The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) class of 2015 “outperformed their peers in all three subsets of the test at the state, New England 2014, and national level” on the Subject Aptitude Tests (SAT), director of guidance Mike McCarthy told the MVRHS school committee Monday night.
This is a big deal, he said, because Massachusetts is known for consistently high test performances by students, making the state average for test scores very high.
The mean score of all test takers from last year’s graduating class in critical reading was 542, with the state mean coming in at 516. The math mean for the class was 533, compared with the state’s 529, and the writing scores were 515, compared with 507 at the state level.
The combined scores are the fourth highest in school history behind the class of 2014, 2013, and 2009. A total of 131 of 160 graduates in the 2015 class opted to take the standardized testing, only 1 percent lower than last year.
This is the tenth MVRHS class to take the SAT with a writing sample. There will be a new edition of the test next year. Mr. McCarthy said although there are ebbs and flows, “we have been trending up in our scores.”
“Last year’s class was one of the highest of all time, and they hung in there right with those guys and did very well,” he said.
Detriment to education
Senior Jared Livingston, recently named a National Merit Scholar semifinalist, appeared before the school committee Monday night to propose a review of a policy put in place this year that limits seniors to three advanced placement (AP) courses, high school classes with college-level curricula and exams. The policy was an attempt to limit academic workload and protect students from becoming overwhelmed.
“While that can be understandable, I believe if you’re in that level class, you should know your limits, and if you’re going to be taking these AP classes, you should know when to stop,” he said. “So I feel like it should be the student’s decision whether to limit themselves or not.”
He said he knows many students who would take more than three AP courses, and excel in those courses, if the system allowed it. Two student representatives at the meeting echoed Mr. Livingston’s concerns.
“It’s not about improving your grades or making one student look better than the rest, it’s just once you’re at a certain level in high school, if you can’t keep going and you just go down to regular level history or honors-level English, you stop progressing as much, and it can be a detriment to your education,” Mr. Livingston said.
Having already reached the limit of AP courses in his schedule, Mr. Livingston approached interim principal Peg Regan at the beginning of the year about taking AP European history as an honors-level course without the AP credit or weight, which she approved.
“There’s an exception to every rule and every policy that we make, and Jared is one of those students who really doesn’t care about the weight or the transcript, but wants to study at that advanced level,” Ms. Regan said.
This is the first year the AP course load was capped for seniors. Transcripts sent to colleges do note that the school limits students to three AP courses.
“Would you tell someone they can’t play three varsity sports?” Ms. Regan said. “You can only play two because three is too many or too stressful. It was a debate that was ongoing with a lot of discussion. I don’t know that we really anticipated the impact on your particular class.”
Ms. Regan said the school administration will rethink the whole policy in terms of other students who might be an exception to the rule.
Retirements and replacements
Superintendent Matthew D’Andrea said the search process for the new high school principal is underway, and he expects to begin initial interviews by Nov. 16.
The search for an interim assistant principal to replace Andrew Berry, who retires in January after eight years at the high school, has also begun. It is an interim position because the school administration did not feel comfortable hiring on behalf of another principal, Ms. Regan said. Ten candidates have applied, none from within the system.
“We’ll probably move forward in the next few weeks if we find a viable candidate,” she said. “Our hope to attract someone from within the staff to come up and try it out didn’t happen, so now we have to go to plan B and C.”
Committee member Jeffrey “Skipper” Manter of West Tisbury proposed divvying up the duties among school administration staff and making do without the assistant principal for the second half of the school year. Mr. D’Andrea said they would look into the possibility of that.
The committee also officially announced that Donald Herman, physical education teacher and football coach for the past 27 years, will step down at the end of this school year.
In the financial report, finance manager Mark Friedman said the school is “aggressively spending money down” from the maintenance line.
“We were very busy over the summer making improvements to the building, although there’s a long way to go, as well as just doing normal maintenance in the building as well,” Mr. Friedman said. “Our long-term maintenance and our supplies line are already essentially expended, and we’re still at the beginning of the year.”
Mr. D’Andrea said school officials met with Ken Beck of BLW Engineers, who completed a report on the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system. There’s significant work that needs to be done, Mr. D’Andrea said.
A meeting on Oct. 16 is scheduled with the architectural firm doing the needs assessment study, and they have asked that firm to incorporate the building envelope, HVAC, and needs assessment studies into one project that will address the needs of the school in its entirety.
“All along I’ve said I don’t want to do any major work that we’re later going to have to undo,” he said. “I want to make sure that we have all of our studies together, we know exactly what needs to be done, and we do it in a very thoughtful way so we do it right.”
In other business, the committee approved a request to allow eighth grade boys to play on the junior varsity (JV) hockey team. Last year the JV team was canceled due to low numbers, leaving a number of players without a venue to participate in their sport.
“The only reason we’re asking this is to try to save a program,” athletic director Mark McCarthy said. “We’re not allowed to do this to try to make our program better, we can’t do this for every sport, but we’re trying to help save the JV boys hockey program, which will then hopefully lead into allowing those kids to play at the varsity level and keep that JV program intact.”
Committee member Robert Lionette said he was very opposed to the request, citing the physical disparity between an eighth grader and a high schooler. “I think it’s a dangerous precedent,” he said. Only Mr. Lionette voted against the measure.
