CNHI News: A thriving public school district
By Dominick Pangallo and Stephen Zrike
Salem Public Schools are a model of a thriving public school district, where a culture of achievement and high standards is proving successful for kids.
In October, the latest accountability data for Salem schools were released by the state, and the progress that’s been achieved by our scholars over the past year is remarkable. As leaders in the district, it makes us incredibly proud, and we hope it does the same for everyone in the Salem community.
Among the 26 Gateway Cities in Massachusetts, Salem is now No. 1 for accountability and achievement targets met or exceeded. Across the commonwealth, less than 15% of all public schools met or exceeded their targets, but here in Salem 50% of them did so. Not one of our schools is now in the bottom 10% of schools statewide, and every one of them improved their accountability ranking compared to the state — and two of them, Bates and Salem High School, with double-digit increases.
As a district, we met 71% of our targets last year and our multilingual learners, low-income, high needs, as well as Latino students, made substantial progress towards their improvement targets in 2024.
Of the over 1,750 public schools in Massachusetts, the state only named 57 of them “Schools of Recognition” based on their exceptional performance. Two of those 57 were Salem schools — Horace Mann Laboratory School and Salem High School.
Speaking of Salem High School, our largest school, saw its most significant gains ever, in all subjects, and by double digits. Across all three Salem high schools — New Liberty Innovation School, Salem Prep, and Salem High — the gains were extraordinary, eclipsing pre-pandemic levels in math, ELA, and science. Those gains were among the largest increases at a high school level across the entire commonwealth.
On top of that, Salem’s multilingual students outperformed the state in English proficiency by 6 percentage points on the annual ACCESS assessment. And among our multilingual second-graders, the first class to go through Salem’s landmark public Pre-K Partnership, a record number, 71%, achieved progress benchmarks, demonstrating the success of our district’s innovative early education program.
These significant improvements are a result of the hard work of our educators and practices over recent years that included introducing a Pre-Advanced Placement curriculum to a higher percentage of high school students, providing targeted support for struggling learners, co-teaching courses for multilingual and special education students, consistently using student data to inform our instruction and growing our highly engaging, relevant and academically challenging middle school experience.
Not only has it improved academic outcomes, but it’s also led to a greater level of student enthusiasm to be in school: Salem went from No. 25 among the 26 Gateway Cities for chronic absenteeism in 2019 to No. 3 today. When kids are engaged and connected to their education, incredible things can happen. And that’s one reason why Salem Public Schools enrollment has increased over the last three years by over 100 students. We’re proud that the demand to be part of the Salem Public Schools community is so strong and that more and more Salem families are choosing to be SPS families!
While these achievements are worth celebrating, we still have work to do to ensure that every student achieves their academic potential. The data especially indicates work to be done to further support students with disabilities and our grades 3-8 learners in ELA in particular.
We will continue striving to ensure all our students are consistently performing at or above grade level. We remain committed to establishing school cultures that promote academic excellence and universally high expectations for every learner. Our students must have consistent access to challenging and relevant work that is aligned to state standards. Regardless of the grade level, students should regularly engage in academic discussions, writing, reading, responding to material that is at grade level or higher and developing solutions to real world problems.
Despite the work still to be done, Salem Public Schools are, without question, moving in a positive direction. So much of that is due to the dedication of our educators, the support of family and caregivers, and, most importantly, the commitment and hard work of our students. As leaders, we will continue to focus on our core mission of elevating learning for every student who attends the Salem Public Schools.
Because that’s how we create a thriving public school district that elevates and includes every child.
Dominick Pangallo is the mayor of Salem and chair of the Salem School Committee. Dr. Stephen Zrike is the Salem Public Schools Superintendent.