Middle School Test Scores Improve ; Investments in Staff, Programs, Discipline Pay Off, Officials Say

By FRED HANSON

Gains measured by a national assessment test show efforts to improve Randolph Community Middle School are paying off, school officials said.

The school is threatened with possible takeover by the state because of lagging scores on the MCAS tests. In the current budget, school officials pumped an additional $555,000 into the school to add staff and improve programs, which meant deeper cuts at the system’s other schools.

“We came in this year with a brand-new plan for school improvement,” middle school Principal John Sheehan said. “The community and the school committee invested in our school last year, and this is your return.”

The school has been working with a professor and graduate students at the University of Massachusetts at Boston to gauge the skills of students using the Curriculum-Based Measurements test.

When the test was first given in the fall, Sheehan said the result for grade 7 and 8 students was below the grade-level norm and below grade-level targets for reading, writing and mathematics skills.

When a second test was given during the winter, not only did the scores of Randolph students rise above the norm, but their rate of improvement also exceeded the national average, he said.

The test was more difficult the second time around, the principal added.

School Superintendent Richard Silverman said the scores show efforts to improve the school, started a year and a half ago, are starting to show results.

“We’re on the right track,” Silverman told the school committee Thursday night. “We’re not where we want to be, and we won’t be where we want to be for several years.”

Assistant School Superintendent Jonathan Landman said that because of similarities in the two tests, the results “should prove a predictor in the MCAS coming up” later this month.

Robin Codding, an assistant professor of school psychology at UMass-Boston, supervised the program.

“At RCMS, students with the weakest performance have received additional support and interventions, and their progress is being monitored more frequently,” Codding said.

This year the school eliminated study halls and added classes in English and math. A rotating schedule was introduced, students are being assigned to a team of teachers and extracurricular activities have been added.

Brian Turner, the school’s assistant principal, said the school’s faculty also shares in the credit.

“Each team of teachers worked together, and strategically, to support those students most in need of academic improvement,” Turner said.

The school has also made discipline a priority, with the addition of a dean of students.

Dean of Students Deborah Hood-Brown said some of the programs introduced this year have included Saturday detentions, a mediation program overseen by staff, and a “reflection room” where disruptive students can be sent during the school day.

She said the number of student absences has been cut 20 percent, and the number of students assigned to out-of-school suspensions has also fallen 20 percent.

“We’re working very hard to resolve discipline problems,” Hood- Brown said. “The students are in school more, they’re in the classroom more and they’re learning more.”

Sheehan said that in the three years he has been principal of the school, his top priority has been the creation of an alternative program for chronically disruptive students.

“It’s critical,” he said.

School committee Chairman Larry Azer agreed, adding the need was frequently mentioned at the school’s strategic planning conference. He thinks the program may be important enough that they would have to take the money from the school budget even if the Proposition 21/ 2 override question fails at the March 27 town election.

Fred Hanson may be reached at fhanson@ledger.com.

(c) 2007 Patriot Ledger, The; Quincy, Mass.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.