The monthly 2024-2025 Teaching and Learning Newsletter is part of a series that intends to share information from the following departments:

Each department works collaboratively to develop coherence in support of the District’s Instructional Priority; If student-centered educators utilize intentional lesson design that includes clear objectives, strategies, scaffolds, and extensions based on individual profiles of students (IEP needs, Language Proficiency levels, various data points) to provide access to grade-level Tier I instruction for all students, especially students who are dually identified, then students will be able to master priority grade-level literacy standards and communicate their progress and how their work supports their growth and achievement. An intentional focus on the priority and the named subgroups focuses efforts on closing the opportunity gap while providing high-quality instruction for all students.

We are pleased to share in this issue many celebrations, including the Framingham Public Schools award of the Partnership for Reading Success in Massachusetts (PRISM) Grant, Highlighting the Literacy Practices Across our Schools, Celebrating the honor of several of our Library Media Specialists, and the achievements of performances across our community of Fine and Performing Arts.

January 28, 2025 (Framingham, MA) - Dr. Robert Tremblay, Superintendent of Framingham Public Schools, is proud to announce that Framingham Public Schools is one of 15 districts that have been awarded a Partnership for Reading Success in Massachusetts (PRISM) grant funded through Literacy Launch as part of the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s commitment to early education. As part of the budget priorities last year, Literacy Launch: Reading Success from Age 3 through Grade 3 ensures Massachusetts schools, educators, and students have access to high-quality, evidence-based reading instruction through literacy materials, technical support, coaching, and professional development. This funding represents a key investment in the future of early learners, helping equip students with the reading and writing skills necessary for academic success and lifelong learning. 

This funding will be utilized to further support literacy growth and achievement within the district as classrooms work to implement high quality instructional materials in support of our district instructional priority that centers literacy as an area of focus. This grant will work in collaboration with the existing GLEAM, Growing Literacy Equity Across Massachusetts Grant, which targets our K-5 population, and our participation in The Learning Acceleration Network (LAN), which supports district leadership teams to set and achieve goals aligned to a concrete instructional improvement priority within grades 6-8.

The first year of this new, multi-year strategy is supported by the fiscal year 2025 budget and the federal Comprehensive Literacy State Development grant. Awardees will receive professional development, support to create partnerships with community-based preschool providers to align evidence-based early curriculum, instruction, and assessment across the community, and funding for early literacy screening assessments, coaching support and to cover staffing costs for roles like literacy coaches or reading specialists through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) in partnership with the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC).

“Framingham Public Schools is honored to be among the fifteen districts who received this funding to support the commitment to early education opportunities. As a district, we have worked diligently since 2021 to increase early education opportunities. Our Pre-Kindergarten expansion efforts have allowed for 216 Pre-Kindergarten seats to be offered this school year compared to 62 seats in 2021-2022 when we began the work of Pre-Kindergarten expansion. Enrollment has expanded to include three community partner sites; Framingham Metrowest YMCA, Framingham State University, Loving Nest, as well as classrooms at BLOCKS/Juniper Hill and McCarthy Elementary School. We are thankful for the commitment of the Healey-Driscoll Administration as they continue to prioritize the importance of early learning to ensure positive outcomes for our students. I am especially grateful for the hard work of our Office of Teaching and Learning, specifically Amy Bright, Assistant Superintendent for PreK-12 Education, Dr. Marybeth O’Brien, Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, and Christina Shea, Early Education Manager for their collaboration on this grant.” said Dr. Tremblay. Early Education at Framingham Public Schools continues to evolve with program and placement expansion aligned to the Pre-Kindergarten Strategic Plan and th

The Massachusetts School Library Association (MSLA)has recognized and announced 3 of our Framingham Public School Library Media Specialsts with awards.  

Join us in celebrating 

Annette Trossello at Barbieri Elementary School and 

Kay Kamiyamaof Fuller Middle School are recipients of the President’s Award. They are two of only ten awardees. 

The President’s Award honors MSLA members who have been identified as a “rising star” and in a career of one to five years have made a significant impact on student learning through a quality school library program. 

Also, we are proud to announce Elizabeth “Biz” Thompson, Library Media Specialist at Cameron Middle School in Framingham, MA, as one of two winners of the 2024 Massachusetts Super Librarian Award!

This award honors MSLA members who have demonstrated consistent excellence in school librarianship over many years, building school library programs that enhance student learning and are an example for others. The award also acknowledges contributions these librarians have made to improving all school libraries through professional development, leadership, service, and advocacy. 

Biz, Annette and Kay will be honored for their achievement at the 

2025 MSLA Conference March 2nd-3rd.

Congratulations and thank you for your continued contributions to excellence and opportunities to grow literacy, access, and programming for our FPS community. 

