I am pleased to share with staff and community members the system wide goals recently approved by the Cambridge School Committee. To follow are our 2-year goals, projected outcomes and a detailed work plan for how we will address these important areas in the days ahead.

Jeffrey M. Young

Superintendent of Schools

Cambridge Public Schools Goals for 2010-2012

Mission Statement: The Cambridge Public Schools will be a diverse urban school system that works with families and the community to successfully educate all of its students at high levels.

The Cambridge Public Schools and the Cambridge School Committee will promote high expectations for all students. In conjunction with all stakeholders (students, families, teachers, administrators, elected officials, the greater Cambridge community), expectations for student achievement will be raised. Our school system is dedicated to promoting academic excellence and social justice throughout the district.

For the period 2010-2012, the School Committee and Administration will focus efforts on three major areas as detailed below.

(1) Improving achievement for all students, with a particular emphasis on reducing the achievement gaps that currently exist for students in certain sub-groups including students of color, low-income students, students for whom English is not the first language, and students with special needs. This goal also addresses providing challenge for our highest-achieving students. Specifically, CPS aims to raise the Composite Performance Index (CPI) and the percent of students performing at the proficient/ advanced levels on the MCAS for all students in accordance with the table and graphs that follow.

(2) Building a safe, supportive and nurturing environment in schools, allowing students and staff to focus on the work at hand without distraction. Research and common sense suggest that attending to the social and emotional needs of students will produce a learning environment that allows students to do their best academic work in school. The district will measure progress toward this goal through school climate survey information that is collected and reported annually.

(3) Instituting long-range planning as a built-in aspect of the School Committee’s and Administration’s approach to budgetary and programmatic decision-making. While the annual budget cycle is key to producing spending plans for each school year, it is imperative that major policy decisions be made within a context of longer-range conditions, so that policies and programs, developed jointly with the School Committee, can be sustained and strengthened over time.

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