As part of our effort to catalyze the shift to Education Everywhere, our Empower blog series highlights local leaders and their stories of innovation at the school and community level. We hope these stories inspire you as much as they inspire us.
Given the title of our new blog series, Empower, we’d be hard pressed to find a better topic for our first post. Today, we’re spotlighting the remarkable transformation at Collins Middle School in Salem, MA: a journey that began by empowering both students and educators, and one that WPS was proud to help shape as a design partner.
A Vision for Change

In 2022, we worked with visionary leaders in Salem to launch their “Reimagining Middle School” initiative. This forward-thinking effort, which was rooted in the district’s strategic plan, allowed us to work closely with Salem educators through hands-on collaboration.
Salem Mayor Dominick Pangallo emphasized that aligning the initiative with the district’s strategic goals was a key factor in its success. “It's not just, ‘Hey, here's a cool idea. Let's give it a shot,’” Mayor Pangallo tells us. “The innovation is grounded in a strategic plan we all agreed on as the district’s three-year trajectory.”
And what a trajectory it has been. Now in its third year, the partnership has cut chronic absenteeism in half, increased student engagement, and improved academic outcomes. As The Boston Globe reported, “Students in the pilot improved academically . . . outperforming the rest of the school on both the English and math sections of the MCAS, the state’s standardized test.”

Centering Students’ Voices and Experiences
“For a while, Salem schools had a challenging reputation,” Mayor Pangallo explains. “We had high teacher and administrator turnover. We went through a few superintendents. There was declining enrollment.” Then, on top of those challenges, the Covid-19 pandemic hit—coinciding with the time that Dr. Stephen Zrike stepped into the role of Superintendent of Salem Schools.
“Students were disengaged in school and in life in general,” Dr. Zrike says, “particularly in the middle school grades.” When developing a new strategic plan for Salem Public Schools, Dr. Zrike and his team aimed, as he writes in his note accompanying the plan, to “recognize every student’s potential and give them opportunities to share their voices, stories, and talents through our student-centered programming and dynamic offerings.”
One of the crucial turning points at Collins Middle School was recognizing that students’ disengagement wasn’t a reflection of the students themselves, but rather a problem with the system. Under Dr. Zrike’s leadership, alongside the district’s new strategic plan and a partnership with the WPS Institute, a new approach to teaching and learning began to take root.

WPS collaborated with Salem leaders to co-design the initial pilot and provided hands-on implementation support throughout the partnership. This included facilitating community partnerships, helping educators integrate experiential learning with academic standards, offering professional learning on student-centered practices, and capturing student and teacher stories to inform program evaluation.
Mayor Pangallo sums it up this way: “As a parent of a former middle schooler, I saw how the pilot program we had with WPS really demonstrated that when students don’t just feel—but actually have—a voice in how and what they're being taught, it makes a difference. We now have experiential learning and immersions that bring students into the community to see the impacts and lessons in real life. That’s really meaningful. I think it engages students, and it also engages the educators.”
Dr. Zrike agrees that centering students’ voices, interests, and perspectives has been crucial to the success that they started to see. “Student-centered design—posing real-world problems, fostering collaboration, and integrating immersive learning—has created a dynamic environment for students,” he reflects.


Not only were students offered more choices and unique learning opportunities, but the school also regularly sought their feedback to gauge the impact of these changes. Throughout the year, WPS worked with the district to administer student surveys and helped educators analyze the results. WPS staff also facilitated regular reflection sessions, creating dedicated time and space for teachers and leaders to interpret student insights and determine next steps.
“What struck me so much was the survey data we collected—we saw huge increases in how students were thinking about school, about their learning, and about how much more they enjoyed being in school,” Dr. Zrike explains, before adding with a smile: “Middle schoolers don’t say things to be nice, so to me, this was the tipping point—this is working.”
The Power of Collaboration and Innovation
The fact that educators were given more leeway in how they were teaching also paid dividends not only for the students but for the educators themselves. WPS staff supported this process by working with school leaders to gather meaningful feedback—conducting student deep-dive interviews, teacher focus groups, and family feedback calls, and then creating professional learning opportunities to help teachers respond to student needs.