On January 23rd King held their first annual Literacy Night to celebrate and foster a love for reading within the King community! Student work was showcased throughout the building and teachers and specialists facilitated literacy themed activities for students and families to participate in an ABC obstacle course and bookmark crafts. The event was a huge success with 300 people in attendance!

With the start of 2025 brings more opportunities for students to partake in Anchoring Phenomena in their classrooms. ‘Anchoring’ student learning in a real world idea or concept helps students see how what they are taught in class relates to their real life and beyond. Examples of Anchoring Phenomena coming up in January are: observing the water cycle in a bottle, developing a ‘Rube Goldberg’ machine, and discovering just how absorbent paper towels are! 

In the area of mathematics, our coaches have been busy modeling and supporting our teachers in growing their practice within ‘Building Thinking Classrooms’, or Task Based Learning! Like anchoring phenomena in Science, Task based learning prioritizes real world application of learning. This allows students to use their math language to not only solve the problems provided to them, but to allow for more student discourse, collaboration and authentically applying their learning to a real life problem or question.

Beginning prior to the new year, our middle school science department was and is busy with implementing our new High Quality Instructional Materials - our new OpenSciEd curriculum! 

Open Sci Ed is different from what we may remember as ‘traditional science’. All lessons are standards-aligned and use strategies for how students learn science best: through hands-on investigations, open ended conversations, and anchored in phenomena. This curriculum also supports our school and district initiatives of promoting more student discourse in classes; allowing students to orate and reflect on their own learning is a pivotal step in cohesive, long term understanding. 

Our rollout of this new curriculum will be implemented over the next three years. During this school year, two units in grade 6, two units in grade 7, and 2 units will be taught. In 25/26 two more units will be added to each grade level, wrapping with the final 2 units being implemented in 26/27.

We celebrate our educators in their implementation efforts and continued professional learning to ensure all of our students have equitable access to standards based curriculum.  

All students in the Framingham Public Schools that are identified as English Learners/Emergent Bilingual will participate in the ACCESS tests from January 6 to February 14, 2025. 

Please review the Department of Multilingual Education Caregiver Smores by level below:

The release of the Term 2 Report Cards for High School Grades 9-12 is Friday January 31. Elementary Report Cards will be posted online Friday, February 7th.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has released the testing windows for the Spring 2025 MCAS Administration. The guidelines are below. Each of the respective schools in FPS are identifying the specific dates for testing in each grade and will release the schedules in the upcoming month.

Test Administration

ELA Session 1 March 25

ELA Session 2 March 26

Mathematics Session 1 May 20

Mathematics Session 2 May 21

Last date for all make-up testing  

ELA: April 3     Math: May 28

June 4 - High School Science Session 1

June 5 - High School Science Session 2

June 12 - Last date for all make-up testing

Grades 1-8: January 15 - February 14

Elefante Letrado → Portuguese Dual Language Programs 

February 1 - 7th, 2025

IStation → Spanish Dual Language Programs

February 1 - 7th, 2025

Framingham High School visual art students won 4 gold keys, 2 silver keys, and 17 honorable mentions in the 2024 Scholastic Art Awards! Congratulations to all of the incredibly talented artists and check out their amazing artwork here.

Congratulations to Katie Mansfield, Adrianne Schueller, Scott Alberg, Katy Millman, Miguel Carreiro, and Leah Graham for putting on our first FPA collaborative art show with kindergarten and high school students! Leah's K students invented collage monsters, Katie Mansfield and Katy Millman's ceramics and 3D classes made sculptures of them, Miguel's video production class animated them, and Scott and Will's photography classes photographed the sculptures. The opening reception at Project B Gallery was a huge success and standing room only where kindergarten and high school art students and their families met and celebrated their creativity. Kindergarten students were excited to see their monster drawings turned into soft sculptures, ceramics sculptures, photographs, and animations, and high school students were able to see how their ideas were interpreted in different ways. If you'd like to see the show, you can stop by Project B Gallery at the Mill Contemporary Art Studios on weekdays until February 7th.

A huge bravo to the following music teachers for beautifully executing their winter concerts:

Bravo to Framingham High School Drama Company's cast, crew, and staff for putting on 8 incredible performances of Grease! The acting, singing, sets, costumes, lighting and music were all truly fantastic! An FPA High Five and huge thank you to Chris Brindley, Ethan Lobenstine, and Peter Birren for all of your incredible work and supporting all 93 cast members with putting on a truly epic show.

Elementary music teachers participated in the “You Belong: Meaningful Inclusion of Autistic Students in the Elementary General Music Classroom” professional development session led by Jen Kass from the Community Music School in Springfield, MA. This was an informative PD session about the most up to date information, practices, and strategies for supporting Autistic students in music class. 

Department of Early Education (PreK) Team