McCullough Middle School shows gains from parent-engagement strategy; district math pilot highlighted
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Summary
McCullough Middle School principal Hyacinth Lewis described a four-year parent-engagement program that pairs student goal-setting with family workshops; district staff also demonstrated a new math curriculum and teacher dashboard pilots used across elementary and middle schools.
Principal Hyacinth Lewis told the Colonial School Board on Dec. 9 that McCullough Middle School’s "McCullough's Got Goals" program — a four-year strategy combining student goal cards, 1-on-1 teacher conferences, and family workshops — has increased student engagement and produced measurable gains on benchmark assessments.
Lewis said the school started with a focus on student achievement, safety and family involvement and introduced individual goal-setting conferences to ensure students understand benchmark expectations. She described three-year gains in which substantial percentages of students increased or maintained scores between fall and spring benchmarks in both math and English language arts and credited coaching, data transparency, parent workshops (with childcare and meals), and one-on-one teacher conferences for the progress.
District math staff (identified in the meeting as Dr. Lancore) followed with a short interactive demonstration of a new elementary-to-middle curriculum. The demonstration included a sample Grade 3 lesson (an introductory multiplication-to-graphing exercise), teacher dashboards with domain and item-level reporting, and progress-monitoring tools that update as students complete domain checks. The presenter described mini-lessons, personalized digital lessons, and differentiated follow-up supports that teachers can assign based on real-time data.
Board members praised the McCullough approach and encouraged rolling successful practices out to other schools; presenters said two other middle schools had adopted the goal-setting template and that the district will continue piloting curriculum and monitoring results through midyear benchmarks.
The presentations emphasized transparency to families and the role of intentional parent engagement in improving outcomes. The district said the new math tools provide more frequent data than benchmark windows alone and allow teachers to target instruction to specific standards.
The board discussed next steps and celebrated staff recognitions later in the meeting.