Needham's two middle school councils will meet jointly on Thursday, Oct. 22, three days after voters weigh in on the $325.4 million Pollard rebuilding project at Special Town Meeting.

The High Rock and Pollard Joint School Council advisory meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. at Broadmeadow School, 120 Broad Meadow Road, according to an agenda posted by the Town Clerk's Office on Wednesday, Oct. 7. The session opens with introductions and an overview of both schools.

A superintendent swearing-in ceremony follows at 6 p.m. in the Broadmeadow School Performance Center. The agenda does not name the superintendent. Dan Gutekanst has served as Needham's superintendent through at least September 2026, but no public announcement of a new hire or a new contract term appears in available records.

The meeting falls between two major votes for Needham families. Special Town Meeting convenes Monday, Oct. 19, at 7:30 p.m. at James Hugh Powers Hall in Needham Town Hall, where voters will decide whether to fund the Pollard project. That vote requires a two-thirds majority. A second hurdle follows: a simple-majority debt exclusion vote at the Nov. 3 election.

Both votes must happen within 120 days of the Massachusetts School Building Authority's Aug. 26 approval for the town to access up to $80.6 million in state reimbursements. With that money, Needham would borrow around $242 million of the $325.4 million total. Without it, the town would shoulder the full cost.

Superintendent Gutekanst stressed the stakes at a Finance Committee meeting in late September. "A failed vote would mean if the community wanted to do something different that you'd have to start all over again," he said, as the Needham Observer reported.

High Rock School has housed Needham's sixth graders since 2008, when overcrowding forced the district to move grade 6 out of Pollard. The Pollard building project plan calls for a new grades 6–8 school on the current Pollard site, reuniting all three middle school grades for more than 1,300 students. Construction could begin in spring or summer 2028, with grades 7 and 8 moving in for the 2030–31 school year and grade 6 following in January 2032.

Town Clerk Louise Miller told the Needham Observer her office had already received more than 8,000 mail-ballot requests for the Nov. 3 election, citing the Pollard referendum as a driver of voter interest. The Oct. 22 joint council meeting is open to the public at Broadmeadow School.