Sudbury, and how their work impacts the broader world.
For readers who may not know, what does Bay State Textiles do and how do you work with local communities like Sudbury?
Bay State Textiles is a family-owned, Massachusetts based company with over 30 years of industry experience that partners with schools and municipalities to keep textiles out of the waste stream, educate students, and raise money for schools and towns across the Commonwealth. All of our bins are emptied weekly. Our program is free of cost and provides a rebate for participating schools and municipalities every month. Our bins are convenient, with 24/7 access, and provide protection for your unwanted textiles to ensure they are recycled properly. In Sudbury, we have collection bins located in the parking lots of every public school that are typically emptied on Mondays.
Why is textile recycling so important, and what kinds of environmental benefits does it bring?
Every year, the average person in the US disposes of 81 pounds of textiles. Only 15% is being reclaimed or recycled, while the other 85% decomposes in landfills. Textile recycling is essential for reducing environmental impact and supporting a sustainable economy. It helps divert tons of waste from landfills, conserving valuable space and preventing the release of harmful greenhouse gases during decomposition. Textile recycling also supports the economy by creating job opportunities in recycling and resale industries all over the world. Secondhand clothing provides the opportunity for developing countries to have access to better quality clothing at a fraction of the cost.
What happens to the clothes, shoes, and household textiles once they’re collected from Sudbury’s bins?
Select Board Signals Support for Voc Ed Stabilization Fund
NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise
Sudbury’s Annual Town Meeting in 2025 featured an early motion to amend Article 3, the operating budget. The amendment proposed to move $200,000 from the Reserve Fund to the Vocational Education budget. The vocational education budget is set based on the number of Sudbury students enrolled in a vocational district, but the amendment was presented as a means to demonstrate Sudbury’s commitment to vocational education, but Town Manager Andy Sheehan told the hall that there was a better way to do that than the method proposed by the amendment. The amendment failed 46-228.
Nearly five months later, Sheehan is making good on his recommendation to Town Meeting. On Tuesday, September 30, he provided an update to the Select Board on Sudbury’s efforts to seek membership in a vocational education district. In a memo to the board, Sheehan said:
“I plan to propose at the May 2026 Town Meeting the establishment of a special purpose Vocational Education Stabilization Fund. The Vocational Education Stabilization Fund would be built up gradually through annual appropriations.”
Dry Conditions Continue
FEATURES
By John Palmieri
Sudbury September weather continued with fairly dry conditions. For the month we did receive 3.44 inches of rain, which is somewhat improved from the summer totals, but know that almost all of this fell in 2 rain storms. In the end many sunny days as we go further into the Fall with well below average precipitation levels. Year to date totals also show the dry conditions for 2025 as follows:
2025 year to date rainfall: 31.18 in.
2024 year to date rainfall: 36.85 in.
2023 year to date rainfall: 48.86 in.
The high temperature for the month was 85 degrees and low temperature was at 41 degrees. So a definate and expected cooling trend. September had 7 days of 80 degree or more high temperatures.
So what to expect from here? We have had no significant snowstorms the last several years in the remaining 3 months. In 2024, October thru December had 8.88 inches of rain. In 2023, for the same period, 14.12 inches of rain. Thus rather variable. For now October starts with continued dry and lots of sunny days.
FY26 Free Cash Certified at $9.4M By Division of Local Services
NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise
During the Monday, September 29 meeting of the Sudbury Finance Committee, members were informed that the Town’s Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) Free Cash amount had been certified.
The Massachusetts Department of Revenue’s Division of Local Services, which is responsible for certification, certified Sudbury’s free cash for FY26 at $9,395,877, according to documents released September 26.
Free cash represents the town’s unrestricted, undesignated fund balance available for appropriation at Town Meeting. The certified figure reflects adjustments for outstanding receivables, deficit balances, and deferred revenue, and will play a key role in shaping Sudbury’s FY27 budget and long-term financial planning.
In addition to the general fund free cash, the town’s enterprise funds also reported relatively healthy retained earnings balances:
Transfer Station: $319,421
Atkinson Pool: $552,073
Field Maintenance: $72,862
Town officials have emphasized that maintaining strong free cash and reserves is essential for fiscal stability, bond ratings, and the ability to respond to unforeseen expenses.
Support The Foundation for Educators at Lincoln Sudbury
EVENTS
By The Foundation for Educators at Lincoln-Sudbury
Dear LSRHS Families and the Communities of Lincoln and Sudbury,
As the mornings grow cooler and our students step into the rhythm of new classes and schedules, a new semester is underway at L-S, complete with new courses, new teachers and new opportunities for growth.
