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School Committee continued from previous page In February, Fiske students began attending their beautiful new school at 55 Adams Street. Following a School Committee vote to release the building at Massachusetts Avenue and Woburn Street to the Town, in the summer, the administration moved its offices to the old Harrington school building at 146 Maple Street. The School Department now resides on the top floor of the building, with the Department of Public Facilities temporarily using space on the bottom floor. The DPF is expected to move to the new DPW building on Bedford Street upon the building's completion. Superintendent of Schools Superintendent of Schools ROLE: As Chief Executive Officer of Lexington's nine pub- lic schools, the Superintendent of Schools provides educa- tional leadership through budget preparation, program development, and supervision of all academic, special edu- cation, and extracurricular programs for children in grades K -12. The Superintendent of Schools reports to an elected School Committee, enforces the policies and goals of this Committee, and upholds the laws and requirements deter- mined by the federal government and Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Superintendent of Schools also works in cooperation with other communities to oversee collaborative programs for students with identified learning disabilities. APPOINTED by the School Committee: Dr. Paul B. Ash has served as Superintendent of Schools since July 1, 2005. HIGHLIGHTS: • The Lexington Public Schools continued its long tradition of excellence in education. The high school's 2006 -2007 overall SAT score for Reading, Writing and Math was #1 in Massachusetts, when excluding schools with entrance exams. This past year, the school system continued its commitment to improve curriculum and instruction by examining the K -12 physical education /wellness, mathe- matics, and science curricula. • On July 1, the new town -wide Department of Public Facilities was formed and was headed by Pat Goddard, who has over 20 years of facilities experience in the private sector. The new department includes all school and munic- ipal maintenance and custodial employees. The unified facilities department allows the Director the flexibility to allocate resources where they are needed in town. With the addition of new tracking and monitoring systems for 2007 for work orders, preventive maintenance, and energy, we expect to move beyond reactive crisis -based work, sup- Liaison to Community and Advocate for the Lexington Public Schools Lexington provides an excellent education for its students, and the School Committee looks forward to a stable, strong, and dynamic era in the schools. Thanks go to the students, the faculty, the administration, the parents, the PTAs, the town leadership, and the Town for the success of the schools. The administration maintains an active website that includes the entire budget book for citizens to study, School Committee meeting minutes and news. The aim of the School Department and the School Committee is to provide an education for the children and youth of this community that will prepare them for a productive, responsible, healthy and fulfilling adulthood in our complex world. ported by more strategically planned capital projects. The department has also taken steps to reduce energy con- sumption in all of the school buildings. • This past year, we expanded five special education pro- grams that make it possible to educate more students with- in the district. These high quality programs now allow more children currently placed in out -of- district schools to return to the Lexington Public Schools, and keep more children from going out -of- district. These five programs will save $1.8 million in tuition and transportation costs. • In June, the voters approved a $4 million Proposition 2 ? override. The additional funds meant that Lexington Public Schools were able to hire 14.7 personnel to reduce class sizes and meet critical needs. Any summary of the goals and challenges we faced through- out the past year must begin with the following three values, which are at the heart of all we endeavor to do: — Academic excellence — Respectful and caring relationships — A culture of reflection, conversation, collaboration, and commitment to continuous improvement • The major changes over the past twelve months are described below. Students and Programs • Continued the curriculum review process for Physical Education /Wellness and Mathematics (Year 2) and started the Science, Engineering, and Technology curriculum review process (Year 1). • Continued our partnership with the Boston College Lynch School of Education to create data management systems and to use the data to analyze and integrate information regarding student performance. continued on next page Page 48 2007 Annual Report, Town of Lexington