Bridgewater-Raynham schools present improvement plans as committee presses for staffing data amid large class sizes

Administrators presented school improvement plans for Bridgewater-Raynham High School and Mitchell Elementary on Oct. 22, and committee members used the presentations to press for clearer staffing data after hearing that class sizes remain substantially above targets.

At the high school, presenter Miss Watson said the improvement plan aligns with the district student-success plan and highlighted four pillars: safe and supportive schools, curriculum/instruction/assessment, operations, and human capital. The high school has replaced a contracted Care Solace referral service with school-based counseling; introduced a digital formative-assessment tool (Pear Deck) to increase in-class formative checks and student feedback; and plans teacher-leadership pathways and new staff committees to build instructional capacity.

Mitchell Elementary’s plan emphasized PBIS (positive behavioral interventions and supports), small-group instruction informed by frequent data, tiered fidelity inventories, and an emergency medical response team led by the school nurse. The Mitchell plan also stressed differentiated staff meeting time to allow grade-level planning and frequent data review.

Committee members focused questions on staffing and class size. Superintendent Powers and other staff said the district is “99%” staffed relative to positions it started the year with, meaning nearly all current authorized positions are filled. But Powers and others also said the district has lost roughly 50 staff positions over the past two years; restoring those positions would require hiring beyond 100% of current authorized slots. "So if we were at a 100% of what we currently have, we would still need an additional ~50 staff to get to the class sizes we need," Powers said.

A committee member asked for a clearer metric of the gap; one response given as a back-of-the-envelope estimate was that the district is approximately 20% below the staffing level needed to reach the committee’s preferred class sizes. Officials warned that district hiring and lower budgets limit immediate options to reduce class sizes without additional funding from the towns.

Administrators said the district will present October 1 enrollment figures and MCAS/assessment reporting in November; those enrollment numbers must also be certified by DESE before they are final. Powers and others said the committee will be invited on school visits so members can see classroom sizes firsthand.

The presentations were framed by school councils and staff who participated in plan development. Committee members praised staff for local initiatives but emphasized the limits imposed by the district’s budget and vacancies.