By DAN TOMASELLO
LYNNFIELD — The Administrative Leadership Team (ALT) presented the school improvement plans for the 2025-2026 academic year during a recent School Committee meeting.
Superintendent Tom Geary said the school improvement plans are “annual data-driven roadmaps developed by each level to identify growth, set goals and outline strategies for improving student learning and overall school performance.”
“It provides a level of growth and accountability for each school,” said Geary. “We have an academic goal and a culture/citizenship goal for each school.”
In addition to the plans for all four schools, Assistant Superintendent Adam Federico said a shared district improvement goal pertaining to the educator observation and evaluation system has been developed.
“During the 2025-2026 school year, Lynnfield Public Schools will focus on a review of structures and strategies related to the educator observation and evaluation system,” states the shared district improvement goal.
Federico said the goal seeks to be “consistent from pre-K all the way up to high school in terms of how we look at educator performance.”
“This includes our teachers, but also our paraprofessionals and really everybody we evaluate,” said Federico. “Our emphasis is really around student and educator engagement. We are really going to look at closely how we are looking at and evaluating the engagement of our teachers and our students.”
Lynnfield High School
Principal Patricia Puglisi gave an overview of the improvement plan for Lynnfield High School.
Puglisi said the high school will be implementing the Vision of the Graduate initiative that is now being required by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). She said the Vision of the Graduate initiative seeks to have students develop communication skills, resilience, literacy skills, global citizenship and problem solving skills.
“It’s a focus on skills, skill development and growth,” said Puglisi.
As part of the Vision of the Graduate initiative, Puglisi said the high school has developed an academic goal that involves reviewing structures and strategies related to student-centered practices.
“What we are looking at is having departments and teachers talk about how to promote student reflection on their skill development,” said Puglisi. “Teachers will be looking at their scope and sequence, their activities and the projects that they do in class. They will be determining how students might be able to explicitly talk about their growth and development on skills.”
Puglisi said the high school is looking to implement a new schedule for the 2026-2027 academic year.
“We are going to be implementing some kind of flex block,” said Puglisi. “That is what we will be figuring out. We want to have it finalized by January so that the second half of the school year can be used to make adjustments that we might need to for curriculum or for scheduling.”
Puglisi said the high school will be looking to explore using artificial intelligence to “really enhance educational experiences.”
“A number of our teachers have goals around that area,” said Puglisi.
According to the improvement plan, the high school’s citizenship/school culture goal entails focusing on “understanding learning differences, special education programs and related accommodations and strategies to meet the needs of all learners and to create an inclusive environment for all students.”
“For culture, we are focusing more on our high needs students: Our English language learners and our special education students,” said Puglisi. “We really want to be making sure we are effectively meeting their needs.”
Puglisi recalled that a co-taught model was implemented in some of the high school’s college prep (CP) classes two years ago, which are taught by a general education teacher and a special education teacher.
“Being that it is in its third year, it is time for us to audit that program,” said Puglisi. “We are using an audit tool that was developed by a local superintendent. We want to make sure we are hitting all of those benchmarks and truly meeting our students’ needs.”
Puglisi also said the high school will be looking to “increase student accommodations in the regular education classroom.” She said the high school will continue providing targeted interventions to students who need additional support.
Lynnfield Middle School
Principal Stephen Ralston and Assistant Principal Dana Courtney discussed the improvement plan for Lynnfield Middle School.
The middle school’s academic goal involves reviewing and assessing “instructional and assessment practices with the goal to advance student engagement.” Ralston said the main focus will be on applied learning.
According to the One8 Foundation, which awarded LMS a grant, “applied learning refers to learning where there is an explicit link between the academic content knowledge and skills being taught and how they can be used to solve real-world problems.”
Ralston said the middle school will be focusing on collaboration/communication, iteration, persistence and real-world problem-solving.
“What we are going to do with our academic goal is really start with an inventory to see where we have these tenets on communication, iteration, persistence and real-world problem-solving already in our curriculum,” said Ralston. “We can then look at opportunities where we can infuse those and kind of build a roadmap for spreading this across the school.”
According to the improvement plan, the middle school’s citizenship/school culture goal entails working to “improve the school culture for students and families within the LMS community.”
