SPS Announces Staff Changes for 2013-14 School Year

Sudbury Public Schools Superintendent Anne Wilson recently announced two current teachers will take on administrative roles next school year.

Sara Zawadzkas will become an assistant principal at Loring Elementary School while David Jurewicz will be the Curtis House Administrator.

"I am so thankful for their years of excellence in teaching and teacher leadership in Sudbury," Wilson said in a release. "I am appreciative of their continued commitment to Sudbury, and I look forward to working with them to enhance our district leadership capacity!"

Zawadzkas has been a teacher for the past 13 years. She has been a fourth-grade teacher at Loring for the past nine years. Prior to her experience at Loring she was a third-grade teacher in Atlanta.

During Zawadzkas's time as an educator in Sudbury she was selected as the lead teacher of the mentoring program for new educators. Sara holds a Master of Education in Organizational Management from Endicott College, a Master of Literacy and Language from Framingham State College, and a Bachelor of Arts from Boston College.

Jurewicz has been working as a technology education teacher at Curtis Middle School since being hired in Sudbury in September 1995. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he serves as a mentor teacher in the district.

Before coming to Sudbury, Jurewicz worked as a technology education instructor in Framingham. David earned a Certificate of Advanced
Graduate Study (CAGS) from Fitchburg State University, a Master of Education degree from Cambridge College, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Fitchburg State University.

The following are other announcements by Wilson:

Professional Development and Consultants In Sudbury Public Schools PK-8

In response to recent questions about consultants in Sudbury Public Schools, I wanted to provide you with an overview of the ways in which we utilize consultants and internal expertise to provide professional development for staff and administrators. Professional development, mentoring, and coaching are essential components of any successful organization and we plan for these activities as a part of our annual budgeting process. In education, in particular, ongoing training and support for all teachers, administrators, and staff members allows us to continue to improve educational opportunities for all students.

In Sudbury, we use a variety of internal expertise and outside consultants to provide ongoing learning opportunities for teachers and administrators across the district. Some professional development is consistent across the district while individual schools also have professional development offerings that are site specific and typically aligned with School Improvement Plans (SIP).

In-district experts facilitate a significant portion of our professional development activities. This includes implementation of the Common Core in Mathematics and English Language Arts, implementation of the new educator evaluation system, and improving on Data Analysis to Inform Instruction. All of these activities are planned by our Professional Development Council, including teachers (general education and special education) from across the grade levels and all schools and principal representation from elementary and middle school, in concert with the Assistant Superintendent and the Math and ELA Curriculum Coordinators.

In addition, staff and administrators at each school have worked with Stan Davis through monthly Skype consults related to the implementation of our anti-bullying policy. These Skype sessions may focus on individual case studies or responses to school-wide issues and they are designed to build internal capacity (expands thinking, strategies and resources in the system to build a wider base of internal expertise to share within the system.) Individual school staff and administrators also consult with Kevin Russo, Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), to build our capacity in responding to particular student behaviors.

Teaching and Learning Alliance (TLA) consultants have worked with primary grades teachers and administrators to provide training and in-class coaching and consultation related to English Language Arts instruction. TLA consultants have facilitated needs assessments and guided observations as well as ILAP workshops and an Instructional Strategy Summer Institute.

Finally, we have engaged in professional development activities through Teachers21, a nonprofit, highly regarded professional development provider in Massachusetts. We worked with Teachers21, a Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) approved provider, for initial training on the implementation of the new educator evaluation system.

First, administrators participated in training in August of 2012 and then in the fall and early winter of 2012. Then teams from each school, including teachers and administrators, participated in the complete DESE training for the new educator evaluation system.

In addition to our work with Teachers21 around the implementation of the new educator evaluation system, we have participated in professional development activities to enhance district and school culture as well as training in effective two-way communication. During the current school year staff and administration at Noyes and Nixon are working with Teachers21 on school
culture and effective two-way communication.

This work specifically supports teachers and administrators to address goals within the individual School Improvement Plans. Planning for the
professional development activities typically involves consultation between Teachers21 and the site administrator prior to, during, and as follow-up to the activities.

It is our responsibility to support staff and administration in continuing to improve on our practice and build our internal capacity so that we continue to improve on excellence for our students. SPS engages consultants for purposes other than professional development, one such example is our affiliation with New England School Development Council (NESDEC), which is a private,
not-for-profit educational organization with over 300 school districts as affiliates.

Through our affiliation with NESDEC, we have recently commissioned an Enrollment and Demography study to help us better understand anticipated enrollment changes in order to make sound program and budget decisions that will best serve our community. The results of the study were used for FY
14 enrollment projections and budget development and were shared at School Committee meetings and at the Finance Committee budget hearings.
School systems are complex organizations and we will continue to utilize in-district expertise as well as external resources to best meet the needs of the school system as we work to “improve on excellence.”

Evening Chat with the Superintendent

Please drop-in, at your convenience, for an informal two-way conversation with the Superintendent on Wednesday, March 20, 2013 6:30 - 8:00pm. Evening Chat held at Superintendent's Conference Room 40 Fairbank Road.