Watertown had some highlights from the 2025 MCAS test and other accountability measures, including being recognized for the results in some areas, but school officials also identified areas that need more work.
Superintendent Dede Galdston presented a report on the 2025 Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) accountability results at the Oct. 6 School Committee meeting. The accountability presentation included results of the MCAS tests, as well as measures such as absenteeism and the results of the ACCESS for students who come into schools not speaking English as their primary language, called English Learners.
Last week, the Watertown Public Schools announced that Watertown was one of 63 districts across the state that the state DESE recognized for returning to pre-pandemic achievement levels in grades 3-8, and one of 41 recognized for meeting or exceeding achievement levels in math.
In addition, Galdston said, Watertown also met or surpassed pre-pandemic achievement in fifth grade science and grades 6-8 English Language Arts (ELA) for the district’s lowest performing student group.
“We have spent years thinking about how it is that we’re going to get to that place that we were before and beyond,” Galdston said. “Now it’s time to keep moving forward.”
Galdston added that the Watertown Public Schools have committed to an acceleration roadmap to teach students at their grade level standards “with scaffolds and support as opposed to remediation.”
“So, if you’re in third grade, you’re learning third grade standards, and we’re going to support you even if you had some learning loss and with the appropriate supports and interventions,” she said.
Teachers in the Watertown Schools work with specialists and interventionists, including curriculum coordinators, and grade-level teams to come up with plans for students, said Lindsay Mosca, the WPS Education Data Analyst. Along with the MCAS results, they also look at results of DIBELS, which measures students’ literacy skills; and i-Ready, which measures math skills. Using all the results, they can come up with interventions that students can work on during their WIN (What I Need) blocks during the school day.
Watertown has made progress at reducing absenteeism at the High School.
“We still have a long way to go with chronic absenteeism across the district, but these are the targets that DESE said, these are attainable, and we not only attain them, we so I think that that’s a testament to (WHS Principal) Joel (Giacobozzi) and his staff around their focus on attendance,” Galdston said.
Watertown Middle School Principal Jeff Gaglione spoke about two areas where WMS fell short on accountability last year, student progress toward English proficiency and absenteeism.
“Our structures this year have changed for English Learner students in that more of them are now in general education classes, and we feel good about that structure,” he said. “Also, chronic absenteeism was an issue at the middle school last year, and we have taken steps this year to attempt to address that. We’re having regular attendance meetings every week. We sent out a letter, to be proactive, at the beginning of the year to families who have had chronically absent or tardy students and we are seeing some positive results.”
Assistant Superintendent Emilys Peña said the ACCESS test was taken by 471 students in 2025, 138 of whom were taking it for the first time. The total number is 24 percent higher than it was in 2020. She said the first time test-takers spoke 21 languages, with about 30 percent speaking Spanish, 21 percent Portuguese, and the other with large numbers were Haitian Creole, Russian, Armenian, and Arabic.
Having a Student Growth Percentile of 60 or higher is considered good, Peña said.
“This year we dipped a little bit to 56 but we’re still really close to that 60. So in terms of overall students that met their targets, and we’re making progress — we had 51 percent,” Peña said.
A challenge for Watertown, Peña said, is that scores dropped for 41 students.
She noted that the students taking the ACCESS test change from year to year, with some students reaching a level of English proficiency that they are no longer in the English Learner program, and others leaving the district.
Galdston also shared her observations about doing away with the requirement to pass the MCAS to graduate from high school in Massachusetts, and what the impact it has had.
“At the state level it’s pretty dramatic there. The state received zeros in all of academic achievement out of four,” Galdston said. “At Watertown High School, we also did not see any improvement in our lowest 25 percent, but (looking at) all students we actually saw progress towards targets, which is not the same as the state. I’m not going to even conjecture around why, but I do think it’s a pretty clear indication that, without that being the graduation requirement, that students may not be taking the assessment as seriously as when it was a graduation requirement.”
School Committee Chair Kendra Foley thanked Galdston and other school officials for the detailed information about the WPS accountability results.
“I love hearing all of the wins and the and the ways that we’re seeing growth, and I think we’ve done a lot of really great things over many years that deserves that growth. And it’s nice to be able to tie that growth to some concrete things that are happening in our schools, because there is a direct correlation,” Foley said. “And it’s also really important to understand what our challenges are and be honest about those. And I do think that these are helpful conversations to do that, and we have great leaders in our schools who take this information and this data really seriously and adjust practice.”
See the slide presentation from Galdston’s Accountability report by clicking here.
Galdston presented the highlights from the 2025 DESE accountability results, as well as the areas that need more attention.
Highlights
Elementary Schools
Cunniff
● Earned 92 percent of possible points for the lowest performing students
● Met growth targets in ELA; exceeded growth targets in Math for all students and lowest performing students
● Exceeded the target for chronic absenteeism for all students
Hosmer
● Exceeded targets for ELA achievement, lowest performing students
● Met growth targets in ELA and Math for all students
● Exceeded targets in ELA and Math achievement for Students with Disabilities
Lowell
● Exceeded targets for ELA and Math achievement for the lowest performing students
● Met growth targets for ELA and Math for all students
● Exceeded targets for chronic absenteeism for all students and lowest performing
Secondary
Watertown Middle School
● Exceeded targets for ELA achievement, lowest performing students
● Met growth targets for Math, all students and lowest performing
● Exceeded targets for Science achievement, all students
Watertown High School
● Exceeded targets for ELA achievement, all students
● Met or exceeded growth targets for ELA and Math, all students and lowest performing
● Exceeded targets for chronic absenteeism, all students and lowest performing
Challenges
Cunniff
● Chronic absenteeism for our lowest performing student group
● Working to improve students progress toward English Language proficiency
Hosmer
● Chronic absenteeism, all students
● Working to continuously improve Math and ELA achievement
Lowell
● Working to close the achievement gap between students with disabilities and other student groups
● Working to continuously improve Math and Science achievement
WMS
● Chronic absenteeism, all students
● Working to continuously improve ELA achievement
● Working to improve students progress toward English Language proficiency
WHS
● Working to improve Lowest Performing Student Group achievement, across content
● Achievement dip in Science