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Superintendent summarizes district goals and defends staffing shift for behavior supports
Summary
Superintendent Coward presented end-of-year goals on community engagement, leadership capacity and instructional/fiscal systems, cited preliminary academic gains, and explained a staffing change that alters how the district will deliver behavior supports — saying specialists were offered other positions and the district plans increased psychologist/social-worker/BCBA oversight.
Superintendent Coward presented a year-end summary and three strategic goals for Coventry Public Schools: strengthen two-way community engagement and visibility, build leadership capacity while celebrating excellence, and refine instructional and fiscal systems to improve student outcomes.
Coward said the district increased direct superintendent communications, expanded storytelling via social media and newsletters, completed successful contract settlements that secured multiple years of fiscal stability, implemented a deficit reduction plan, and initiated a position-control system to strengthen staffing oversight. He said preliminary assessment data suggest improvements in SAT and AP results, noting in places he has seen "double digits" increases in SATs, but he said more data are forthcoming and he would not share incomplete results.
During a staffing update, Coward described routine end-of-year personnel adjustments driven by student course selections, enrollment shifts and retirements. He said this year’s retirements created internal vacancies that prevented layoffs. Coward also explained a specific change: the district removed four behavior-specialist positions (which served five elementary schools) and intends to shift toward a model that provides assessments and interventions by staff with clinical training — psychologists or social workers — and potentially Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) oversight with Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) support for implementation.
Coward said the behavior specialists, who are part of the support-staff unit, were valued for their work but the district concluded that many students’ social-emotional needs require assessment and plan-writing that typically come from clinicians. He told the committee the displaced specialists were offered other positions in the district and that the administration will monitor outcomes and adjust if needed.
In public comment Dorene Albreight of 33 Reed Avenue objected to eliminating behavioral interventionists and urged the district to retain or replace the specific staff members who, she said, served students well. Coward’s presentation and the public comment left the committee informed of the change but without a formal vote; Coward said staffing decisions of this type fall within the superintendent’s statutory responsibilities and that the administration would continue to evaluate results.
The committee did not reverse the staffing decision at the meeting and directed the administration to continue monitoring the new approach’s effect on student supports.
