Annual School Committee Report 2008

To the Weston Community:

The purpose of this report is to help Weston citizens develop an informed perspective on the performance of the Weston School System during the past 12-18 months.

What you’ll find below are:

• Highlights of the past year
• Important state and school system trends
• How our school system is performing, specifically:

1. Are our students learning and growing? (effectiveness)
2. How ready/able is our school staff? (leadership)
3. How are our schools adapting? (innovation)
4. Are we getting a good return on our investment? (efficiency)

This year, we have changed the format of the report in order to communicate more clearly about how our schools are doing, both relative to the past and to other school systems. We have included a great many more charts and graphs…and are working towards a “balanced scorecard” that will:

• Boost the transparency of our school system for citizens and parents
• Enable our school administration to drive accountability and change into every school and classroom.
• Inform further dialogue about the educational challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Measurement in education isn’t easy – learning is a people-intensive business with a great many variables that make it difficult to “prove” efficacy or efficiency. Nevertheless, we think you’ll find more than sufficient “evidence” here that demonstrates the Weston Schools are quite healthy and performing well.

We look forward to discussing the goals, strategies, and metrics for our school system in the coming months. In the meantime, further information is available at www.westonschools.org.

Sincerely, The Weston School Committee and Administration