Superintendent's Bi-weekly Message - June 5, 2026

Dear Lincoln Public Schools Families,

As we head into the final two weeks of school, I wanted to share with you a number of important topics that were discussed at last night’s School Committee meeting. I presented a draft District Improvement Plan for next year, which highlights some of our most important priorities district-wide; we shared initial results from the student, staff, and family surveys, and discussed some next steps connected to the survey results; and the School Committee voted to ratify a new three-year contract for our teachers. Overall, it was a busy and productive meeting!

As we get to the end of each school year, we begin working on a plan for the following year’s key priorities, in the format of a District Improvement Plan. At last night’s meeting, I shared with the Committee that draft plan, which will then be officially approved early next fall.

Two big areas of focus are literacy and math. We implemented the new EL literacy curriculum this year, and we want to make sure we are continuing to support teachers with that implementation next year, while also codifying multi-year goals for student growth and achievement. We will also be working next year to select a new math curriculum, which would be implemented in the 2027-28 school year. We have already set up a curriculum review committee with faculty members, and we will take time next fall and early winter to pilot multiple curriculum options. After we select a new math curriculum, we will develop an implementation plan that will kick in late next spring and into the summer and fall of 2027. Similar to literacy, we will also be identifying multi-year goals for student growth and achievement in math.

Our final district goal is to make changes to our master schedule to allow us to better support student intervention, and to use faculty time as effectively and efficiently as possible. While this will certainly end up being a multi-year effort, we are targeting the 2027-28 school year for implementation of a new district-wide master schedule (and when I say master schedule, I don’t mean the calendar that lays out what days school happens – that is something that the School Committee decides each year – but rather how time is apportioned within the school day).

Rob Ford, the Director of Operations and Technology, also shared results from our student, staff, and family surveys last night. We redesigned our surveys this year to use questions that are also used in other districts across the country, which allows us to benchmark our results against national norms. While there were plenty of places where LPS student results compared favorably to other districts – for example, teacher-student relationships, school safety, and school climate – we were not as high as we would like to be in terms of school engagement. Similarly, there were areas where we saw positive results in terms of staff and family feedback – for example, staff sense of belonging and collaboration – but we had other areas that emerged as places for us to improve.

We will continue to dig into the survey results over the summer and develop plans to address some of our areas for improvement. Student, staff, and family feedback is also something that we want to regularly incorporate into our school and district improvement planning, so that we are increasingly meeting the needs of our most important constituents.

 

Speaking of important constituents, I am very happy to share that last night our School Committee ratified a new three-year collective bargaining agreement with our teachers (the teachers had voted to ratify it earlier in the day). While there are far too many examples in Massachusetts of districts experiencing contentious relationships between teachers, administrators, and School Committees, we are so fortunate in LPS to have positive, productive, collaborative relationships with our teachers, and that was evident throughout our contract negotiations.

 

We were able to reach an agreement that is mutually beneficial, that helps us attract and retain high-quality people, that recognizes and rewards the excellent work of our faculty, and that stays within fiscal realities. I want to extend my appreciation to all of our faculty members for their hard work day-in and day-out, and I would like to particularly thank the members of the teacher negotiating team that did an excellent job representing their membership while also keeping the focus on what is best for students.

 

Thank you, and have a wonderful weekend!

Parry Graham

Superintendent