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Date: 5/16/2023
WARE — Incoming Superintendent Michael Lovato appeared before the School Committee on May 10 to present the transition plan for his first 100 days.
Lovato was selected in January as the successor to outgoing superintendent Dr. Marlene DiLeo, whose contract expires at the end of the 2022-23 school year and was not renewed.
Lovato’s contract begins July 1 and he told the committee he would begin implementing some parts of his plan on July 3, a Monday, though some instructional pieces would not be set in motion until the start of the 2023-24 school year in September.
School Committee Chair Chris Desjardins called it an “aggressive plan” and suggested Lovato “get some sleep now because I don’t think you’re going to get much starting in July.”
Discussing his vision as he prepares to transition from his position as assistant superintendent of teaching and learning in the Chelsea Public Schools, Lovato said, “It’s not about what job and what pathway a kid takes — it’s about whether they had a choice … Equity is through achievement. I believe that strongly. We have achievement gaps whether it’s through special education identification, whether it’s through poverty, whether it’s through minority status. Regardless of what it is, we address equity through closing the achievement gap. That’s our first step. That is our role as a district.”
Lovato told the committee he has already begun working with DiLeo and building administrators and in early conversations, his message has been that the district will set measurable targets and stress accountability.
“Every single thing we do, we have to be able to measure so that we know exactly where we are and that we know how to make shifts,” he said. “I have read the current turnaround plans and even in previous districts I’ve worked with turnaround plans and sometimes what happens is our goals, they’re kind of written like strategic plans, very district-like, and we need to make everything we do very operational.”
Lovato said that in education there are often too many goals or initiatives imposed on classrooms and school communities and his intent is to simplify instructional goal-setting.
“I’m going to push our principals to not have more than three goals a year. It has to be specific. It has to be measurable. It has to be something that I walk into the classrooms and I can see. It has to be something the teachers, the janitors, and everybody involved can say, ‘At this school, we stand for this,’” he said. He added the principals would have agency to identify and set those standards, but he would push back against any that are “vague or theoretical.”
He later stated, “We need to be very purposeful in what we’re doing and we need to be very action-oriented.”
He also reiterated the need for measurable benchmarks when he is evaluated by the School Committee.
Lovato also said the committee and department officials had to “throw the truth on the table” and talk about issues, including things that are not going well, without getting offended. Transparency, he opined, increases trust and loyalty.
“We all make mistakes. The mistakes that are forgivable every single time are the ones that happen with ethics and effort,” he said. “Where we get frustrated and the mistakes that are very difficult to forgive are the ones that occur through deceit and where they didn’t tell us everything. I can’t work with a teacher or administrator or help them if they’re not coming to the table and talking about what really happened.”
Addressing diversity, Lovato said it starts with embracing diversity in thought, explaining, “We need to teach our principals, work with our principals, work with our students and everybody within the building to make sure that we can have professional discord. We cannot go into conversations trying to convince people all the time; we have to listen to each other’s thought and that includes what we’re teaching, what we’re about, who we are, how we’re working with our families, what those lines look like … We really have to come to the table and allow ourselves to disagree and allow ourselves to have a conversation.”
Lovato described a hands-on and personal approach he would take to getting to know the department, which he said would include visiting every classroom to observe.
He said he plans to meet with each School Committee member in the first couple of weeks of his employment to discuss the status of the district and understand their expectations and preferred methods of communication. He also hoped to schedule two retreats with the School Committee — one within the first 30 days to, among other things, develop an evaluation system and another after the 100 days to review.
Having already met with principals, Lovato said he planned to have additional one-on-one meetings to get feedback on the direction of their schools and the district while also allowing time for self-evaluation.
“I’m very happy with the three principals we have in place and they’re very open as to where they’re struggling and where they’ve been successful, so that was appreciated and I do feel that we can do some good work with them,” he said.
Lovato added the principals would present their turnaround plans and those plans would be expected to be specific and concise. “I always talk to my principals when I work with them [and say] if they can’t explain their within 30 seconds, it’s not an effective plan — that means they’re very theoretical, they’re not practical, they’re not operational,” he said. “From there they can tell me their goals [and] how we’re measuring it.”
He also said he planned to review all documents, procedures and modes of communication approved or established by the previous administration to determine if they need revision.
“Obviously Dr. DiLeo has done a great job while she’s there. I don’t need to change things just to call it mine. If it’s working under the current superintendent, we’re going to keep it that way,” he noted.
Continuing discussions with DiLeo and administrators to learn specifically where the school department is in its strategic plan and what challenges face the district was another goal. He suggested delaying the School Committee’s approval of a new strategic plan, which is currently in development, until he has the opportunity to collect more information and incorporate his findings.
Part of its evaluation process, he said, would be developing a method through which the school department can effectively measure student success through its data assessments, reflecting on feedback he received from principals on what they believed to be shortcomings in that area.
He added he wanted the department’s principals to be able to share those plans as well as their successes with the community. He also suggested exploring the department’s use of social media and other means of communicating with the community.
Lovato said he hoped to share a more developed presentation of the 100-day plan to the community at large in the future.