Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Education Student Performance topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Superintendent reports modest gains on STAR assessments, outlines boundary realignment and staffing pipeline
Summary
Superintendent Allen told the Worcester School Committee the district saw its largest within‑year gains on STAR reading and math in recent years and outlined five annual goals, plans for a teacher 'grow‑your‑own' pipeline and a school boundary realignment process with public input starting this summer.
Superintendent Allen presented the Worcester Public Schools’ 2025–26 annual goals and said the district recorded notable within‑year improvements on STAR assessments while acknowledging the work ahead.
"The progress made during the year reflects the tremendous collective work and dedication of our classroom teachers, our paraeducators, the school‑based leadership teams, and district leadership," Allen said, summarizing the year’s results and the basis for the superintendent’s evaluation.
Allen reviewed five goals used as the basis for his annual performance evaluation. The student learning goal targeted a 3‑percentage‑point increase in the share of students meeting or exceeding state benchmarks on STAR reading and STAR math; at year end 35% of students met or exceeded benchmarks in both subjects. Allen said reading improved by 6 percentage points and math by 5 within the year — the largest within‑year gains recorded under the district's current assessment practices — and the share of students in the lowest performance band for reading fell to 31%.
The professional practice goal focused on collaborative teaming. Allen said district monitoring found that 84% of district‑level team meetings implemented four core teaming practices, and 38 of 49 schools (78%) met the district’s fidelity threshold (70% of meetings using the practices) by year end.
Allen outlined two district improvement goals alongside communications work and programming. The district adopted a unified communications framework to reduce overmessaging and expand family outreach using ParentSquare, the website and social media. He also described a grow‑your‑own educator pipeline that enrolled an inaugural cohort of 41 students (78% students of color), with 13 students completing an early‑college education course and 25 participating in a ‘future educators signing day.’
On facilities and enrollment, Allen previewed a school boundary and quadrant alignment project intended to target roughly 85% building capacity districtwide; he said initial scenarios will be released in August with at least three months of public input before any changes are proposed.
Committee members thanked the superintendent for the presentation and noted next procedural steps: written evaluations for Allen are due to the chair by July 31, with the committee’s evaluation scheduled for Aug. 13.
The committee did not take any formal action on the goals at the meeting; members said they will review the materials and discuss evaluation feedback in August.
