Superintendent's Welcome

 Welcome to the Pembroke Public Schools

Frank Hackett, Superintendent of Schools

The Pembroke Public Schools (PPS) is fortunate to have a dedicated staff who provide a quality instructional program; however, these same professionals fully understand that our curriculum needs to be reevaluated, revised and reinvigorated to meet the needs of all of our students.  From tighter alignment to the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks and national standards, to consistency among schools and grade levels, to seamless transitions from one grade level to the next, to ensuring that the curriculum is built from a backbone of clearly articulated and rigorous standards, the PPS is making sure that our academic program matches our expectations of becoming a great school system. 

Acceleration through Engagement

From the beginning of the curriculum development process, we decided to use a model that engages numerous professionals within the school system. The early results are impressive, as the work done to date has been completed quickly and is of high quality.  There are almost 70 teachers and administrators who are involved in this critical effort to improve our curriculum.  The decision to bring so many of our professionals into this work was most deliberate:  engaging teachers leverages their professional expertise and ensures implementation, as they are ultimately the ones responsible for teaching our students.  Too often curriculum is developed by a few people and never truly reaches the classroom; or, it may reach the classroom, but it isn’t sustained as teachers move to new positions or retirement.  The model that the PPS is utilizing protects against these issues because the curriculum will be embedded in common units of instruction that are part of the development process.  Additionally, we are including assessments within the common units that will allow us to measure student performance and adjust our instruction when needed.  Taking these two steps will not only ensure consistency of curriculum across our schools, it will also help us better understand the academic performance of our students.  With common units in place, we guarantee sustainability system-wide, as new teachers will be given the units and trained in how to teach them upon their arrival.

Finding the Balance:  Quality vs. Pace

Curriculum development can be slow and complex work, and finding the balance between ensuring quality and moving quickly enough to positively impact the students currently in our classrooms is challenging.  While we need to make certain that quality is not sacrificed, we also need to be as efficient as possible.  With that understanding, we are taking two additional steps in order to allow for ongoing academic improvement.  First, we are utilizing an “on-the-fly” implementation method, moving forward with various pieces of curriculum as they come to completion.  Traditionally, curriculum work is done during the summer and resource purchases are held until the following school year.  Our model allows for ongoing development and implementation, and parents and students can expect to see the introduction of new units and assessments as the 2008-09 school year progresses.  Giving ourselves the flexibility to make curriculum resource purchases as soon as work is completed keeps us from having to wait a full academic year to implement, allowing us to positively impact those students currently in our care.  A good example of how we have utilized this approach was the mid-year implementation of new math textbooks at grades 7 and 8 during the 2007-08 school year.

Secondly, we are continuously introducing common assessments that measure student performance against our drafted standards.  The results of these assessments are used to inform our instruction and to improve individual student achievement.  We already have assessments in place that accomplish this goal, such as the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) and our Common Writing Assessments (CWA).  As the 2008-09 school year moves forward, we will be implementing pre, post and benchmark assessments in mathematics, as well as expanding our CWA to more grade levels.  While these common assessments may or may not be tied directly to a common unit, they provide critical achievement data that are consistent across the school system.  More importantly, these data can be used immediately to improve teaching and learning for our students.

Becoming Data-Driven

The PPS is focused on becoming a data-driven school system so that we can foster a culture of continuous improvement for the entire school-community.  One of the practical applications of this goal will be the constant revision and improvement of the common units we develop.  While the initial development of a common unit has an end point (a completed unit that is implemented), the unit itself must undergo continuous evaluation and changes based upon the student achievement data we gather from it.  Common units of instruction do us no good if they do not result in improved student performance, but how is that measured?  How do we really know that the unit is producing valid and reliable achievement data?  One answer to that question is to compare the data against other assessment results, such as MCAS.  For example, if students are demonstrating high levels of achievement on a common unit in English Language Arts (ELA)  at grade four, but those same students are underperforming on the ELA portion of the MCAS test, we need to carefully evaluate whether the unit and the assessment associated with that unit are valid and reliable.  Being data-driven in our work means we understand that developing common curricula is not enough:  we must also be consistent with our expectation of high performance for all students, regardless of what school they attend, what teachers they have, or what learning styles they possess.   This step is truly the hallmark of great schools— setting and measuring for high levels of student achievement for each and every student.  While the development of high quality curricula is time consuming and complex, the establishment of valid and reliable assessments that accurately measure and report student achievement is, in some ways, the most important work of all.

Finally, to improve academic achievement, we must ensure that teachers and parents provide accurate and supportive communication about performance to all students.  In order to improve, our students must understand who they are as learners.  There will be times when they do not meet our standards, and helping them view those occasions as opportunities for growth rather than points of failure will provide them with the tools they need to be successful in school and in life.  We must not lower our standards to match lower levels of achievement; rather, we must raise student achievement to match high and rigorous standards.  This point is critical for overall school improvement, and it needs the full support of teachers, parents and students.  Students will rise to higher expectations if we give them the chance. 

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