By DAN TOMASELLO
LYNNFIELD — A new strategic plan for the school system will begin being developed this year, Superintendent Tom Geary said during the School Committee’s Aug. 14 meeting.
Geary established four goals as part of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE)-mandated superintendent evaluation system for the 2025-2026 academic year. The goals pertain to a new strategic plan, school culture, the budget process and curriculum.
Strategic plan
Geary established two district improvement goals, one of which entails having him lead “the process of developing a five-year strategic plan for the district.”
“This is something we did several years ago and got away from,” said Geary.
Geary said the strategic plan will serve as a “long-term roadmap” for the school district’s future. He said it will take the entire 2025-2026 academic year to begin developing the plan.
“We want to do it right and it is going to take some time to determine what is important to the community,” said Geary.
Geary said a Strategic Planning Committee is going to be formed that is going to be comprised of students, staff members, administrators, families and community representatives. Two School Committee representatives will also serve on the panel.
“We want participation from all levels on the Strategic Planning Committee,” said Geary.
Geary said an independent facilitator who he and Assistant Superintendent Adam Federico met with this summer will be working with the committee.
“We are working with a facilitator because she provides an unbiased set of eyes for Lynnfield,” said Geary. “We all have our biases. I will be leading the process, but of course I have my own perceptions of things and it just helps to have a fresh set of eyes.”
While Geary said the Strategic Planning Committee cannot include “hundreds of people,” he encouraged people to apply. He said the Strategic Planning Committee will be meeting three times starting in late September and will conclude in January.
Geary said the Administrative Leadership Team will be reviewing the district’s core values, which he said “will look different at each school.”
Additionally, Geary said strategic objectives and the action items needed to accomplish those objectives will be identified.
“Some will be short-term and some will be long-term,” said Geary.
Geary anticipates the strategic objectives will be identified by the end of January.
“This will take the administrative team the second half of the year to go through,” said Geary. “There will be regular updates at School Committee meetings.”
Geary said the final draft of the strategic plan will be presented to the School Committee next June. He said the plan will be connected to school improvement plans, future budget requests and administrator/educator goals.
“This document, once we have it, is going to be our roadmap,” said Geary.
School Committee member Jamie Hayman expressed his support for the strategic plan goal.
“I love that we are doing this,” said Hayman. “I think it’s overdue and I do applaud the process.”
Hayman requested that the Strategic Planning Committee include “voices from different people.”
“If you asked each of us to put together a list of 20 people we think would want to do this, I think we would overlap on probably half of them,” said Hayman. “I think the reality is there are a lot of really smart people in this community who care a lot of about this district that we have yet to tap into.”
Geary said he is “looking for a balance” of representatives to serve on the Strategic Planning Committee to make sure it includes “a well-rounded group.”
School Committee Chair Kristen Grieco Elworthy said the panel will work with Geary to share more information about the new Strategic Planning Committee with residents. She also expressed her support for using an outside facilitator as part of the process.
“It’s great to have someone outside of the process who can guide us through,” said Elworthy. “It’s a bit of a time commitment, but I do hope people will consider it even if you haven’t been involved in things before.”
School Committee member Kim Baker Donahue thanked Geary and Federico for creating the strategic plan initiative.
“I think it is awesome that we are doing it,” said Baker Donahue. “I am sure that the facilitator will help guide you on the number of people. It will be a terrible problem to have if you have to start turning people away. Hopefully that is the case and we can get a lot of objective opinions. I think it will go a long way.”
School Committee member Kate DePrizio agreed.
“I love how inclusive this can be,” said DePrizio. “We can really get some diverse voices.”
School culture
Geary’s professional practice goal once again entails prioritizing “a shared educational vision of furthering positive culture in the district (by) making citizenship central to school ethos.” The goal builds on a similar goal Geary developed last year.
“It’s character-building,” said Geary. “We made some great strides last year, and we are going to build on those this coming year.”
Geary said school principals will be giving presentations on character-building initiatives.
“It will look different at each level,” said Geary. “We want to show what we are doing and what we are doing well.”
