Principal's Update 5/1/26
School Instagram at lhsbluedevilnation
LHS Families’ Help Cheat Sheet on the school website here.
Senior Assassin
We are aware that some students may be participating in a game commonly known as “Senior Assassin.” Many seniors (and many parents) view this as a tradition, but this activity is not sponsored, endorsed, condoned, or supervised by the school or district, and in fact I strongly discourage it as an activity that is dangerous and in incredibly poor taste.
Students and parents need to prioritize safety and good judgment. What may seem like a harmless game can have unintended and serious consequences. In particular:
Community members may not realize this is a game, and seeing teenagers with what appear to be guns, especially when they are on private property, can result in fear and panic, leading to an arrest or ending up with real guns drawn on them. Students often play at night, and darkness adds to the chances that a student will be mistaken for a violent offender.
Engaging in this activity on school grounds, during school hours, or at school events is strictly prohibited and any actions connected to this game that disrupt school operations, violate school rules, or create safety concerns will result in disciplinary consequences.
Students should respect private property, community members, and local laws at all times. They are subject to arrest for any laws they violate and saying “it’s just a game” is not a defense.
We appreciate your cooperation in helping ensure a safe and respectful end to the school year for all members of our community.
Incident at school Friday
I wanted to share some terminology around our plans for school emergencies so that families have some understanding of our contingency plans at school. We have been fortunate at LHS to be able to partner with the Leominster Police Department, the Office of Emergency Management, and our district Security Director to make plans (my own military background helps too). We have two main responses to a crisis that we plan and train for:
1. A Hold is when teachers lock their doors and continue to teach classes, but we limit students being in the hall to absolute necessity. Students are able to use restrooms or access the nurse, but we don’t let them go to the office for a work permit or go drop off work to another teacher. We use this when there is a vague threat (as happened Friday) or when we need to keep the hallways clear, such as if a student is being transported to an ambulance or there is a significant repair that needs to be cleaned up (broken glass, for example).
2. A Lockdown is when there’s a more imminent threat to student safety, such as an intruder or a dangerous incident in the vicinity of the school. Teachers secure their doors with the Nightlock devices and move students to the safest area in their classroom. Teaching stops and students remain quiet, although we do give them their phones to allow them to communicate with home.
In either case we work directly with the LPD to secure the school and ensure the safety of all students. Every LPD officer is brought through the school to become familiar with the facility and the school is able to communicate with the LPD by radio to give them information about an emergency.
We have also benefited from the funding that the city and the district have made for the security upgrades at LHS over the last three years. Anyone who was familiar with the building from four years ago would notice changes such as the contained vestibule with two sets of locked doors that help prevent entry; the drop off window that greatly reduced the number of visitors in the school and keeps visitors behind a locked door until we know who they are and why they are there; and barriers around the flagpole entrance to prevent forced entry by a vehicle into the school.
Inside the school we have installed the Nightlock devices that allow anyone to quickly secure a door whether or not the door handle lock is engaged; window shades that obscure an intruder from seeing into rooms; nearly 200 cameras that monitor the inside and outside of the school; and LHS now has two LPD officers assigned to the building as School Resource Officers. The district added a Security Director who has worked with LPD and OEM to develop an array of emergency plans and brought in a variety of training courses, and we have purchased weapons detectors that we now use for games, graduation, and dances, and will pilot using daily at the school soon.
The city and the school remain committed to keeping your student safe. Two things you can do to assist us are to stay off school grounds during a Hold or Lockdown in order to help us keep the building secure and to allow any emergency response personnel to get to the school, and inform the school and/or the police if you hear about a threat to the school, no matter how vague it is.
Graduation Information
Information on Graduation 2026 can be found at the high school website here: https://www.leominsterps.org/schools/leominster-high-school/graduation
Blue Devil Athlete Spotlights
Our next spotlights are on Max Sleeper, Boy’s Lacrosse: https://bluedevilspotlight.blogspot.com/2026/04/blue-devil-athlete-spotlight-max.html
And Ian Aronow, Baseball:
https://bluedevilspotlight.blogspot.com/2026/05/blue-devil-athlete-spotlight-ian-aronow.html
MART Buses
A dedicated MART shuttle service runs from Monument Square directly to the High School. The shuttle will operate Monday through Friday with the following schedule:
· Morning Trips: 6:50 AM and 7:15 AM
· Afternoon Trips: 2:30 PM and 3:15 PM (specifically for students attending after-school tutoring)
Parent/Guardian Prom Information
If your student is going to the Senior Prom please view the link regarding Social Host Liability and then fill out the short survey below.
