MLS - Worcester Research: Education

Mission: Bancroft, an independent, coeducational, college-preparatory day school, prepares talented, well-qualified, and motivated college-bound students, Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12, to pursue and realize their academic, personal, and social potential.

Mission: At Holy Name Central Catholic Junior/Senior High School, each student is first taught that they are: Loved at home. Loved at school. Loved by God. This essential information gives students the knowledge and security they need to achieve great things.

Mission: Notre Dame Academy's philosophy of education is built on the belief that education should prepare students for their roles as Christian women. We wish to provide our students with the opportunity to become more aware of what is happening in their lives and to assume responsibility for themselves and their community. In order to learn to make responsible choices, Notre Dame students have the freedom to learn in a school dedicated to high academic standards, and to involve themselves in the community, both utilizing its resources and serving its people.

Mission: Our Lady of the Angels School is a preschool through eighth grade Catholic community with a strong tradition of excellence in education. We provide a challenging curriculum which fosters the spiritual, academic, and social, and physical growth of the whole child. We aim to impress upon our students the dignity and goodness of the human person created by God by instilling in them the values of respect, courtesy, and kindness towards others.

Mission: Saint Peter Central Catholic School is a community of learners. We nurture children from Preschool through Grade Eight. We provide a caring atmosphere and a sense of belonging by acknowledging each individual. Within our Catholic, culturally diverse community, we endeavor to enrich and foster the intellect and spirit of all who enter. Our environment encourages children to reinforce their connection to God, to make responsible decisions, and to reach their academic potential.

Mission: The mission of the community of St. Peter Marian Junior-Senior High School is to encourage each student to become a responsible, respectful member of the human community in the Roman Catholic tradition as espoused by the shared values of our founding orders, the Sisters of St. Joseph and Sisters of Mercy: faith formation, academic excellence, and commitment to service.

Mission: Saint Stephen School strives to provide an excellent academic education. As a Catholic school, we recognize and accept our responsibility to develop the whole child in his/her spiritual, moral, intellectual, emotional, and social growth.

Mission: Venerini Academy is a private Catholic elementary school that has provided academic, spiritual, and moral leadership in Worcester County for more than sixty years. Challenged by our motto, “To Educate is to Liberate”, our dedicated professional community encourages our students to develop their personal gifts in a caring and disciplined environment that encourages critical thinking and creativity.

Mission: Integrity, honesty, respect, fairness, and responsibility inform our actions and beliefs. These attributes are the foundations for "Achieving the Honorable" in both our public and private lives.

Mission: Anna Maria College, a Catholic institution of higher learning, recognizes its obligation to serve its immediate community, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the nation and the world through the provision of education, the preservation of learning, and the sponsorship of research.

Rooted in the Roman Catholic tradition of higher education, Anna Maria College is maintained and operated in conformity with the values of the Judeo-Christian tradition and in keeping with the ideals of its foundresses, the Sisters of Saint Anne. These ideals, which reflect the development of the total human being, also include increasing access to quality education, educational innovation and respect for practical skills.

Mission: Assumption College, rooted in the Catholic intellectual tradition, strives to form graduates known for critical intelligence, thoughtful citizenship and compassionate service. We pursue these ambitious goals through a curriculum grounded in the liberal arts and extending to the domain of professional studies. Enlivened by the Catholic affirmation of the harmony of faith and reason, we aim, by the pursuit of the truth, to transform the minds and hearts of students. Assumption favors diversity and ecumenically welcomes all who share its goals.

Mission: The mission of Becker College is to deliver to each student a transformational learning experience—anchored by academic excellence, social responsibility, and creative expression—that prepares graduates to thrive, contribute to, and lead in a global society.

Mission: Clark University’s mission is to educate undergraduate and graduate students to be imaginative and contributing citizens of the world, and to advance the frontiers of knowledge and understanding through rigorous scholarship and creative effort.

Mission: The College of the Holy Cross is, by tradition and choice, a Jesuit liberal arts college serving the Catholic community, American society, and the wider world. To participate in the life of Holy Cross is to accept an invitation to join in dialogue about basic human questions: What is the moral character of learning and teaching? How do we find meaning in life and history? What are our obligations to one another? What is our special responsibility to the world's poor and powerless?

Mission: MCPHS University prepares students for successful careers in healthcare through excellence in teaching, scholarship, research, professional service, and community engagement.

Mission: Within a supportive community, Nichols College transforms today’s students into tomorrow’s leaders through a dynamic, career-focused business and professional education.

