Matthew Poska has been superintendent of the Wilmington Public Schools for four months. He is the district’s first permanent superintendent without prior experience in the job in a generation, and the first to come with a state-assigned coach. This article covers what he has put on the record since July: an entry plan built on six questions, three goals he says he will be evaluated on, and the early moves the School Committee has seen. Parts 1 through 3 of this series covered his career, the vote that chose him, and his interview.
The mentor
On September 23 Poska introduced the committee to Jane Tremblay, his coach from the Massachusetts New Superintendent Induction Program, which the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents runs with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Tremblay spent her career in Lynnfield, from kindergarten teacher to superintendent, and retired in 2020. Poska is in the program’s 17th cohort, 32 new superintendents statewide. Tremblay told the committee he would receive “just about 600 hours of one-on-one coaching” this year, about 400 next year, and a consultancy group in the third year. “My job is not to tell Matt what to do,” she said. “It’s to get him thinking strategically about the decisions that he has to make.” She is coaching seven superintendents this year.
Enrollment in the program was the Massachusetts Association of School Committees consultant’s first recommendation on the night Poska was chosen, when the vote was 5-1-1.
The entry plan
Poska’s entry plan is a three-page document, “Superintendent Entry Plan, 2026-2027 School Year: Listening. Learning. Leading Together.”, embedded on the district website and presented September 23. It says the entry process began before his July 1 start: “From February 2026 through June 2026, I participated in 29 scheduled transition dates,” meeting district and school leaders, committee members, town officials, union leadership, legal counsel and his state mentor, supporting “leadership recruitment,” and attending graduation.
It then sets four phases with deliverables: listen and learn, July through November, with “regular progress updates and a participation snapshot”; reflect and analyze, December and January, with “draft themes and findings shared for review”; a “Public Entry Findings Report to the School Committee and community” in February 2027; and, March through June 2027, “clearly identified district priorities and an initial framework to guide strategy development.” It lists the documents he will review, from curriculum and achievement data to labor agreements, budget, enrollment and capital planning, and ties the review to the five objectives of the 2023-2028 Strategic Plan.
Its stated measures of success are process measures: participation, stakeholders reporting they were heard, findings “supported by multiple sources of evidence,” and a public summary. It is a listening document. “My first responsibility is to listen and learn,” it says, and it promises a public report “that celebrates strengths, identifies themes, and informs the next phase of district planning.” He told the committee he would meet principals, assistant principals, teachers, staff, department heads, committee members, students, parents, town officials and community members through November, analyze the responses in December and January, and present findings “hopefully sometime by the end of February,” then use them “to align the work and the leading that has to occur going forward beginning later in the spring.” A QR code and a Google form let any resident answer the same questions.
The six questions, asked of every group:
- What are the great strengths of the Wilmington Public Schools and the broader community?
- What programs, practices, relationships or traditions should be protected and sustained?
- What challenges or barriers may be limiting student learning, opportunity, belonging and well-being?
- Where do you see the greatest opportunities for improvement, innovation or stronger alignment across our schools and district?
- What should success look like for Wilmington students and schools over the next three to five years?
- What haven’t I asked that you think I need to understand about the Wilmington Public Schools?
Michael Mercaldi, who had voted for another candidate in November, said the plan “was written really well” and praised “the approach you’re taking of listening first instead of just coming in and just saying, hey, we’re going to do this.” Stephen Turner asked him to write down “the good, the bad, and the ugly from all your prior experiences” now and compare it against what he hears, “because part of the value of you coming into Wilmington is your prior experiences that are different.” Poska answered that “just sitting there and absorbing all the information coming is probably going to be my biggest challenge.”
The goals he will be graded on
Asked by David Ragsdale whether the entry plan would be one of his evaluation goals, Poska said the induction program recommends new superintendents adopt the state’s standard goals, and that his three for 2026-27 would be completing the induction program, the evaluation of the principals and administrators he supervises, and implementing the entry plan. Ragsdale said the committee’s evaluation subcommittee would meet quarterly rather than only at year’s end.
For a reader keeping score: none of the three goals is a student outcome, a budget target or a building project milestone. That is normal for a first-year plan under the state model, and it means the committee’s first evaluation of Poska, due next June, will measure process.
The goals themselves have not been posted. The district’s Superintendent Evaluation page embeds a shared folder with a subfolder for each year. The 2024-25 folder holds Glenn Brand’s goals, “Revised as of October 2, 2024, Approved October 9, 2024,” a five-page document that tied each goal to a strategic plan initiative, a state standard and a dated action plan, and the committee’s June 2025 mid-cycle report rating him “Met” on each. The 2023-24 folder holds his goals as first filed and as revised in April 2024, plus the June 2024 summative evaluation. There is no 2025-26 folder for the interim and no 2026-27 folder for Poska. Neither the September 23 nor the October 21 agenda listed approval of superintendent goals, and neither meeting’s recording includes a vote on them; the October 7 agenda is not on the town website. Brand’s goals, by comparison, were approved by the second week of October in his final year.
What else is on the record
MCAS. State results were released September 22. Poska told the committee he and Assistant Superintendent Christine Elliott were meeting every principal to analyze the data and that Elliott would present in October; the October 21 agenda listed an “MCAS and Accountability Presentation.” Part 6 of this series looks at the district’s numbers.
The new elementary school. He described the groundbreaking as “a truly special day,” with more than 150 students and staff from the North Intermediate School present, and credited the state delegation. The building and the consolidation of three schools into it were the committee’s biggest worry about any new superintendent in November; the October 21 agenda carried a public hearing on naming the building.
Staffing. He presented Kellie Alessandro, promoted from middle school team chair to assistant director of special education, saying he had told the special education director on meeting her that “it’s important that we get the right person for the job,” a line he used in his November interview about hiring. The district also hired a new director of administration and finance over the summer.
Policy. The October 21 agenda listed first readings of 11 student policies, from attendance exemptions and dress code to hazing and tobacco, and district guidelines on artificial intelligence for students and staff.
Recognition. On September 23 he presented the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents’ Academic Excellence Award to Wilmington High senior Ethan Laconte.
Communications. The district “About” page invites residents to follow him on Instagram, @Superwpsk12.
What to watch
The entry plan report, promised for late February, is the first product the committee can hold against his November interview answers. The fiscal 2028 budget calendar was presented September 23 and runs through a public hearing on February 10, 2027; it will be his first budget, and the budget was the area where a Nashua reference told the committee his experience was thinnest. The MCAS presentation and the new building’s naming and construction schedule are the two public tests between now and then.
The September 23, 2026 recording is here. Part 5 of this series covers two episodes from his Nashua years.
