WESTBROOK – Local educators will be attending a conference on educational innovation in Massachusetts this week, and a program at Westbrook High School will be on display.

“Other schools have been inquiring about it,” Gousse said.

Westbrook will be joining Deer Isle-Stonington High School and Hall-Dale Middle/High School of Farmingdale in the conference, titled High School Redesign in Action, on March 22-23 in Norwood, Mass.

The conference, sponsored by the New England Secondary School Consortium, is designed to spotlight unusual approaches to teaching and learning that have shown progress in achievement, graduation rates, college-enrollment numbers, and other areas.

Westbrook’s contribution to the conference is a presentation on its Freshman Teaming Program. The concept involves freshman students tracking their progress through their first year at the school, then giving a presentation to groups of teachers, parents and their peers at the end of the year. In their presentations, the students are encouraged to discuss what they learned, and why they feel they remembered some parts of their studies and not others.

Brian Flynn, an English teacher at the high school, said he started the program in the 2009-2010 school year, with 80 students. The following year, Flynn said, the entire freshman class of 160 students participated, and this year, Flynn has started up the program again.

In an interview at the end of the 2011 school year, Flynn said the goal of the program was to present a new way to evaluate student performance, an alternative to standardized testing. While a commonly accepted tool, standardized testing has come under fire nationwide in recent years, criticized as not being enough to provide an accurate picture of educational merit, both for students and their schools.

“We are moving toward a more learner-centered education system, and it is our schools who are leading the way,” Maine Commissioner of Education Stephen Bowen said in a statement. “Our schools are displaying leadership, forging the path, and sharing what they learn with others. We not only applaud their work, but are anxious to help them share those best practices across the state and beyond.”

The state Department of Education’s statement said Westbrook’s program “provides personalized support to students who might be struggling with the increased demands of high school – a strategy that can significantly reduce course failures and dropouts during the early years of high school.”

Gousse said Flynn and other teachers who participate in the program will be giving a presentation on the program at the conference.