Link for Social Host Liability Video Here
Link for Survey Here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfLLUJSsjdrVSVLeL4f_fbw4u8DikOaZQbkQhRjpcbgU4UbVg/viewform
The survey must be completed in order for your student to purchase their prom tickets. The survey is not asking you to agree with the laws, just that you acknowledge that you are aware of Massachusetts Host Laws.
Yearbook Sales
The yearbook is now available for purchase, please click on the link below to place your order.
BuyTheYearbook.com
Attendance
Good attendance at school is incredibly important; nothing else we do matters if your student isn’t here. So far this year we are doing better than last year, with an average of 91.8% of students here per day.
If your student is sick, please keep them home, but if they are well please make every effort to get them to school and don’t let them convince you to give them a day off!
Grade 9: 92.6%
Grade 10: 92.4%
Grade 11: 91.9%
Grade 12: 90.2%
Next Week’s Schedule
Shop Week B
Monday: Day 1
Tuesday: Day 2
Wednesday: Day 3
Thursday: Day 4
Friday: Day 5
Tutoring Center
The LHS tutoring center is back up and running every day after school except Wednesday. Your student can stop by to get some help with school work or some space to get homework done.
Students Bringing in Personal Devices and iPads
LHS has banned all cell phones this year, which has been a great way to raise engagement and get students to learn without distractions, drama, and disruption.
BUT
Many students have started to bring in personal laptops and iPads. This allows them to circumvent everything we are trying to do to get kids off their screens. iPads allow them to do everything that they could do with their phone. School-issued devices have filters that try to block students from accessing unauthorized or unsafe sites which an iPad or personal laptop will not have. Per the student handbook students must complete school-assigned writing on their issued chromebook to attempt to prevent plagiarism, which the history functions on the chromebooks would allow us to discover.
So please don’t send your student to school with an iPad or personal laptop. It undermines everything we are trying to do to keep kids focused on school and from accessing things we don’t want to have access to do.
Substitute Teachers Needed
LHS has need of a few people with a lot of patience and savviness to help us out as substitute teachers. Please fill out the application if you are interested: https://leominster.schoolspring.com?jobid=5382951
Next Week’s Athletic Schedule
https://arbiterlive.com/Teams?entityId=12673
Reminders
Damaged and Lost Chromebooks
We get a LOT of damaged and lost chromebooks and this gets to be very expensive for the district. If your student damages their chromebook through negligence or deliberate damage (it happens), we do charge for the replacement device just like we do if a student loses their textbooks. Do whatever you can to get them to be responsible for their chromebook.
Buses:
School bus routes are posted on the district website at https://www.leominsterps.org/.
You can also track the bus using the FirstView App.
Schedule and Grades:
Schedules are available in ASPEN. Your student can log in to ASPEN using their school google account username and password. You can log in at https://ma-leominster.myfollett.com/aspen-login/?deploymentId=ma-leominster
Drop-off and Pick-up Procedures
For the safety of our students, please follow these guidelines for student pickup and drop off
LHS: If you drive your student you can drop them off and pick them up at the main entrance of the school (not where the buses are). Pull up as far forward as you can. PLEASE DO NOT DROP OFF IN THE STAFF LOT THAT IS ALONG GRANITE STREET. There is a lot of pedestrian traffic through here and dropping off students here creates hazards.
CTEi: Parents are not permitted to pull into the half-circle driveway between 7:10 am and 7:30 am. The half-circle will be designated as one-way traffic only.
Parents are not allowed to drive behind our buildings for drop-off or pick-up during school hours (7:00 am – 2:30 pm).
Calling in a student absent
If your student is going to be absent call the school at 978-534-7715 as soon as possible. The absence line is option 1. If you get an auto-call that your student is marked as absent and you think they are at school, don’t panic. Sometimes they accidentally get marked absent (especially with a sub) and sometimes they cut class. Call the school and we will confirm they are not here.
School Attendance:
It is essential for you to get your student to school as much as possible. I am compelled by law to work to get your student to school as often as possible. Absences are excused by a doctor or dentist’s note, court appearance, college visit, driving license appointment. Vacations are not excused absences.
When a student gets five unexcused absences we will require a meeting with parents to make a plan to get them to school more often. Remember that students will need to make up time from unexcused absences at our Saturday Academy.
Student Dismissals
If you need to dismiss your student you can send them to school with a note to bring to the office when they get to school. Your student will receive a pass to be dismissed and can just check out at the office when it is time for them to go. You won’t need to come into the school and it’s much faster than coming in to dismiss your student.
We cannot do dismissals over the phone or by reading a text you sent to your student’s phone for safety reasons. Someone else could be impersonating you and we would not be able to verify it (this happens more often than you might think).
Joshua Romano
Principal