Session materials from DESE’s first Instructional Leadership Institute in 2023

Access session materials from the 2018 LEA event on topics including creating a pipeline of diverse educators, developing multi-tiered systems of support, equitable access to high quality curriculum, bilingual education, ensuring racial and cultural equity, effectively engaging families, student mobility, approaches to addressing students’ mental health needs, integrating social emotional and academic learning, and more.

DESE’s October 2019 Leading with Access & Equity Conference had a great line-up of sessions! Access all conference materials here.

The update 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.

OPTIC is a dynamic professional learning platform that supports educators to develop and refine a shared understanding of high-quality teaching and feedback using over 100 videos of classroom instruction aligned to the MA Curriculum Frameworks and the Model Classroom Teacher Rubric.

Family-friendly guides to learning standards for each grade level, designed to structure and strengthen school-family partnerships.

Resources describing connections between the Massachusetts Mathematics Curriculum Frameworks and development of student social and emotional skills.

These grade and content-specific What to Look For (WtLF) Observation Guides are designed to support observations of classroom content and practice. They highlight what the teacher and students should be doing in a standards-aligned classroom.

A quick reference guide to tailoring nationally available curriculum products for use with Massachusetts standards.

Use this tool to do help evaluate systems and structures supporting curriculum at the school or district level.

DESE convenes panels of Massachusetts teachers to review and rate evidence of alignment and quality of comprehensive core curricular materials. Findings for each resource product are published in a user-friendly report for educators across the Commonwealth to consult and make informed, local decisions about curricula.

A compendium of curriculum, content, and cultural resources aligned to topics in the 2018 Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework

A library of authentic student writing pieces, annotated to show what mastery of the writing standards looks like in action.

Three quick reference guides explaining how to evaluate text complexity and analyze complex text to support reading comprehension.

Listen to staff and leadership from schools tell their unique school improvement stories in this video collection, originally created to spotlight successful school turnaround practices. Topics include school culture, data practices, instructional improvement, career pathways, MTSS, family engagement, and more.