This collection of resources includes several tools to help districts implement early literacy screening — including a review of currently approved screeners that meet state regulation requirements that went into effect in 2023, sample family communication letters, and a guide for supporting students with dyslexia.

The guide addresses a critical gap in traditional school models: the tendency to misidentify language acquisition as a learning disability and over-refer MLs for special education services. It advocates for a culturally and linguistically-aligned lens to ensure that multilingual learners receive support that respects their primary language and cultural background.

This great round up of resources compiled by Katie Novak, a UDL leader in Massachusetts and beyond, covers a huge amount of territory: UDL basics and video explainers, common misconceptions, a UDL implementation rubric, a UDL assessment flowchart, what to look for to evaluate UDL implementation in classrooms, recommended books and much more.

This resource focuses on implementing early warning systems, with a focus on the “ABCs” (absenteeism, behavior referrals, and course failure) which are highly predictive indicators for dropping out. Includes staffing, scheduling, and other resource shift examples, and highlights “do now” and “build toward” practices.

Read about schools and one district that rethought the Grade 9 experience in order to create the best possible foundation for high school success. Each case study identifies the “change package” that led to improved student outcomes, resource and scheduling shifts, and structures that supported educator collaboration.

These tools provide an orientation to different mental health and social emotional/behavioral assessment screeners schools can use to identify students who may need targeted or intensive support. The SHAPE library is free to use but requires users to register for an account.

Learn about high school improvement efforts at three Boston schools — East Boston High, 2023 School on the Move Winner, and two finalists, Boston Green Academy and Fenway High.

The E2C Hub brings together data from across three agencies to help educators, students and families, policy makers, researchers, and others understand how Massachusetts children progress from early care, through K-12 education, and into higher education and the workforce.

Find workshop materials from DESE’s 2025 Instructional Leadership Institute. Session topics included instructional vision and planning, designing for school belonging, scheduling, student support structures, multilingual learners, budgeting, and more.

The revised Safe and Supportive Schools Implementation Guide & Self-Reflection Tool provides an inquiry-based year-long or multi-year process to document current practices that support students` behavioral health ranging from the whole school community to individual students that require more intensive supports.

This resource mapping template will help you inventory the Curriculum & Instruction/ Interventions, Assessments, and Data-Based Decision practices you are currently using (or have the goal of using) at each tier.

The updated 2025 Massachusetts MTSS Blueprint unpacks MTSS from three perspectives: why it is important, what it entails, and how to approach implementation. It reflects a holistic view of student development and MTSS implementation lessons from the field and research.

The School Climate Survey Suite is a set of four multidimensional surveys to measure student, teacher, administrator, faculty, and family perceptions of school climate. The surveys are brief, reliable, and valid for assessing perceived school climate among students in Grades 3-12. The manual was updated 2022 (Version 2).

This EDWIN report helps school and district leaders understand equity gaps in students’ learning experiences with effective educators; for example, the report shows how often students had assignments with different types of teachers over the past one to five years. This series of three videos and related guidance explain how the report works and how to interpret and use the data.

The PEAR Holistic Student Assessment (HSA) is a universal social-emotional assessment tool (student survey) that can help you better understand each student's unique strengths and needs.