Superintendent Kelly Updates School Committee on District Improvement Goals

At the last Revere Public School Committee meeting Revere Public School (RPS) Superintendent Dr. Dianne Kelly gave an update on RPS’s District Improvement Goals.

In February over 100 Revere residents turned out for a community meeting to begin the groundwork for change and got parents, students, teachers and staff to think about Revere Public Schools’ district focus.

However, COVID-19 put the breaks on some of the work, but Dr. Kelly said RPS is refocused on addressing some of the adjectives discussed back in February.

“Changing our mission and vision was work we had hoped to do in the spring, but COVID got in the way,” said Kelly. “However, we were able to have a community meeting before that and through the community meeting, which was well attended, we had many parents and students and teachers, and others present strategic objectives that we selected to focus on. We’re building an anti racist community, promoting social and emotional health and meeting the needs of all students. And so, under those three categories we worked with the priorities that were identified at that meeting, and then refined them with our administrative team.”

Kelly said RPS has taken six priorities and developed them into strategic initiatives that the district hopes to work on over the next five years.

“The six that we’ve identified for particular focus this year are increasing gender and racial diversity of staff, particularly on teachers and administrators; provide training and learning experiences on anti racism; create restorative practices and equity for all staff members and students; adopt and apply equitable practices across the district; and create opportunities for parent engagement and input in school and district decision making,” said Kelly.

Kelly said one example of how Revere is moving forward with its focus was the community meeting back in February that increased opportunities for students to have voice and choice in their academic programs.

The final priority focuses on teaching practices across classrooms with a focus on effective student centered deeper learning experiences.

“It’s a five year plan so you’ll notice that these outcomes are expected by June of 2025,” said Kelly. “So for each of these strategic initiatives we have put together a timeline that includes a set of process benchmarks as well as a set of early evidence of change benchmarks. This is so we can measure our progress as we go.”

However, Kelly cautioned that the COVID-19 pandemic may make meeting some of the goals a little tough in the first year.

“One thing that we realized in this goal setting process is that we really don’t have enough time to make effective change,” said Kelly. “To say that we’re going to make a whole lot of goals between now and June of 2021 might be unrealistic. And so for this first year we’ve really made it a kind of an 18 month plan to take us from now until June of 2022. When the schools use these documents once the School Committee approves this plan they’ll use the district improvement plan to shape their own school improvement plans.” Kelly said one main strategic initiative for this year focuses on student centered learning and the deeper learning initiative, which creates equity ensuring that all kids have access to academic rigor throughout their educational career