Mission: Quinsigamond Community College is the gateway to advanced educational and employment opportunities in Central Massachusetts. We are a public, student centered institution of higher learning, providing accessible, affordable, and high quality educational and training programs and services that are relevant and responsive to diverse regional and student needs.

Mission: The mission of the University of Massachusetts Medical School is to advance the health and well-being of the people of the commonwealth and the world through pioneering advances in education, research and health care delivery.

Mission: WPI educates talented men and women in engineering, science, management, and humanities in preparation for careers of professional practice, civic contribution, and leadership, facilitated by active lifelong learning. This educational process is true to the founders' directive to create, to discover, and to convey knowledge at the frontiers of academic inquiry for the betterment of society. Knowledge is created and discovered in the scholarly activities of faculty and students ranging across educational methodology, professional practice, and basic research. Knowledge is conveyed through scholarly publication and instruction.

Mission: Worcester State University champions academic excellence in a diverse, student-centered environment that fosters scholarship, creativity, and global awareness. A Worcester State education equips students with knowledge and skills necessary for lives of professional accomplishment, engaged citizenship, and intellectual growth.

Instructional Focus: Belmont Street Community School will improve reading comprehension through the use of Reciprocal Teaching Strategies, including writing about reading tools, during read-alouds, shared, and guided reading at all grade levels. Through the implementation of these reading and writing strategies and tools, students will show measurable growth in their ability to read and comprehend at or above grade level. This will be measured through MAP, MCAS, Benchmark Assessment, ACCESS, and formative assessments.

Instructional Focus: Comprehension is power.

Instructional Focus: The entire Canterbury Street School staff will make a coordinated effort to help students develop and apply strategies and skills needed to comprehend both oral and written text. This will be accomplished through the use of a small set of common teaching strategies in reading comprehension. We will measure the results by MAP. MCAS, DIBELS and Fountas-Pinnell Benchmark testing.

Instructional Focus: Chandler Elementary School is building a community of readers, writers, and thinkers through the implementation of our best practices and as evidenced by progress on external measures, such as MCAS,MEPA and DIBELS and on internal measures such as MAP and other common assessments.

"We've Got the POWER – Providing Opportunity Within Every Reader."

Instructional Focus: The Chandler Magnet School faculty and staff will build background knowledge (BBK) and increase vocabulary development to help students make connections across the curriculum.

Instructional Focus: A coordinated school/community effort to foster a culture of high expectations increasing student growth by; reading strategically to respond orally and in writing across the curriculum through a common set of teaching strategies as measured by school, district and state assessments.

Columbus Park’s school‐wide focus is to ensure that all students show measurable growth in their ability to read with understanding at grade level and beyond. This will be achieved through the implementation of a consistent set of school–wide standard based teaching practices as measured by formative and summative assessments such as MAP, DIBELS, DRA, and MCAS.

Instructional Focus: Elm Park Community School's focus on writing is a collaborative effort to improve students' understanding of text with the ability to summarize and retell verbally and in writing effectively across all curriculum areas. Through the implementation of a common set of school wide strategies, student achievement will be measured using formal and informal assessments.

Instructional Focus: One hundred percent of students at Flagg Street School will show measurable growth in their ability to answer open response questions across the curriculum and express themselves in written form as measured through a school wide writing program. This will be accomplished by implementation of school wide writing program and Professional Development.

Instructional Focus: Francis J. McGrath’s school-wide focus is to ensure that all students show growth in their ability to read fluently, comprehend deeply, think critically, and respond effectively. This will be achieved through implementation of consistent instructional practices and a standards-based curriculum as measured by formative and summative assessments.

Instructional Focus: A coordinated school-wide effort to have all Gates Lane students read, comprehend and respond thoughtfully, both orally and in writing. This will be achieved through a consistent and systematic set of standards-based, school wide best teaching practices. Students’ progress will be measured by formative assessments (student work, MAP testing and BAS) and the summative assessment of MCAS.

Instructional Focus: All students will read, comprehend and respond thoughtfully (orally and in writing) through a set of school-wide best teaching practices as measured by common assessments, student work, MAP, Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System, Access and MCAS.

Instructional Focus: Reading is MAGIC-Making Academic Gains in Comprehension!

Instructional Focus: All staff and students will engage in a coordinated whole school effort to ensure that every student will become a highly effective reader, writer, and thinker in all core subjects everyday. The students will show growth in their ability to think critically and communicate their understanding in a clear and coherent manner across all content areas. This will be measured by formative and summative assessments, DIBELS, BAS, MCAS and MAP data, preparing students to be college and career ready.

