Panorama allows educators to use data to identify students in need of support.
Reminder Publishing photo By Sarah Heinonen
LONGMEADOW — Each year, the schools in Longmeadow put together school improvement plans as a guide for the three years ahead. Superintendent M. Martin O’Shea shared the plans with the School Committee and highlighted the ways in which they dovetail into the School Department’s overarching improvement plan.
O’Shea explained that the School Department has four goals. Working toward those goals looks different at the elementary, middle and high school levels. The first goal is a commitment to curriculum renewal and data driven multi-tiered systems of support based on universal design for learning.
To work toward this goal, the elementary schools are refining their use of multi-tiered systems of support, a framework in which educators use data to determine the level of academic, social, emotional and behavioral support that each student needs. They are also rolling out Panorama, a program that helps identify students who need support and measure social-emotional learning, school climate and family engagement outcomes. In the elementary grades, Panorama is mainly used to track academic progress, but educators can also access attendance, behavior and social-emotional learning data.
The middle schools also use Panorama. They are using the program’s surveys to support the schools’ equity and inclusion efforts.
Longmeadow High School is developing formative assessments, which help identify areas of improvement in the instruction by providing feedback between students and teachers. During the School Department’s last 10-year accreditation review, the accrediting institution, New England Association of Schools and Colleges, recommended the high school use formative assessments.
The second goal is using inclusive practices for a diverse learning community. Blueberry Hill School staff are creating activities to highlight cultural, religious and ethnic traditions among the students. At the middle school level, learning walks — in which educators observe the teaching practices of others — are being used to share inclusive practices among staff. Meanwhile, the high school is actively working to diversify its staff.
The third goal is embedding the Vision of the Graduate throughout the School Department and at all grade levels. Longmeadow’s Vision of the Graduate focuses on six core “competencies” — accountability, independence, problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration and communication. The goal is for students to have a mastery of these competencies by graduation.
The elementary schools are working on formal recognition of learning behaviors that support the competencies. A program of studies — a comprehensive list and description of all courses offered — is being developed for the middle schools, which do not currently have one. It will then be adapted for the new, combined middle school. The competencies help inform the program of studies. O’Shea said that the high school is taking advantage of “connect blocks,” which he described as “timeouts during the day,” to build the competencies.
The School Department’s final goal is creating supportive climates and safe environments for students and staff. The Yale Center for Emotional Excellence’s RULER program is being used at the elementary schools to teach emotional intelligence and improve engagement. Students learn how to identify emotions in themselves and others, understand their causes, express them in healthy ways and self-regulate. RULER is also in use at the middle school level, teaching age appropriate social-emotional learning strategies. Educators at the high school are engaging in professional development to learn how to support neurodivergent learners.
The School Committee approved the school improvement plans for 2024-2027.
Data breach
PowerSchool, a software platform used by Longmeadow Public Schools, experienced a data breach, which the company learned of on Dec. 28, 2024. Information about students and staff from districts across the country, including in Longmeadow, was compromised. The School Department was notified on Jan. 7.
O’Shea said the data that was stolen included names, addresses and dates of birth. Some students who graduated or otherwise left Longmeadow schools between 2005 and 2009 may have had their social security numbers compromised. O’Shea said the School Department is trying to contact those students to make them aware. PowerSchool will offer credit monitoring services to the students whose social security numbers were affected.
Each program used in the schools must satisfy the standards of a data privacy consortium to which Longmeadow Public Schools belongs, O’Shea said. He thanked the Information Technology Department for its work in the wake of the breach. More information on the data breach can be found at tinyurl.com/2jjn762n.
