Saugus superintendent aims to close achievement gap in schools

SAUGUS – When Superintendent Richard Langlois presents his budget he said it won’t be a wish list of unrealistic requests. What it will be is a bare bones budget of what is needed to get the department on its feet and hopefully keep the high school accredited.High School Principal Joseph Diorio is already working on a preliminary report that he will have to present to an accreditation team that, next year, will tour his school and determine if it should remain accredited or not.”They will do a site visit and go through all aspects of the facility,” Langlois said.What might surprise town officials the most, however, is to learn that it is no longer only programming and class offerings that determine accreditation, but is also the facility itself. Langlois said a neglected building could cost the school its standing. He said there is a handicap compliance issue in the back of the school that he believes will most definitely cause some problems.That is hardly all that needs to be addressed with the school system, however.During a recent School Committee meeting, Langlois said his budget would try to address what he called “the achievement gap.”While he is hoping to spell out everything when he presents his budget possibly as early as next week, Langlois did talk Thursday about some of the issues that concern him most.Curriculum maps on the elementary level are high on Langlois’ list. A veritable road map, the curriculum maps serve as a guide for teachers making sure that everyone across a given grade is teaching the same thing on the same day and that it is connected to the textbook and available technology.”In the elementary level we don’t have curriculum maps so I’ll be looking for professional development for that,” he said.The School Department also fails to meet the state’s required time and learning standards for the kindergarten level as well as at the Belmonte Middle School and the high school. Schools are required to provide 950 hours of learning time on the elementary levels and 990 hours for secondary schools.There are only two all day kindergartens in the district, which Langlois finds unacceptable.”We have to begin to push for (all day kindergartens),” he said. “If you don’t get a good root the tree doesn’t grow strong.”A lack of teachers and class offerings hampers the high school and is what causes the middle school to be labeled, in the state’s eyes, an elementary school rather than a secondary school, which is preferable.”We have nothing to service ELL (English Language Learners), that’s a rising concern,” Langlois said. “Class sizes in grades four and up is in the bucket list for attention . . . and we’re lacking counselors, be it guidance or adjustment at both middle and high school levels.” Langlois said those, along with a few other items are the most critical and he plans to address them in his budget.”There are some other things I want to ask for but this is not a wish list,” he said. “I am very focused. This is what we need to survive.”