Instructional Focus: All Jacob Hiatt Magnet School students will demonstrate an understanding of concepts by responding accurately and completely in all disciplines, using details and relevant information for support. Teachers will implement reading, writing, speaking, listening and problem solving strategies to support our instructional focus. Success will be measured by student performance on standardized tests and school performance-based assessments.

Instructional Focus: One hundred percent of our students will show improvement in Reading as demonstrated by the administration of MCAS. In 2014, we will increase our gap-narrowing CPI points in all student categories by 3 points in ELA. To accomplish this goal, we will:
Reduce the amount of students in Needs Improvement for all subgroups by 5%
Increase the amount of students in advanced in all subgroup categories by 3%
Increase our SGP by 5% for High Needs, ELL, and Low Income subgroups

Instructional Focus: Strengthen Reading Comprehension for every student.

Instructional Focus: Our school wide focus is writing to demonstrate comprehension of fiction and non fiction literature/text within an interdisciplinary approach with an emphasis on open response writing. This will be achieved through consistent and systematic use of a set of school wide best practices. Our Focus will be measured by school wide writing assessments in addition to varied formative and summative assessments at each grade level.

Our school wide focus is to have Midland Street School students show measurable growth in their ability to read and write with understanding at grade level. This will be achieved through the use of a common set of school wide instructional strategies in reading and writing as measured by formative and summative assessments.

Instructional Focus: All students will increase and use new vocabulary, read to understand, and share our understanding of what we have read.

Instructional Focus: Norrback Avenue School’s focus on literacy is a school-wide, collaborative effort to improve our students’ ability to read, understand, and discuss a wide range of literacy genres. Best practices will be developed through the implementation of Wilson Fundations, the Benchmark Assessment System, and the Reading Workshop Model. Alignment with the English Language Arts and Literacy Curriculum will ensure student improvement as measured by State and District assessments.

Instructional Focus: All students at Quinsigamond School will show measurable growth in their ability to read, comprehend and utilize knowledge gained from reading across all curricula areas. A consistent set of research based strategies including Guided Reading, Reciprocal Teaching, Fluency, Daily Five/Cafe and Being a Writer will be utilized. Formative and summative assessments including DIBELS, Benchmark Assessment, MAP, MCAS and ACCESS will be analyzed to monitor students’ ongoing progress.

Instructional Focus: All students at Rice Square school will read and comprehend text and express themselves thoughtfully both orally and in writing.

Instructional Focus: Coordinated whole-school efforts to have all Roosevelt students show growth in their ability to read and comprehend various genres through the implementation of a common, consistent, set of school-wide teaching strategies. Growth in student learning will be measured by DIBELS, DRA, MAP, MEPA, and MCAS. Roosevelt students know that it is important to understand what we read.

We believe... If you can read, you can succeed!

Instructional Focus: The Tatnuck Magnet staff will focus on a school wide effort to have all of our students demonstrate measurable growth in number sense through the implementation of a common set of school wide teaching strategies. Students’ growth will be measured thorough ongoing collaborative analysis of results from informal and formal assessments, MAP and MCAS data.

Instructional Focus:
As a result of instruction, driven by Common Core standards, using consistent school wide best practices, students will demonstrate measurable growth on standardized assessments throughout all grades.

Instructional Focus: A coordinated whole school effort to have ALL Union Hill students show growth in their ability to think, create and design while engaged in a thoughtful, rigorous and challenging curriculum. Staff will implement a common and consistent set of school‐wide teaching strategies. Growth in student learning will be measured by multiple measures; DIBELS, MAP, BAS, and MCAS.

Instructional Focus: Vernon Hill School is implementing a school-wide effort to demonstrate measurable growth for every student in reading comprehension through the implementation of a common set of teaching strategies across all grade levels, and content areas as measured by MAP, DIBELS, Benchmark Assessments, and MCAS.

Instructional Focus: Wawecus Road School will participate in a school-wide coordinated effort to prepare our students to be college and career ready. Students will demonstrate through reading, writing and speaking measurable growth in their ability to read fluently, comprehend deeply, think critically and respond effectively. This will be achieved by relentlessly implementing our 5 best practices, continuing the 6 Traits writing model with fidelity, developing rubrics and correcting student work. Students’ progress will be frequently measured by rubrics, formative and summative assessments, and the teacher’s collection of portfolio artifacts.