Geary said Lynnfield Middle School will be looking to revamp its Advisory Program in order to promote its core values.
“Kindness, citizenship and effort are the middle school’s core values,” said Geary. “We want to ingrain those into students on day one so that they are not just words on a wall.”
Geary said the Superintendent’s Advisory Council at each school, which are comprised of students, will continue meeting during the 2025-2026 academic year.
“I am going to devote at least two of those meetings to talk about how they feel that the core values at their school live,” said Geary. “It will really help us to have that student lens.”
Geary also said he will be working to ensure district-wide communications from school officials “provide opportunities to connect with families to address individual student needs.”
He and Federico will be administering monthly Smore newsletters to families as well.
“We want to really highlight positive culture impacts in our schools and/or we are going to share informational resources for our services within or outside of the schools that address student needs,” said Geary. “We did it sporadically last year, and we really want to hone on it and do it more regularly.”
Baker Donahue asked Geary if the communications sent to families will let them know about different challenges that arise in the schools.
“In our conversations that we have had in workshops, you did already talk about some of these communications you mentioned just now and all of the positive things that we are doing,” said Baker Donahue. “You mentioned also that these will provide opportunities where we can let families know where there may not always be the positive thing so that people can understand everything that is happening in the district. That is part of the plan, right?”
Geary said yes.
“Certain events will trigger certain timing of releasing information,” said Geary.
While Hayman said he “does love the citizenship” goal, he said that he wanted Geary to incorporate inclusion into it. Education officials were notified during a June meeting about a series of racist incidents that occurred in the district. The School Committee’s discussion about the incidents occurred while Geary and the panel were discussing the inappropriate and racist language that was overheard during a livestreaming of the set up of Lynnfield High School’s Class of 2025 graduation ceremony. Two town employees resigned as a result of that incident
“After everything we heard last year, I want to be making sure we are inclusive in our practices and making sure all of our students and families feel like they are included,” said Hayman. “I don’t know if it is something we can add in there, but it is something that speaks to the values of the school district.”
Geary was open to Hayman’s suggestion. He noted that his goals were still in draft form.
“There is time for input and time to adjust,” said Geary. “I am not opposed to tweaking here or there.”
School Committee Vice Chair Jim Dillon expressed his support for Geary’s school culture goal.
“A student’s ability to access the academic curriculum and the teacher’s ability to deliver the academic curriculum can be greatly impacted by school culture,” said Dillon. “No doubt about it.”
Budget process improvement
In addition to the strategic plan goal, Geary’s other district improvement goal seeks to “improve the effectiveness of the budget process by increasing community understanding and communication.”
“There was some discussion last year that the budget process wasn’t fully understood by the community,” said Geary. “I really want to address that.”
Geary said he is going to “collaborate with town leadership to create a budget calendar for the schools.”
“I want to work collaboratively with the leadership team, which is done every year, to develop a budget that is aligned with our mission, values and goals to make sure we are addressing student needs with every dollar we spend,” said Geary.
In addition to providing budget updates at School Committee meetings, Geary also said he is going to provide “two opportunities to educate and solicit budget input from the community.”
Elworthy expressed her support for the budget goal.
“I think this will be really helpful with helping people understand the municipal budget process,” said Elworthy.
DePrizio thanked Geary for listening to people’s concerns “about things we can do better” during the budget process.
Curriculum
The student learning goal Geary developed entails reviewing and assessing the social studies and the visual arts curriculum for grades K-12. He recalled that the goal is similar to the English language arts and math curriculum review goal he developed last year.
“We chose social studies because this past year was the first year grade 8 took the civics MCAS,” said Geary. “We thought this would be a good checkpoint for alignment there and to expand it district-wide. It will allow us to look how different groups have been represented throughout history and how that it impacts where we are today as a society.”
Geary said examining the visual arts curriculum will be a “newer review.”
“We are excited to discuss the work that is being done in this area and to ensure we have a continuum K-12,” said Geary.
Geary said curriculum directors/department heads will be giving social studies and visual arts presentations to the School Committee. He said a summary report will be created that will outline the district’s strengths in both subject areas as well as any “areas of improvement.”