Curriculum department to publish newsletter, roll out LinkIt and new walkthrough tool to guide teacher practice

The curriculum department told the Education, Policy & Review Committee that it will publish a regular newsletter, continue rolling out the LinkIt data platform and deploy a new digital walkthrough tool focused on student engagement.
The newsletter, the department said, will highlight summer work and make it easier to share non-voting reports with the board. A curriculum staff member said the district’s new teacher orientation drew 25 participants and that follow-up surveys showed all respondents “I feel welcomed and included at East Stroudsburg,” a line the presenter read from the survey results.
The department said it trained building administrators this summer on LinkIt and will introduce teacher-facing dashboards gradually so staff are not overwhelmed. “That element of choice really was powerful for them,” a committee member said of staff development choices offered to teachers.
Principals will be asked to complete one digital walkthrough per teacher each quarter using a short checklist uploaded to PA ETEP, the district said. The checklist centers on student engagement and is intended to produce quantifiable, building-level data that can shape professional development and contribute to a teacher’s evaluation portfolio.
The presenter framed the walkthroughs as a step toward creating an educator portfolio for growth rather than relying on a single 42-minute observation. The department said administrators will review walkthrough data at faculty meetings and share results so buildings can focus on strengths and targets for improvement.
District staff also described ongoing support for the Student Performance Measure (SPM) required by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE). A curriculum staff member who said she served on the PDE work group that developed the SPM said the goal is to give teachers agency and to use the SPM as a meaningful yearlong measure of student growth rather than a “check-the-box” exercise.
The committee did not take formal policy action on the items discussed; presenters asked the committee to note the initiatives and to provide feedback on implementation approaches.
The department identified PSEA as the source of a recent professional-development speaker and said the HMH ELA materials and other summer curricula rollouts were supported by department chairs, coaches, custodians and maintenance staff who helped stage materials for opening.
Looking ahead, the department said it will continue incremental LinkIt rollouts and use walkthrough data to guide targeted professional development and course-level supports.