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Samuel Mason Elementary School
Roxbury, MA
School Type: Public
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School Setting: Urban
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Level: Elementary
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School Design: Traditional
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Content Presented By:
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National Awards Program for Model Professional Development
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Summary
The practice: Professional development should be based on analyses of the differences between (a) actual student performance and (b) goals and standards for student learning.
- Reading comprehension mean scores increased from 2.49 to 15.08 in two years
- Gains in reading comprehension doubled those of Boston Public Schools
- Enrollment increased from 133 to 296 in five years at this controlled choice school
The Samuel Mason School's yearly school improvement plan, based heavily on needs assessment findings, aligns professional development activities with goals for student achievement. Each month, teachers compile student progress data as a way to assess impacts and identify trouble spots. Personal learning plans are now required for all staff at Samuel Mason, a school that faced the threat of closure in the 1980s due to poor performance. Principal Mary Russo took the helm in 1990 and immediately focused training efforts on enabling teachers to become equipped to support the students before them. The results have been staggering at this controlled choice school: an enrollment that has nearly doubled and student test scores that have risen at a rate higher than those of the Boston system as a whole.
This site also exemplifies the following practice(s):
- Professional development should involve teachers in the identification of what they need to learn and in the development of the learning experiences in which they will be involved.
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