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An anonymously-sponsored Change.org petition has been circulating in Sudbury and surrounding towns over the last week. The petition makes several demonstrably false claims, but garnered over 400 signatures for a “vote of no confidence” in four of the five members of the Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) School Committee. The petition appears to be an attempt to pressure members of the committee to resign using fabrications and distortions about recent events.
It’s unclear, because of how Change.org presents the information, how many Sudbury residents signed the petition. The website indicates that 91 percent of the signatures are from people who provided a Sudbury, Wayland or Maynard zip code when they “signed” the petition, but it does not state how many are verified Sudbury residents.
Several public comments at the heavily-attended March 2 meeting of the SPS school committee reiterated or alluded to some of the false claims. Below are the most egregious false assertions from the petition, followed by the actual facts and receipts.
Open Meeting Law
The petition falsely alleges “…discussions regarding the Superintendent’s contract occurred without formal agenda items, public deliberation, or a recorded vote of the full Committee…” Here’s one such agenda, including just one item: a formal agenda item to discuss the Superintendent’s contract.
The deliberation was not public because contract discussions are, as a common practice, carried out in executive session. Any votes taken by the committee in executive session would have to be recorded by law, but it would be highly unusual for the committee to release those minutes if those deliberations had not concluded, if at all. As of yesterday, the committee was still conducting conversations in executive session. (Agenda with yet another formal agenda item here)
The petition attempts to create the impression that it would be standard practice to discuss the contract in open session. That is not consistent with prior practice of the committee, including when the SPS school committee discussed a contract extension for the Superintendent several years ago under different committee leadership (2023 agenda here). Similarly, the Sudbury Select Board has recently discussed the contract of Town Manager Andy Sheehan in executive session. (Minutes here.)
Chapter 70 Funding
The petition falsely alleges “The Committee also failed to pursue $180K in Chapter 70 state funding (State funding provided to Sudbury) for the schools.”
This one is a bit desperate as it has been debunked for several years in a row. All Chapter 70 money from the State goes directly to the schools. This has been verified by Sudbury’s current and prior Finance Directors.
There is no Chapter 70 funding to pursue, because it all goes to SPS every year. In fact, Sudbury Town Manager Andy Sheehan and Assistant Town Manager/Finance Director Victor Garofalo presented on Chapter 70 funds to the SPS school committee on December 4, 2025, explaining and demonstrating that all Chapter 70 funds go to the schools. Here is the slide that was presented:
Override Figures
The petition makes remarkably false claims about a potential future override. “Recently, the Town Manager, Assistant Town Manager, and the Sudbury School Committee have discussed a projected joint $9 million override. The Committee has made no effort to share this information with the broader community.”
This statement appears to be referring to the December 4, 2025 and January 15, 2026 meetings of the school committee. School Committee member Nicole Burnard, who is the lone member not targeted by the petition, brought up an override of $10 million during the January 15 meeting of the committee. Town Manager Andy Sheehan responded “Ten million is your number, it’s not my number.” (2:15:30 below)
This exchange happened in an open, public meeting recorded by Sudbury TV. The discussion was, quite literally, broadcasted to the entire community. Insofar as the petition is referencing conversations that happened in a recorded open meeting, the claim that no effort was made to share the information with the community is false.
More importantly, the forecasted budget deficit isn’t for the current fiscal year (FY26), nor is it for the next fiscal year (FY27). Discussion of a potential override would pertain to FY28, and no override amount has been proposed by the Town Manager because the Town is not even in the process of building the FY28 budget. The committee couldn’t share a projected $9M override figure with the community because the Town Manager has not offered any projected override number.
The only numbers on record are the budget forecasts for future fiscal years, which show a deficit starting in FY28, but could change based on a variety of factors.
Notably, if the Town were to pass an override in FY28, it would reduce the forecasted deficit for FY29. The petition appears to add up the forecasted deficits in FY28 and FY29, then adds a little more to the tally, and suggests that this has been proposed and discussed by professional staff. This is not only untrue, it defies common sense and arithmetic. Again, SPS Committee Member Nicole Burnard performed the same flawed arithmetic in the January 15 meeting, and was immediately corrected by Town Manager Sheehan.
Several factors could reduce the forecasted deficits considerably, including standard annual budget increases provided by the Town Manager’s budget guidance, as well as refined forecasting as the Town gets closer to Fiscal Year 2028. The bottom line is that the petition does faulty math with forecasted budget deficits, then falsely describes that number as a “projected” override amount.
Free Cash and Reserves
One of the more comical falsehoods in the petition is the characterization of cash reserves as a responsible source of funding for the SPS operating budget. The petition stated “Supporting an override of this size while substantial reserves remain available raises serious concerns about the Committee’s fiscal leadership and its commitment to acting in the best interest of students and the Sudbury community.”
The Division of Local Services has long advised municipalities against using one-time funds (such as free cash or other reserves) to fund an operating budget. Their official guidance on free cash states “As a nonrecurring revenue source, free cash should be restricted to paying one-time expenditures, funding capital projects, or replenishing other reserves.”
The reason is simple: it’s risky and unsustainable. Nonetheless, Sudbury has been subjected to enormous levels of disinformation about free cash in the last couple years and this petition continues the tradition.
The claim that the committee supports an “override of this size” is also false. No override has been proposed by Town leadership, so there’s no override for the committee to support.
Summer Programming
The petition alleges “Although SPS received an additional $200K from the Town, the School Committee directed those funds to a non-mandated, non-academic summer camp instead of following the Superintendent’s budget recommendations to invest in core academic needs.”
The summer program being described as a “non-academic summer camp” is an enrichment program called “Explore.” It was described by Superintendent Brad Crozer (in a February 5, 2026 email to the SPS community) as follows “Explore 2026 will offer experiences such as art, musical theater, science exploration, math/engineering, indoor/outdoor games, and team-building activities.”
The petition’s claim also omits the fact that broad community feedback about the elimination of two summer programs led the committee to advocate for a “bridge year.” The committee was responsive to community input. The email from Superintendent Crozier even acknowledges the community feedback “In recognition of community concerns shared with the District and School Committee, Explore 2026 will be offered as a one-year enrichment summer program to provide a half-day or full-day experience for elementary students.”
Importantly, the Explore program is being offered to students participating in Extended School Year (ESY) in the event their services amount to less than a full-day of programming. Crozier’s February 5 memo states “Students who qualify for ESY and have less than full-day programming will be offered the opportunity to participate in Explore 2026 to make it a half or full-day experience.”
According to the SPS website “ESY (Extended School Year) is for students who receive special education services identified through the IEP process in order to prevent substantial regression over the summer months.”
And finally, as noted in the email, the Explore program charges a substantial fee. It remains to be seen how much the Explore program will cost the district, or if it could possibly break even. During the January 15 meeting of the SPS school committee, the administration and committee members discussed how the summer program could be “net-neutral” on the budget. (2:09:00)
During that discussion there were still many unknowns about the budget and summer program, so Don Sawyer, director of business and human resources, recommended putting the full $200,000 in the Extended School Year budget account, knowing that some or all of it would likely be moved elsewhere in the budget, possibly to fund tiered academic initiatives that were discussed, as plans take shape. (2:29:28 below)
A copy of the petition as it appeared on the afternoon of March 3 is below.