Massachusetts School and District Profiles

Teach Western Mass
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2025
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Annual Goals

This report lists the annual improvement goals reported to ESE in the educator preparation program provider’s state annual report. Providers may report up to three goals for the upcoming year and are asked to report on progress made toward the prior year’s goals. Annual goals are reported in May of the academic year listed.

Data last updated May 14, 2026.

Annual Goals - 2025
Educator preparation program improvement goals for the upcoming program year
Goal #1 Our organizational goal for this year is to focus on a successful leadership transition for the Executive Director vacancy. Our Executive Director stepped down after almost 10 years at Teach Western Mass. Two of our long standing founding staff members, Deputy Directors Julie Anderson and Lisa Doherty, will be stepping in as Co-EDs in the interim. The current Board of Directors have also engaged Sarah Tanner from the Financial Development Agency to support the Co-EDs, the board and the organization in the coming months around the next steps in strategy and leadership transition.
Goal #2 Our instructional goal for this year is to focus on successful integration of and alignment to the new Professional Standards for Teaching (PSTs). We are auditing our current coursework and making adjustments to better align with the PST performance levels (introduce, practice, and demonstrate) as well as to ensure that courses build upon each other appropriately so that candidates have opportunities to learn about and practice different skills sufficiently before being asked to demonstrate mastery.
Goal #3 Our goal for this year is partnership expansion. We are looking to expand our successful partnership beyond the Springfield Empowerment Zone to include the entire Springfield District. These new partnerships will include public charter schools and area districts who are aligned with our mission, meet the requirements of the program, and are in Hampden and Hampshire counties.

Annual Goals - 2024
Educator preparation program improvement goals from the prior year
Goal #1 In year two of its strategic implementation strategy, TWM will continue to make progress toward building a sustainable organization by further increasing its rating on the Organizational Health Index an additional 10% by the end of FY25. Year two implementation will include hiring full-time Development capacity to achieve fundraising goals in order to sustain organizational financial stability.
Goal #2 Derived from its strategic plan around increasing % of candidates with shared student identities, TWM will continue to expand and diversify its recruiting efforts by launching targeted recruitment campaigns in English and Spanish for BIPOC candidates, hosting recruitment events for BIPOC candidates, and offering prospective candidates the opportunity to connect with the current cohort of BIPOC Residents and TWM staff. TWM will also expand its grant funding to provide tuition assistance for BIPOC candidates and hire BIPOC, alumni recruiters to help build connections with BIPOC candidates.
Goal #3 This goal is derived from TWM's new strategic plan and meant to build on the results we saw from implementing last year's partnership communication goal. Our third goal is to increase communication with leaders by designing and implementing a strategic communication plan for partners so that they are consistently aware of the overall learning trajectory of the program, Residents' progress in regards to program gateways, Residents' MTEL pass rates, Residents' evaluation scores, and any additional measures taken to support Residents to meet program criteria such as increased advisory sessions, performance support plans, increased frequency and duration of coaching.

Annual Goals - 2023
Educator preparation program improvement goals from the prior year
Goal #1 Goal 1: The TWM board approved our new strategic plan which includes high level goals and strategies for the next five years. TWM will be implementing year one goals of this new strategic plan this year which include a greater focus on the quality and diversity of our candidates and the retention of these candidates in our districts.
Goal #2 Goal 2: Derived from our partner feedback, our second goal is to increase alignment between TWM's educator preparation program and our district partner's teacher preparation. For example, more schools now in the districts of Holyoke and Springfield have robust coaching programs that did not exist in the past. The focus will not necessarily be to align on evaluation standards, but the focus will be on coordination between internal and external coaches to align with Residents observations and growth points. In order to improve alignment, TWM will increase the frequency and the effectiveness of communication about candidate growth, progress and coaching areas of focus, between TWM coaches and district/school personnel.
Goal #3 Goal 3: This goal is related to DESE's Mass Literacy Initiative. Our organization took part in an Early Literacy Formative Feedback Review conducted by TPI-US in 2022-2023. This year we will review our curriculum and staff training related to evidence-based practices in early literacy for our Elementary 1-6 and Moderate Disabilities PreK-8 licensure tracks. Our goal for this year is to identify certain pieces of feedback from the Early Literacy formative Feedback Review that have the greatest leverage for improving candidate early literacy preparation and implement those suggestions.