SOUTH DEERFIELD — With passage of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test no longer a graduation requirement in Massachusetts, Frontier Regional School District is implementing a new way to assess its students that embraces soft skills instead of hard numbers.
As part of the district’s 2025-2030 Strategic Plan, “Portrait of a Graduate” includes a framework of six qualities or skills the district aims for its graduates to embody, including “Think Critically,” “Communicate Effectively,” “Collaborate Productively,” “Cultivate Understanding of Differences,” “Take Responsibility” and “Engage with the World.”
According to Director of Secondary Education Sarah Mitchell, the district heard from families, teachers, administrators and other community members last year to solidify the six traits, which will soon be displayed on posters in classrooms.
“The idea is so that we have a vision of what we want students to leave high school with to prepare them,” Mitchell said. “All these things are happening in [teachers’] classrooms and it’s just formalizing it.”
Frontier Regional School Principal George Lanides said the six standards will help “create a sense of consistency across the classrooms.”
“It will serve as our compass, helping us align everything our learning community does from classroom instruction to extracurricular opportunities,” Frontier Superintendent Darius Modestow explained in an email.
To bring these concepts into the classroom, Mitchell said the district is in the process of establishing “Professional Learning Communities,” or groups of teachers who will collect data through assignments on student performance in these six areas and determine the best steps forward to instill the qualities in students, asking themselves along the way, “What are we going to do to support them on their journey?”
“How do we measure whether or not students are able to think critically? It’s a way to have those conversations amongst teachers,” Lanides explained.
The Professional Learning Communities are still in development, according to Mitchell, as teachers start discussing how to measure and make “Portrait of a Graduate” actionable in class. Mitchell expects the groups to be “on the ground” in the next school year.
Lanides and Mitchell agreed that it is critical for teachers to be the crafters of methods to measure and implement the six traits.
“They’re on the forefront, they are where the rubber hits the road,” Mitchell said. “They’re the ones implementing this.”
In late September, the Healey-Driscoll administration released its “Vision of a Massachusetts Graduate,” including its own six standards under three categories: “Academically Prepared” and “Creative Problem Solvers” under “Thinkers,” “Self-Aware Navigators” and “Intentional Collaborators” under “Contributors,” and “Responsible Decision-Makers” and “Effective Communicators” under “Leaders,” according to mass.gov.
The announcement described the framework as “the first step in creating a new statewide graduation standard to ensure all students leave high school with the skills necessary to succeed in college, careers and civic life.” The Massachusetts Statewide K-12 Graduation Council built the “Vision of a Massachusetts Graduate” based on thousands of survey responses and eight listening sessions, mass.gov reads.
Many other districts have already created their own portraits of graduates tailored to their schools, including Springfield Public Schools, Westfield Public Schools and Lowell Public Schools.
“The state is working toward the creation of a ‘graduate portrait,'” Modestow said, “but it is nice that our community has taken a step ahead with our vision describing the essential skills, values and attributes we like to see in those graduates that walk across the stage in June for years to come.”
LAVA Center program
Similarly, “Portrait of a Graduate” will be the November topic of the monthly “Theater of Ideas” program at The LAVA Center, 324 Main St. in Greenfield. Longtime educator, Greenfield Recorder columnist and chair of the Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution education task force Doug Selwyn will lead an interactive discussion on Friday, Nov. 21, starting at 6 p.m.
Questions to consider include, “What do we want/hope our young people will take with them as they move on from our school systems?” and “What is a fair and more importantly useful way to assess their readiness to earn a diploma and take their place in adult society?” More information is available at thelavacenter.org/events/theater-of-ideas-community-conversations-2025-11-21.