Worcester Regional Research Bureau in partnership with Worcester Education Collaborative (WEC)—has developed the Worcester Public Schools Strategic Plan Evaluation, an interactive Tableau dashboard that displays progress on Our Promise to the Future, the Worcester Public Schools’ 2023–2028 Strategic Plan. The Interactive Data Dashboard is designed to help the public understand progress to date on the district’s more than 50 performance indicators spanning 2023–2028. The accompanying Bureau Brief explains what the strategic plan is, how it was created, and summarizes key findings form the district’s early progress monitoring data.
The Worcester Public Schools Strategic Plan 2023–2028 is the district’s central roadmap for improving student outcomes, strengthening instructional quality, and modernizing the systems that support teaching and learning. The Strategic Plan is organized into six Key Priority Areas, which represent the district’s highest-level areas of focus and are shown below. Each Key Priority Area contains detailed Aims, which outline more specific improvement objectives, and Promises, which describe what students, families, and staff should expect as these goals are carried out. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) serve as the measurable outcomes tied to each Promise, allowing WPS to track and publicly report progress. The Worcester Public Schools released its Progress-Monitoring Google Sheet. This dataset serves as the district’s first systemwide attempt to report on each Key Performance Indicator (KPI) tied to the plan, providing baseline values, and year-to-year updates.
The Bureau classified the district’s progress on each KPI according to the direction of progress reported so far in its Interactive Data Dashboard. Each KPI was assigned to one of four categories: Progress, No Progress, Mixed Findings, or Not Enough Data. Across the six Key Priority Areas, progress varies substantially, with some areas showing strong forward movement and others limited mostly by insufficient data.
- Equitable Resources & Educational Programs (EQ) shows the strongest performance, with 11 of 16 KPIs (69%) making progress.
- Acquire & Retain Talent (AR) follows, with 4 of 8 KPIs (50%) improving.
- Culture & Climate (CC) and Family & Community Engagement (FC) each show 3 of 8 KPIs (38%) making progress, reflecting moderate improvement.
- Modernized & Safe Facilities (MF) reports 4 of 10 KPIs (40%) progressing.
- Health & Wellness (HW) shows the weakest measurable progress, with 1 of 7 KPIs (14%) improving so far.
The district’s early progress reports offer a preliminary but meaningful view into how implementation of the Strategic Plan is unfolding. Some measures already show improvement, while others remain difficult to evaluate until additional years of data are collected. Ongoing oversight by the School Committee, coupled with transparent reporting from district leadership, will shape the next phase of this work. The Worcester Regional Research Bureau, the Worcester Education Collaborative, and other community partners will continue to monitor developments and provide independent analysis as more information becomes available.
The Strategic Plan was developed in 2023 under former Superintendent Rachel Monárrez and approved by the School Committee in December of that year. The process included a Community Task Force chaired by the Worcester Regional Research Bureau’s Executive Director with the Worcester Education Collaborative’s Executive Director serving as Vice Chair.