At the Educational Affairs Committee's first meeting of 2025, administrators presented progress on the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District strategic plan and outlined next steps on diversity, curriculum, wellness and facilities work.

The update covered five pathways in the plan: diversity, equity and belonging; teaching, learning and innovation; culture, community and communications; wellness and social-emotional learning; and infrastructure and finance. District presenters said an equity statement is in draft, professional development is shifting from district-wide sessions to building-based work, curriculum teams are drafting syllabi and intentional unit upgrades, PBIS and outside partners are being used to refine social-emotional supports, and facilities teams completed assessments to inform a 10-year capital plan.

The committee's discussion focused on whether bias-incident responses are reducing disparities, how counseling programs are assessed, timelines for curriculum work and how the capital plan will be funded.

District leaders said the equity statement — developed with teachers, students and other stakeholders — remains a draft and will be refined with feedback from teachers, administrators, students and the board before a policy is written. "We started with developing the statement of intent with a whole group of stakeholders," said Dr. Ashwina Maszkowski, who presented the diversity, equity and belonging pathway. She said the district delayed completing the formal equity statement from its original year‑1 milestone and is now working to finalize it in year two.

On professional development, Maszkowski said the district has moved from district-wide cultural-proficiency sessions in 2022–23 toward building-centered professional development planned in collaboration with cultural-proficiency equity teacher leaders so work more closely fits each school’s needs. She said each school has a theme for the year’s work and that three professional development days this year are dedicated to cultural proficiency, each two hours long.

Board members pressed for measurable results. "Are number of bias incidents being reduced?" asked Educational Affairs Committee member Nana Whitsett. Maszkowski answered that data collection is ongoing and principals include bias‑related goals in building plans; she defined a bias incident in the meeting as "any incident that violates the identity of the other person," and described planned "educate and heal" modules intended to pair education with response rather than relying solely on punishment.

On curriculum, Dr. Nelson Pratt reported that teachers are pursuing "intentional unit upgrades" meant to make lessons more student-centered and that draft syllabi for core secondary courses are in progress. Pratt said some teams delayed finishing syllabi in order to address classroom problems of practice — for example, an intermediate Spanish team paused to develop a student-check-in assessment and student-authored materials to address an observed bimodal achievement pattern. The district plans to hyperlink syllabi into a program-planning guide so course expectations are accessible across the system.

The committee heard about plans to expand professional learning communities (PLCs). Pratt said district teams visited CBDC, a high-performing model for PLCs, and will decide whether to pilot or scale PLC structures starting at the high school or middle school.

On wellness and social-emotional supports, presenters outlined PBIS data sources being integrated with outside partners — including the CHOP Tri-County Mental Health Consortium and use of tools such as Panorama and LinkIt — to better track interventions and impacts. The district said it has added tiered PBIS supports, is training staff in tier‑2 interventions and will pilot evidence-based groups such as interpersonal psychotherapy‑adolescent skills training (a CHOP-supported program) and an executive-functioning intervention starting in January.

Infrastructure and finance presenters reported completion of facility condition assessments for all five buildings and said staff are preparing a comprehensive 10-year capital plan and deferred-maintenance estimates to present to the finance committee in January. The district described a multi‑phase budget process (phase 1: mandated/contractual costs; phase 2: strategic initiatives; phase 3: normal budget requests; phase 4: personnel requests) and said it is working to recode revenues and expenditures to align with state reporting. Staff also proposed considering a purchasing supervisor/grant manager role to improve procurement and grant-administration continuity.

The committee approved the minutes from the previous meeting at the start of the session (motion details not specified in the record). Presenters said the district plans a system migration and website launch the weekend of January 24 with a public launch on January 27, and listed tentative February agenda items including an elementary ELA proposal, a TOSA update and presentation of the comprehensive plan.

Meeting exchange included questions about the pace of change and implementation. Several board members acknowledged substantial progress while urging careful follow-up, measurable assessments and flexibility to revise milestones based on what the district learns as work continues.

The district did not present formal vote tallies or adoption of new policies at this meeting; the record shows ongoing work, draft documents and planned next steps rather than final board adoption of the equity policy or the capital plan.