Longtime Swampscott resident Sarah Kent said she hopes she’s found her “last stop” in her career as she steps into her new role as the district’s director of teaching and learning.
Kent began her career in Chelsea, where she said she “grew up” professionally over two decades, taking on roles including teacher, coach, administrator, and assistant superintendent for curriculum. Most recently, Kent worked in the Waltham Public School district as an assistant superintendent.
“I’m a curriculum, classroom, teaching and learning person,” Kent said. “And now working for the town you live in and contributing to your community and supporting the community, plus what seemed like a very cool job, I made the switch.”
Kent officially started within the Swampscott School District on July 1, following a need for a director of teaching and learning since January. Last spring, before the school year ended, she spent a week getting to know staff and becoming acclimated to the district, which Kent called a crucial step since many people are away during the summer while she prepares for the new school year.
“The job is basically to oversee curriculum instruction and assessment,” Kent said. “All of the principals are instructional leaders, but it takes somebody to coordinate it and make sure that districtwide we are supporting a strong curriculum and meeting the needs of our kids.”
Kent comes into the role as Jason Calichman becomes the district’s new superintendent, Emily Zotto steps into the role of principal of the Swampscott High School, and Jessica Minter leads as the new principal of the Swampscott Middle School.
“We’re sort of building a new team, which is great. We have some new principals too,” Kent said. “That means everybody is ready to work together and build a team and do what’s great for kids.”
With Swampscott now operating one school per grade section, a shift from three elementary schools just two years ago, Kent said the structure helps ensure consistency in education and smoother transitions for students.
While the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education takes a “big picture” approach to the district’s data, Kent’s job is to “make sure that we know along the way how kids are doing, how we can help them or accelerate them” as well as supporting the teachers in doing so.
The director of teaching and learning’s role can be seen in various aspects of the school day, but Kent specifically mentioned at the elementary school how group instructional time provides a tailored time for the students to receive the support they need.
“We use data to decide who (is in which group),” Kent said. “No test is perfect, obviously, but you can say this kid’s doing really well in math but needs help with this, so how do we put him in a group that does that?”
For the high schools, Kent noted that teachers give their own individual assessments, while all Algebra 1 sections, for example, may now see an overarching test “so that we can see how kids are doing across classrooms.”
“We know how they’re doing in classrooms, but we need to start looking across classrooms,” Kent said, noting that i-Ready diagnostics provide similar data for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. “The high school is a little harder because kids aren’t as grouped like as the elementary school you have classrooms and middle school you got teams. Everybody’s an individual, and they all have their individual schedules, so it’s harder to do that at the high school, but that’s what we’re trying to tackle.”
Still, Kent emphasized that the work is a collaborative effort with teachers and principals. She plans to meet with department heads to figure out how the data she collects can be implemented and what works best.
“If everybody’s on the same page and everybody’s trying to do the same thing and things are consistent for kids, that’s what makes the biggest difference,” Kent said, pointing to research by John Hattie on collective efficacy.
As the new school year begins, Kent said she’s following her grandmother’s mantra: “Row the boat before you rock it.”
“There’s a lot of great things going on here already that I would hate to be in the way of but would love to build on,” Kent said. “I need to learn about those things and go from there.”
Kent said her favorite part of the role is talking with the students and supporting the teachers in a way that “makes their jobs better or more effective.”
“I think it’s going to be a great year,” Kent
