LYNNFIELD — Lynnfield Public Schools is continuing its work on equity, inclusion and student achievement this school year, implementing numerous trainings and tools for professional development.
Kevin Cyr, director of teaching and learning, gave a presentation during last week’s School Committee meeting, providing updates on the District’s work in professional development.
Cyr discussed some objectives, including developing a shared understanding for meaningful professional development that align with the District’s strategy and school improvement plans, as well as creating a framework for the year.
The vision these objectives comes from is a student centric focus direction, as the District moves forward with a strategy that includes empowering and designing “opportunities for students and educators to build leadership capacity through a renewed faculty meeting model.”
The District is continuously hosting mandated trainings to ensure that educators have what they need to get the school year started, as they implement new communication tools, curriculum development and ongoing progress monitoring tools.
“We look to strengthen our approach and capitalize on pockets of success but also find new growth opportunities,” Cyr said.
Paraprofessionals are now added to professional development time, which is a new concept in the town.
“We’re pleased that paraprofessionals are now at the table during professional development time,” Cyr said. ““That’s just a real win, win here.”
One of the focuses this year, Cyr said, is to bring back a sense of community, given what the schools have gone through with the COVID-19 pandemic in the past couple of years.
“This is really a desire to return to community,” he said.
The District is hosting monthly faculty meetings to allow teachers to connect to existing professional development initiatives and be creative. Having been back to school for less than two months, Cyr said he’s impressed with the job that principals and curriculum leaders have done already, making sure that faculty meeting time is meaningful for the faculty.
The District is also hosting instructional rounds, where teachers have an opportunity to observe and interact with their colleagues in a “nonevaluative way” regarding instruction.
“The key is really finding meaningful takeaways from the instructional rounds,” Cyr said.
Another addition to this school year is the introduction of a new model that consists of a multi-tiered system of support that focuses on providing social and emotional, academic and behavioral support to students.
The first tier, which is universal support, is where Cyr said the majority of their focus will be this school year.
“Tier one is critical in terms of our approach,” he said. “You cannot continue the momentum with our equity work and you can’t do this work without a universal design for learning approach.”
Tier two is targeted support and tier three is intensive support.
This model focuses on how to support the students and how to provide a flexible and inclusive environment, which is what Cyr said the District is striving towards.
On the topic of equity, the District hired an inclusion coach, similar to its diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator, who will work hand-in-hand with professional development in the district in conjunction with the equity process.
“The bottom line, and we say this all the time, is relationships. It’s getting to know our students, paying careful attention to the data that’s being provided to us, really knowing our students strengths, understanding their weaknesses, and building our instructional practices around the students that are in front of us,” Cyr said. “When done the right way, they should set us up for success.”
To support the goal of returning to a community, the professional development event, Lynnfield Learns, is returning on March 15 for the first time since March 3, 2020.
This community event is about building leadership capacity and includes educators presenting internally, as well as outside presenters and community partners, providing a day to “celebrate” everything Lynnfield schools have done.
“We are super fortunate to be in this District because the educators take advantage of not just the district providing professional development time that we give them, but they just want to learn,” Cyr said. “What we’re looking for is really authentic, collaborative, learning opportunities.”
School Committee member Phil McQueen praised Cyr and the District’s leadership for their efforts in professional development, saying that “this philosophy and this practice is what’s going to move this District forward and increase student outcomes equitably for all of our learners and make our great educators even better.”
Allysha Dunnigan can be reached at [email protected]
