WESTFIELD – Except for Mayor Brian P. Sullivan taking the seat as chair, the School Committee remained largely unchanged following Monday morning’s inauguration and swearing in ceremony.
Ramon Diaz, Jr. was voted in as vice chair at Monday evening’s regular meeting, and Cynthia Sullivan as secretary. Sub-committee assignments will also remain the same. Diaz said he was not looking to change any assignments because of the work already “in motion.”
One of the ongoing issues before the committee was settled at the meeting, as the human resources sub-committee, led by Diane Mayhew, made the recommendation to change the kindergarten entrance age to 5 years old as of Sept. 1, 2016. Previously the entrance date was August 1.
At the last meeting, Mayhew said out of 400 districts in the state, the entrance age is split about 50/50 between the two dates.
“Are we still anticipating somewhere between 25 and 30 new students?” Kevin Sullivan asked, adding whether the committee felt comfortable in accommodating that level of new students, to which they said yes. The motion to change the date to Sept. 1 then passed unanimously by roll call.
Also, in an ongoing series of presentations to the School Committee, the principals of Munger Hill, Paper Mill and Southampton Road schools spoke about the goals and challenges for their schools.
Southampton Road principal Kathleen O’Donnell spoke about two new programs in her school, Quest and the transitional kindergarten program. O’Donnell said the latter is for children who are not quite ready to join the larger kindergarten class in September. She said there were six children in the class this fall that weren’t ready.
“It’s a great program. I love those kids,” O’Donnell said.
The Quest program also offers a home base for third, fourth and fifth grade students with different levels of social and emotional challenges.
During the presentation by Principal Marcia Estelle about the Munger Hill Elementary School, which houses five of the district’s Special Education (SPED) programs, the discussion of the impact of MCAS came up.
“It’s a challenge when it comes to MCAS,” Estelle said.
She said all students must take the pen and paper test, and it is not an impactful way to measure their progress because of special needs. The school houses two language learning disabled programs, two life skills programs, and one developmentally disabled program.
Estelle said the school showed improvement in all areas, but was still considered below its targets.
“We did all the right things in terms of putting our programs in Munger Hill,” said Westfield Superintendent Suzanne Scallion. “Your trajectory was set a long time ago when Munger Hill was a very different school.”
One of the difficulties brought out in the presentation was that Munger Hill does not qualify as a Title I school, and is therefore not eligible for certain reading programs that are available in other schools. Estelle said this is the first year that the school has a sub-group that is economically disadvantaged.
Later in the meeting during the Superintendent’s Report, Scallion came back to the matter of MCAS.
“Westfield High School’s ELA (English Language Arts) scores were the highest ever. The sub-group (most at-risk students) didn’t meet their target,” she said, which dropped them from a Level 2 to a Level 3 school. She said that the students were asked to achieve targets without anyone in the state knowing their special needs.
Scallion said advanced placement in the high school increased from 118 to 169 students during the same period.
“It’s not okay that 1,300 kids are being penalized. The blame is squarely on Boston,” Scallion said. She has written a column about the issue that she will submit for publication to the Westfild News this week.
During Paper Mill’s presentation to the School Committee, Interim Principal Cynthia Kennedy introduced new Vice Principal Susan Buchanan of Westfield, who began at the school in November. This is Buchanan’s first assignment in the Westfield Public Schools, having previously worked in Chicopee.
