Events
To do this work:
We ASK educators across the district what they want and need to learn next in order to best serve the needs of their students;
We MAGNIFY effective practices by creating opportunities for effective and reflective educators to share their expertise with their peers; and
We CONNECT educators to resources, professional learning opportunities, and each other based on their needs and interests.
Starts 9/12. This Planning Cohort will address the question, "How do we adapt the OpenSciEd curriculum to provide access for multilingual learners?" A Planning Cohort is a space for educators to collaboratively plan with the support of teacher experts. This is for teachers using the OSE curriculum. Session will be led by Sarah Benat (SEI Biology teacher at Brighton HS) & Andrea Scarfo (SEI Biology teacher at Charlestown HS). Launch on 9/12 at Charlestown HS and weekly follow-ups on Zoom begin 9/22. This session fulfills BPS 12 hour inclusive ed course requirement
Join us for the SLIFE Day of Learning, co-hosted by the Telescope Network, on Friday, September 12, 2025, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at BTU Hall, 180 Mt. Vernon Street, Dorchester, MA.
This full-day gathering brings SLIFE educators from across the district together to collaborate, learn, and plan. Participants will share best practices and innovative strategies, explore curriculum materials and student support resources, review program requirements, and engage in hands-on curriculum unit planning with guidance from peer coaches.
Attendees will earn up to 7 PD hours.
From February to April 2025, the Telescope Network shared this survey with educators across Boston Public Schools. We received 705 survey responses from 114 different BPS schools and Central Office Departments.
Key findings:
Over the past 2 years, we’ve seen instructional practices consistently mentioned as a challenge at the highest rate. The way it is mentioned tends to be the same across years too - differentiation, especially in inclusion classrooms, is a common challenge for educators across grades, and student engagement is consistently a challenge in high school environments.
Since Spring 2023, we’ve also seen a general upward trend in educators mentioning challenges with curriculum & planning, and collaboration.
We’ve also seen an upward trend in educators mentioning school operations as a challenge; though we only introduced this tag in Spring 2024, it has quickly become one of the most often mentioned challenges, as educators across grade bands cite lack of planning and prep time as a major challenge to success.
On May 22, 2025, the Office of Educator Leadership and Development hosted it’s annual Aspire & Inspire Educator Symposium at Dearborn STEM Academy. This symposium celebrates the work teacher leaders have been engaging in throughout the course of the year with various OEDL departments (Telescope Network, New Teacher Development, Teacher Leadership Fund, National Board and Para PD). We had 205 participants join our session from various BPS schools and departments. During the symposium, participants had the opportunity to enjoy a catered dinner and networking, student performances and presentations from educators.
Share your ideas. Influence future PD offerings. Connect to learning & leading opportunities. Please complete the 4-8 min survey. (open to all BPS educators)
(4/2025 Boston Union Teacher) On November 15, 2024 the Telescope Network hosted a Learning Site at the Dearborn STEM Academy on the topic ““How do we implement Illustrative Math (IM) in a high school classroom to create inclusive, student centered math learning experiences?” The session brought 11 teachers and instructional coaches from across BPS for an extended peer observation of host educator Cindy Nguyen, ESL paraeducator Luisa Pina, and their 10th grade math class at the. . .
(2/2025 The Learning Professional) Biology teacher Sarah Benat stood at the front of her classroom at Brighton High School in Boston, moving her arm up and down to mimic the slope of an increasing, decreasing, or constant line on a graph. Her twelve students, all in the early stages of learning English, responded to each arm movement with a. . .
One of the best ways to improve your practice is to observe someone else doing similar work. During a peer observation, you can observe a BPS colleague. After the observation, you’ll have time to debrief and set goals to bring back to your own classroom. Use our updated peer observation checklist to prep your observation & debrief. Contact us if you want help finding a connection or facilitating your visit.