Instructional Focus: West Tatnuck teachers will implement the Instructional Model for open-ended response type questions for all students. This includes specific grade strategies on how to read carefully, think deeply about the information, gather evidence, and how to write a clear, detailed response.

Instructional Focus: Woodland Academy's school-wide commitment is to ensure that all students show measurable growth in their ability to read with understanding and respond in writing at grade level. This will be achieved through the implementation of a common set of standards based teaching practices as measured by formative and summative assessments such as rubric-scored Reading Response Journal open responses, BAS, MAP, ACCESS and MCAS.

Instructional Focus: A school-wide effort to increase students’ critical thinking skills through the implementation of a common set of teaching strategies ,at all grade levels, across disciplines, as measured by students’ writing to Open Response Questions on Mathematics and ELA MCAS questions.

Instructional Focus: All BMS students will be able to identify the basic facts and main ideas in text and use them as the basis for interpretation. Students will also be able to write with a clear focus, coherent organization and sufficient detail.

Instructional Focus: The instructional focus of Forest Grove Middle School is to implement an inclusive, school wide program to develop the skills of our students in the area of reading comprehension to the level of proficiency minimally and advancement optimally.

Instructional Focus: School wide efforts to have all Sullivan Middle School students show measurable growth in their ability to read, write and orally respond in all disciplines through an agreed upon set of common teaching practices. Student growth will be measured by MCAS and MAP testing and common school-wide assessment.

Instructional Focus: Students will show growth in their ability to read fluently, comprehend deeply, think critically and respond effectively as measured by frequent formative classroom assessments, common assessments, MCAS and MAP results.

Instructional Focus: Burncoat High School will continue to implement a formal communication system as a means to transfer information on effective practices and needs. All faculty will participate on a regular basis in professional development activities targeted toward the school’s Instructional Focus and the school-wide Best Practices. All students will experience a rigor-based curriculum taught through instructional strategies meant to improve reading comprehension as measured by MAPS, MCAS, PSAT, ACT, ACCESS, and AP scores as well as other formative assessments.

Institutional Focus: Doherty Memorial High School is implementing a school-wide effort to demonstrate measurable growth in students’ ability to read critically and respond thoughtfully in writing as evidenced by progress on external measures, such as the MCAS and the PSAT, and internal measures, such as the MAP and other common assessments.

Instructional Focus: North High Students will be strategic readers, writers, and problem solvers.

Instructional Focus: Convey written information accurately, clearly and logically.

Instructional Focus: To ensure that all students are college ready, University Park Campus School will focus on teaching students to read, write, and think analytically and critically.

Instructional Focus: Creating the Future through Technology, Training and Talent.

Instructional Focus: The staff at the Dr. James A. Caradonio New Citizens Center is committed to providing direct instruction to increase students’ skills in reading comprehension, writing, academic and social discourse, and vocabulary development in all content areas.

Instructional Focus: The Gerald Creamer Center is implementing a school-wide effort to ensure that all students demonstrate measurable growth in reading and writing across all content areas. This will be measured by formative and summative assessments, such as, MCAS, Plato and Common assessments.

Instructional Focus: The programs of the Robert H. Goddard Academy (RGA) meet the emotional, social, academic and post-secondary challenges of our diverse student population. RGA students receive academic instruction, individual and group counseling, emotional and behavioral support, pre-vocational and social skills training, case-management, and crisis intervention. Our programs operate within a positive classroom management system and predictable learning environment, and include: RISE - Reaching Independence through Specialized Experiences (functional academics, community access, vocational); GTP - Goddard Technical Program (functional academics and MCAS track, career development); TSP Blue/TSP Yellow - Therapeutic School Program (rigorous academics, clinical support, high ED needs).

Instructional Focus: The Woodward Day School (WDS), a transitional alternative school operating in three separate locations, provides a small, structured environment (8:1 staff-student ratio) to students who have been excluded from school under MGL 37H or have a pending felony charge and are suspended under MGL 37H1/2 or MGL 37H3/4. Students at WDS receive a comprehensive education with a strong academic focus in a safe, nurturing, respectful, and healthy environment, based on the premise that all students can be successful.

Instructional Focus: The Hartwell Learning Center (HLC) is a highly structured, therapeutic K – 6 program with small classroom size, low student to staff ratios, and a school-wide positive therapeutic behavior system. In addition to focused academic instruction, students receive individual and group counseling, case management, and crisis intervention. Our program focuses on improving academic, social, and coping skills while providing students with a safe, consistent, and positive learning environment.