“We are constantly working to improve the school culture for students and families at LMS,” said Courtney.
Courtney said the middle school will be working on helping fifth graders’ transition from elementary school to LMS.
“I think parents are very nervous about their kiddos coming to middle school, combing the two elementary schools and all of that transition,” said Courtney. “We have been really looking at how to ease that transition.”
Courtney said the middle school has revamped its Advisory Program this year, which is now called Core Values Community. She recalled that the middle school’s core values are “Kindness, Effort and Citizenship.”
“Each trimester is centered around our three core values,” said Courtney. “The first trimester will be around Kindness, and it will be on acceptance, inclusion and generosity. We will take kindness as the umbrella piece and will break it down about what it looks like to be kind and mature. Each grade level will have a specific lesson, but the entire building will be talking about that topic. For Effort in our second trimester, we will have participation, initiative, mindset and perseverance. For our third trimester in the spring, we will have Citizenship. We will more specifically talk about being an upstander and not a bystander, honesty, respect and responsibility.”
Courtney said the middle school is looking to establish a Best Buddies chapter. She noted that LHS has a Best Buddies chapter.
Elementary schools
Summer Street School Principal Karen Cronin, Huckleberry Hill School Principal Lauren King, Elementary English Language Arts/Social Studies Curriculum Director Maureen Fennessy and Elementary Math/Science Curriculum Director Christina Perry gave an overview of the improvement plan for both elementary schools.
According to the improvement plan, the elementary schools’ curriculum goal entails learning and applying “new skills connected with higher level pedagogical practices with critical thinking in math and strengthening instructional practices to written expression to improve teaching and learning in math and ELA.”
Perry said the elementary schools will be undertaking a “soft launch” of McGraw Hill’s Reveal Math curriculum that was selected as part of a curriculum review last year.
“Our math goal for this year is to really familiarize ourselves more with the Reveal platform and really introduce the idea of critical thinking in math to all of our students,” said Perry.
Perry said a group of teachers at both elementary schools will be serving as “soft launchers” who will be “guiding this work.” She stated in a newsletter sent to families that she will “continue to share updates about Reveal Math through classroom, school and district communication.”
“While we are introducing this new resource, we want to reassure families that we are still following state standards and working closely with our support team to maintain the same high expectations we have always had in math,” wrote Perry. “Students will continue to be assessed using Renaissance STAR Progress Monitoring, and we will also use the many assessments available in Reveal Math to inform instruction and keep you updated on your child’s progress. You may notice that students in different classrooms are sometimes working on different lessons at different times. This is expected in the pilot year and does not mean students are ahead or behind. All students will engage with the same grade-level standards, and teachers are working together to ensure every child receives a complete and rigorous math experience.”
Fennessy informed the Villager that the written expression component of the academic goal “focuses on building foundational writing skills and composition.”
“Teachers will participate in ‘Empowering Writers’ professional development to bring greater structure to foundational skills and narrative writing instruction,” stated Fennessy. “These opportunities will provide teachers with strategies and coaching to strengthen their practice and create a consistent, school-wide approach to developing students’ written expression.”
According to the plan, the citizenship/school goal entails having both elementary schools “foster a culture of belonging where every student is seen, heard and valued, and every family is included and respected.”
“This will ensure equitable access to opportunities so that all students experience exceptional teaching and learning, and contribute to a positive school community,” said King.
King said both elementary schools will have “an annual theme this year.”
“Huckleberry’s is ‘Every Hero Counts’ and Summer Street’s is ‘It Starts With Us,’” said King.
King said each school will have “monthly focus areas that will connect with the themes.” She said Huckleberry Hill’s theme for September is kindness.
“And throughout the year, those monthly focus areas will hit upon many of the differences that our communities have in order to embrace those differences and highlight them,” said King. “It will help students recognize that differences are amazing and that our schools are places where every child should feel seen, heard and they belong.”
Cronin agreed.
“We want our students to feel connected and feel that they belong,” said Cronin.
Cronin said the elementary schools will be using “relationship mapping” as part of the citizenship/school culture goal.
“It connects to some of the work that A Healthy Lynnfield is bringing forward with one trusted adult,” said Cronin. “It is really a way to really have real-time, real-life information about students, what is going well for them and what is getting in the way.”