“The educators felt professionally supported, knowing they were contributing meaningfully to the students' lives,” Mayor Pangallo says. “They felt their work was making a difference because of the feedback loop—when students were engaged, teachers experienced satisfaction in achieving their professional goals and making a real impact on the children.”
Dr. Zrike points out that the shift toward student-centered design requires a mindset shift for some educators. “When you turn learning over to kids, it is kind of a scary feeling for some educators who like control, and you do need the right type of educator and mindset to be okay with releasing responsibility to children for their learning in different ways.” For those educators who’ve embraced or developed that mindset, they’ve found new enjoyment and fulfillment in their jobs. When teachers are happier, students are happier—and when students are happier, teachers are happier. It creates a positive, reciprocal feedback loop.
These are also the conditions in school in which innovation can take place, and innovation doesn’t come without taking risks. “I’m actually reading Michael Horn’s Reopen to Reinvent with my teacher advisory group, and in it, Horn discusses the importance of creating pockets of innovation and being willing to embrace them,” Dr. Zrike explains. “Some see innovation as unfair to certain students, but creating space for it is essential for progress. From this incubation, we developed something truly beneficial for all kids.”
Success Beyond Salem
Building on the success of the pilot program at Collins Middle School, which is now becoming standard practice there, plans are in place to extend some of its lessons to other spaces and programs. This will particularly focus on the student-centered, hands-on learning approaches that proved so effective. As Dr. Zrike notes, “There's going to be a push to build on what's happening at the middle school level.”
A committee is currently working on the development of a new Salem High School building, and leadership is considering how the lessons learned through the pilot program might be integrated into this new context. “There’s definitely an opportunity to extend some of the successful practices from the eighth-grade experience into the early high school years,” Mayor Pangallo says. “This would help amplify what’s working well for students.”
While nothing is official yet regarding the high school building, this demonstrates how innovation, when it yields positive results, creates momentum. The ripple effects can lead to meaningful change elsewhere. WPS has helped build on this momentum by working with Salem Public Schools to bring together local school leaders and community partners for site visits, which has created opportunities for others to reimagine middle school education.

We’ve also partnered with the district to share their story on regional and national stages, including the Aurora Symposium Conference. With noticeable increases in enrollment, higher MCAS scores, and improved teacher retention and student engagement, Salem schools are gaining a reputation for innovation—a reputation that really can inspire broader change.
Lessons for the Future
In order for any school or district to evolve, Dr. Zrike argues that it’s important for all constituents to be willing to think outside the box—and for elected leaders to remain engaged and supportive of innovation.
“One of the things that distinguishes Salem is the willingness to think differently about how we do school,” he says. “I’ve appreciated the open-mindedness of our teaching force and teachers' union, as well as the support from our families. And, of course, the elected officials I’ve had the chance to work with—the school committee and the mayors—have all shown a willingness to step away from traditional methods. This openness to change is reflected in people's willingness to rethink how things are done, especially in our public schools. The inertia to keep doing things the same way is strong, but Salem has managed to embrace change.”
The ultimate goal of any school or district, of course, is to help prepare students well for life after school. Salem prioritizes essential skills like critical thinking, communication, and social-emotional development—especially self-awareness. Also, beyond a standard high school diploma, Salem is committed to equipping students with a diverse set of credentials and qualifications to prepare them for success after high school, in both college and career pathways. This thoughtful, forward-thinking approach will likely continue to propel the district forward in the years to come.
At WPS, we’re deeply grateful to have partnered with forward-thinking, student-centered leaders like Dr. Zrike, Mayor Pangallo, and the dedicated educators who have been essential to the transformation of Collins Middle School. Through close collaboration and a shared vision, we’ve worked together to foster innovation and empower both students and educators.

Our collective effort is a great reminder that meaningful progress in education requires bold ideas and a commitment to what works. As Mayor Pangallo explains, “You have to take risks to try something new in education. Progress doesn’t happen without a leap. And trusting evidence is equally important. You have to focus on fact-based decisions rather than anecdotes.”
We invite you to click here to learn more about WPS’s community innovation partnership with Salem Public Schools. Also, be sure to explore our resource page for tools and strategies to support student engagement, community-based learning, and innovation in schools.
By leading with courage and purpose, together we can reimagine what’s possible in education.

Ryan Bani Tahmaseb is an author, learning coach, and curriculum developer. He believes in student choice, the extraordinary potential of every learner, and the transformative power of meaningful relationships between educators and students.
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