SAUGUS — The School Committee on Thursday night heard a presentation from Saugus Middle/High School Assistant Principal Myra Monto, who told members that SMHS no longer qualifies for assistance from the Statewide System of Support for the first time in five years.
Monto said the removal of state support was revealed in the 2022 Accountability Report for the school and added that the results were “very exciting.”
“We’re very proud of all of our staff,” she said.
In 2017, Monto said, the state identified what was then known as the Belmonte Middle School as needing “recurring assistance and intervention” because it was in the bottom 10 percent of the state.
“We took the position of no blame,” she said. “We were just going to move forward, we were going to look at where we needed to make adjustments, and move forward.”
In the wake of the identification from the state, staff members then worked to identify four turnaround practices — first working to find root causes of the highest needs facing the school before working to implement solutions.
Monto said the problems staff identified were: inadequate time for professional development and ineffective current structures; institutional practices that don’t foster high-level thinking and expression from students across all content areas; teachers lacking the capacity to make meaningful, effective interventions in the classroom; and staff not sharing common beliefs regarding consistent expectations for all students. The four turnaround practices identified were: leadership, shared responsibility, and professional collaboration; intentional practices for improving instruction; student-specific support and instruction to all students; and school culture and climate.
The staff began implementing the turnaround practices in 2019, Monto said, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant change in 2020. The pandemic, she said, increased collaboration between teachers and provided a level technological playing field. When the middle school and high school merged in 2021, staff merged the instructional leadership teams at both schools, creating shared leadership, Monto said.
Monto pointed to specific work done by staff to address each root cause: changing teachers’ and staff member’s schedules to ensure time for meeting on data and planning, aligning professional development with district goals; pairing teachers with subject-specific coaches who run data and planning meetings, coaches and administrators reviewing curriculum needs and aligning high-quality instructional materials, teachers working to build lessons with tiered student engagement strategies; training teachers in “Just in Time Spiral” reteach methods; and implementing a Positive Behavior Intervention System Planning structure throughout the Student Management Team.
Superintendent Erin McMahon was a major supporter of the ongoing work when she took over the post in 2021, Monto said, bringing it to “another level.”
In 2018, the middle school had an accountability percentile, “an indication of the school’s overall performance relative to other schools that administer similar assessments,” according to the state Department of Education, of nine, which rose to 13 in 2019 before rising again to 22 in 2022, Monto said.
The High School in 2018 had an accountability percentile of 23, which fell to 16 in 2019, before rising back to 23 in 2022.
Monto said the work is ongoing, closing her presentation with a simple message: “onward and upward.”
School Committee Chair Vincent Serino said the school no longer qualifying for state assistance was a positive step, but there was much more still to be done.
“Just looking at these numbers, we have a lot more work to do,” he said.
Superintendent Erin McMahon added that the work that’s being done throughout the district is raising the standard of education.
“We expect that wave to come through our schools,” she said, thanking the town for investing in state-of-the-art facilities for Saugus students.
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].