As we support our students through this important transition, the faculty and staff at LSRHS are also hard at work applying their creativity, innovation and wisdom to provide an environment where our students will thrive. Given the significant role these leaders play in our students’ lives and learning, it’s fitting that we also consider how to best support them.
Rooted in the belief that “Inspired Teachers Inspire Students,” the Foundation for Educators at Lincoln-Sudbury (FELS) is a non-profit organization that awards enrichment grants to L-S faculty and staff to pursue their professional and personal interests and passions.
Make sure to check your mail for the Sudbury Community Food Pantry Annual Appeal Letter!
EVENTS
By the Sudbury Community Food Pantry
This year marks an exciting milestone for the Sudbury Community Food Pantry. After years of searching, we finally purchased and moved into our permanent home at 534 Boston Post Road in Wayland, just over the Sudbury line! While our address has changed, our mission remains the same – serving local families with compassion, dignity, and respect.
With progress comes new challenges. Cuts to federal funding mean more families in our community will face food insecurity in the months and years ahead. This translates to painful choices no family should have to make: whether to put food on the table, pay the rent, or cover critical medical expenses. That’s where we come in – and why we need you.
The numbers tell a powerful story
1 in 3 Massachusetts households struggled with food insecurity in 2024.
On average, it would take just $62 per week to provide enough food for a family in need.
40% of food-insecure households reported delaying or skipping medical treatment.
Your generosity can help change these numbers. As a 100% volunteer organization, every donation to the Pantry directly supports local families, alleviates hunger, improves health, and strengthens our community bonds. Together, we can ensure that no neighbor is left behind.
Niche Rankings Place Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School At #12 In MA
NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise
The 2026 Niche rankings of schools and school districts in America were announced today. Niche points out that their rankings take into account factors that other ranking services don’t consider. For example, they note their rankings factor in “real experiences from students, parents and educators.” For some, that may seem like arguing that Facebook is a better news source because it has a robust comment section, or this “Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tee” on Amazon.com is a great t-shirt because it has 4.7 stars from 5,181 customer reviews.
Never mind that most of the reviews on the wolf t-shirt say things like:
“Last week I was watching a bootlegged directors cut of Roadhouse on my VCR, and I fast forwarded to the behind the scenes bonuses. I couldn’t help but notice that Swayze was donning this three wolf moon shirt when training for all the fight scenes. Get this, apparently he was even wearing the shirt during the actual filming because he refused to ever take it off. They allowed this to continue, and ended up using something called CGI to add less intimidating shirts in the movie. They said they didn’t want the shirt in the film because it would look like he was cheating in the fights scenes, and they didn’t want the shirt to steal the show.”
User-generated content and reviews from non-expert consumers are obviously truth, and they add depth to otherwise reductive rankings elsewhere that are largely based on standardized test scores and incomplete data from a clearinghouse.
Importantly, Niche also uses trusted sources for data, as their website notes: “Our rankings algorithm draws from a variety of trusted sources, including the U.S. Department of Education…” [Emphasis added]
Sudbury MCAS Results: Another Mixed Bag
NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise
The Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) school district received good news from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) when the agency released the results of the latest Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) on Monday, September 29, 2025.
SPS was one of 41 districts where 2025 MCAS scores in grades 3-8 overall were at or above pre-pandemic levels in Math. In the case of SPS, scores in Math matched the pre-pandemic level, though English Language Arts (ELA) remains behind the pre-pandemic level.
In grades 3-8, 73% of SPS students met or exceeded expectations for Math, 71% met or exceed expectation in ELA, and 73% met or exceeded expectations in Science and Technology/Engineering.
The ELA scores remain five points behind the pre-pandemic 2019 scores, but were a six-point improvement over 2024. That offsets a six-point drop from 2023 to 2024, while the district continues with an ELA curriculum update that has been underway for more than half a decade.
Events!
Parting Thoughts
Nothing says October like 80-degree temperatures for a few days straight. The weekend looks… inappropriately warm for the season. But it’s better than snow!
Next week the Select Board will begin discussions about warrant articles for the 2026 Annual Town meeting, and that’s not the only peek into the future on the calendar.
The Sudbury Public Schools School Committee will be discussing items for a planned Special Town Meeting later this year, as well as the 2026 Annual Town Meeting. Their agenda is loaded up with everything from the Combined Facilities MOA to discussion on the ongoing calendar fiasco review.
While school calendars are often a source of tension, residents should take comfort in knowing there’s also a Zoning Board of Appeals meeting next week. Nothing lowers the blood pressure as much as a 47-minute discussion about nonconforming signage on Route 20!
Onward!