Stoughton Schools to Undergo Accountability Visit from the State

The following is a press release from the Stoughton Public Schools (learn more about the Accountability process here):

The Stoughton Public Schools will be visited by a team from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education during the week of January 28, 2013.  

According to the Department, the purpose of this visit is to document steps that the school district has taken to improve student learning since its previous visit.
School district officials have reported a number of innovations that they have made during the past few years.  

State official Eva Mitchell, manager of the Center for District and School Accountability said that the hope is that the review team members will represent an independent assessment of just how effective the changes have been in improving education for the students of the Stoughton Public Schools.  

Superintendent Marguerite Rizzi, Ed.D. stated that over the last four years the Stoughton Public School District has invested in comprehensive ELA and Math programs for all five elementary schools to insure consistency across the district, and created two district level Curriculum Supervisor positions to spearhead the shift to the Common Core Curriculum and facilitate the move to the new Educator Evaluation System.

The District has also outfitted all of its classrooms with SMART Boards and its buildings with WIFI to ensure that all students have the ability work with the most current technology and that the District is in a position to shift to a one-to-one computer platform for all students in a thoughtful, comprehensive, and cost effective way.  

The District will continue to keep its class sizes reasonable, as the community has prioritized this.

The District has also been effective in sustaining its percentage of graduates who go on to post secondary education at about 94%.

Mitchell said “The report will list several findings and recommendations that the district might put in place to further improve the rate at which good things are happening."

The Center for District and School Accountability is the office of the Department that is responsible for conducting some 40 district reviews annually.  It has the authority to require changes in district policy in some cases of underperforming schools, and works with the states District and School Assistance Centers to provide state help in carrying out those changes.  

All of the findings and recommendations are made public shortly after the visit and are published on the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education web site.