What our School Committe did during my first term that makes me most proud:
Continued providing excellent preK-12 education, despite harsh economic realities
Maintained reasonable elementary school class sizes
Hired excellent Superintendent
Initiated more effective evalution of administrators and teachers
Improved transparency of both data and decision making process
Improved communication and relationship between elementary parent groups and between elementary parent groups and School Committee
School Committee members received training on roles, and shared values in retreats
Began new focus on our policy making role, reflective of what we believe should happen, yet still giving administration leeway on regulations and procedures
Challenges I am prepared for us to tackle if re-elected:
Insistence on achievement for every student, and a sense of belonging for every student
Eliminating the achievement gap between children of color and white children
Reducing disproportionality of discipline issues/events between children of color and white children
More creative recruitment and retention of teachers of color
Renewed and reinvigorated professional development: giving teachers the resources they need to more fully meet the challenges of heterogeneous classrooms
Reducing high school class size while not increasing directed study (study hall)
Long term planning for school buildings and a thorugh examination of class/grade configurations, including an expanded space for Mark’s Meadow and potential addition of 6th grade to middle school
Ways of informing and involving more people in discussions, ranging from how to interpret standardized test scores, to how not to lose feeling of home-school partnership when child moves on to middle school
Continued efficiencies in town-school collaboration on facilities and infrastructure
Hiring a new business/finance director