Interim superintendent outlines priorities after year of stabilization for Medford Public Schools
Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts
Subscribe
Summary
Interim Superintendent Dr. Gallucci told the School Committee on Jan. 12 that the district has focused on restoring stability, strengthening instructional coherence and addressing deferred maintenance; she named permanent hires, rolled out data and schedule changes, and set multi‑year goals for curriculum and operations.
Interim Superintendent Dr. Gallucci on Jan. 12 presented a year-in-review to the Medford School Committee, saying her interim year focused on “restoring clarity, strengthening systems, and laying the foundation for long term improvement” across Medford Public Schools.
The presentation, which Dr. Gallucci described as a “state of the schools,” listed four broad areas of work: building instructional excellence, strengthening operational foundations, enhancing communication and community partnership, and creating systems for sustained leadership. She thanked staff and the community “for the trust that you all placed in me during this pivotal time.”
Dr. Gallucci highlighted several concrete changes already in place: the permanent appointments of Dr. Kim Talbot as assistant superintendent for academics and instruction and Kenneth Lord as chief operations officer; a districtwide effort to align instructional vision with DESE guidance; and schedule adjustments that added 15 minutes at the elementary level and expanded middle‑school periods to a 57‑minute block with a new challenge block and dedicated WIN time.
On operations, the superintendent said the district has woven a facilities condition assessment into the capital plan and is addressing deferred maintenance, notably heating and roof repairs. She cited a recent water intrusion at the Kids Corner daycare, where staff coordinated remediation and replacement of damaged supplies.
Safety and security work includes modernizing access controls and cameras, instituting district- and school-level safety committees, and updating door-monitor procedures tied to the district’s “I Love You Guys” protocol. Dr. Gallucci said some incident reviews are not publicly shared for safety reasons but that the district conducts after-action reviews for matters that warrant them.
Instructional data systems were a central point. Dr. Gallucci said the district is implementing an analytics platform called Open Architects to house MAP, MCAS and DIBELS results and enable classroom- to-district-level planning. She described DIBELS as a low-cost screener and said Open Architects was procured for approximately $20,000 districtwide.
She also announced a comprehensive humanities ELA review (grades 6–12, initial focus on 6–8), and a coordinated review of health curriculum to align with new state standards. On staffing, she described partnerships (including City Year and higher-education relationships) to build recruiting pipelines and emphasized expanding educator leadership opportunities created in the recently negotiated contracts.
School Committee members thanked Dr. Gallucci for the overview and pressed for additional data in future meetings. The superintendent said a larger data presentation is scheduled for the committee at the next meeting.