TAUNTON – Superintendent John Cabral and Executive Director of Human Resources Dr. Cheryl Butts are pleased to announce that Elizabeth Pawlowski has been appointed as Taunton Public Schools new Pre-K-12 STEM Director.
Pawlowski began her new role as Taunton Public Schools Pre-K-12 STEM Director on Nov. 4. In this role, Director Pawlowski will be responsible for developing teacher capacity and managing math and science curriculum implementation.
“For the past several years Elizabeth has been a pioneer for our elementary and middle math and science programs having implemented and managed new state-of-the-art curriculum,” Superintendent Cabral said. “I’m confident that within her new position as the district’s STEM Director she will continue to adopt new curriculum and opportunities that are beneficial to our student body and that will assist us in growing our district’s ever-evolving STEM program.”
Director Pawlowski has over 20 years of experience working in Taunton Public Schools. She began her career in the district as a biology teacher at Taunton High School in 2001. While at Taunton High School, she also served as the Work and Learning Summer Program Coordinator for the Taunton Area School to Career, Inc. and the Enlightenment Project Summer Program Coordinator.
In 2009, she assumed the role of the Science Curriculum Supervisor for grades 8-12 prior to becoming the district’s Science Curriculum Coordinator for grades Pre-K-7 in 2016.
As the Science Curriculum Coordinator, Pawlowski managed an equitable and innovative hands-on science curriculum for students across the district’s eight elementary and three middle schools, which allowed students to engage in science content through lesson modeling and instructional coaching. She worked on the introduction and implementation of the Project Lead the Way program in the district’s middle schools and the introduction of Engineering is Elementary in third and fourth-grade curriculum. She also supported the Invention Convention in elementary schools and worked as an EdReports reviewer.
Director Pawlowski is also credited with assisting in the implementation of the high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) curriculum OpenSciEd at the district’s middle schools. She worked with the NEXUS Curriculum Leadership Group and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to field-test this curriculum, and as such, Taunton Public Schools was one of the first early adopters of the OpenSciEd curriculum. Currently, all of Taunton Public Schools’ middle school teachers have been trained in at least one OpenSciEd unit and by the end of 2023, all teachers are expected to be trained in all units.
Additionally, she has worked closely with local partners in the STEM industry and in higher education to establish STEM mentoring and career exploration programs for TPS.
Director Pawlowski is currently in the process of obtaining her Doctorate in Education from Northeastern University. She holds a master’s degree in biology for teaching from UMass Dartmouth and a Bachelors of Science, Brain and Cognitive Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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