WESTFIELD – The School Committee held an emergency meeting in Room 201 at City Hall on Friday to approve a transfer from school choice funds to fund the Advanced Placement (AP) Mock Exams through the remainder of the school year.
Westfield Public Schools Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski said the
Westfield Schools Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski (WNG file photo)
funds were needed due to a grant that ended and was not renewed. He said in order to continue the program, the district needed to use school choice funds.
Czaporowski explained that the district increased its AP courses in the high school three years ago on a grant from the Massachusetts Insight for Education (MIE) that promoted having more students taking AP exams.
The AP Mock Exams are practice tests for the actual exams. Westfield High School has been offering the Mock Exams on Saturdays. Czaporowski said as many as 300 students have participated, taking exams in various subjects, such as English, science and history.
Students take AP Mock Exams to see how they would score on the official exams. Czaporowski explained that the benefit of taking AP Exams is for college credit. The tests are scored 1-5. If a student scores from 3-5 on an exam, they can get credit for having taken a basic course such as English 101, for example. He said different schools accept different scores. He said Mount Holyoke will give credit for a 3 on an AP exam, whereas UMass requires a score of 5.
“Typically, most schools can’t afford to do this (Saturday exams), and hold them during the school day,” he said, adding that Westfield will probably have to do that next year. However, he said that when he taught AP history, he offered the Mock Exams during class, and sometimes they did them together. He found that practice was beneficial.
Holding the exams on Saturdays is something the district signed up to do with the grant, Czaporowski said.
The emergency meeting was necessary, because the district is holding its first AP Mock Exam this morning (Jan. 20). On Thursday, when Principal Charles Jendrysik realized the funding wasn’t there to hold the event, he originally cancelled this Saturday’s test.
School Committee vice chair Cynthia Sullivan said she received two
emails Friday from parents about the cancellation. She called school officials to find out what was going on, and to see if the School Committee could help.
Sullivan said Jendrysik had looked into using professional development funds, but those were being used elsewhere. Sullivan thought that school choice funds might be able to be used for this purpose.
Czaporowski consulted with the city’s law department, who said that school choice funds could be used, but the School Committee had to call an emergency meeting and vote on it before the AP Mock Exam could take place.
Sullivan quickly put out an agenda, and had Westfield city clerk Karen Fanion contact School Committee members. She said she was happy that all seven of the members were able to come to a meeting at 3:30 in City Hall, including Mayor Brian P. Sullivan. A unanimous vote was taken to transfer $15,000 out of school choice funding through the end of the year.
“No question, all of us wanted the program to take place,” Sullivan said, adding she’s happy she learned about the cancellation Friday morning and not Friday night. “We can’t fix what we don’t know,” she said. A robocall was sent to all WHS families that the test would take place, and emails were sent out. Teachers were also notified, and were able to notify interested students.
“We recognize how important this program is and perhaps next year it will be restructured. That’s up to the superintendent and principal, not the School Committee,” Sullivan said.
