WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. October 13, 2004, Updated 8:26 A.M. E.D.T.: The regular monthly Board of Education unfolded routinely Tuesday evening at Education House without the drama of last month’s athletic director controversy, though the question of when the Athletic Director and Coordinator of Health Curriculum positions would be filled is still in the air.

Henry Cafaro and Ron Palladino, Director of Guidance and English Language Arts Coordinator, respectively, briefing the Board of Education on new format of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Photo by WPCNR News

Larry Killian, Director of Research & Testing, spoke on the District improvement in Math Scores, and Henry Cafaro, Director of Guidance, briefed the Board on issues raised by the new Scholastic Aptitude Test format, and resources and strategies the District was making available to WPHS students.

Assistant Superintendent for Human Resouces, Lenora Boehlert, said the committee evaluating applicants  for the Athletic Director position and the Coordinator of Health had decided that not enough experienced candidates for either position had applied.  She announced both positions would be reposted and readvertised.

She told WPCNR she expected more qualified candidates would apply and be able to join the district at midyear. She said many of the applicants had other positions and were no longer interested in the position, and announced to the Board “we do not  think we have a big enough pool or strong enough pool to bring those individuals to the full community.”

Middle School Math-ers Make Progress

In two pieces of good news, Larry Killian, Director of Research, Testing, and Evaluation, announced the district scores on the eighth grade New York State Achievement Test Math Exam had improved 16 points to 68%. Killian also said that 75% of the School District Elementary School Students passed the 4^th Grade Math Exam.

Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connors said that Killian would be back for a more detailed report on the test scores in the coming weeks, saying,

 “We’re meeting with representatives from all of our schools to talk about the next step. What we do know is Margaret’s (Dwyer) is going to be coming back and make a presentatioin to the board to talk about the five things we have to concentrate on in order to make sure all of our students are maximizing their potential. In terms of human resources.  We need to be clear about the body of language that we’re teaching the students. We need to get the parents involved. We need to excite the kids. We need to use data analysis in order to inform our instructors and the people who are developing the curriculum so we are on target.”

Ms. Dwyer, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction expressed interest in seeing the test scores that the Board was looking at, obviously unfamiliar with what they were discussing.

Connors put a coda on the discussion, saying, “She (Ms. Dwyer) doesn’t have these, what the Board has is just test scores, and clearly what the Board is going to see when Margaret comes before you the next time is laying out an agenda that is going to enable everybody to work together so that we focus all of our attention, all of our activities in providing our teachers with what they need to know in order to help our students maximize their potential to learn.”

Connors predicted the Board would be very excited about the upcoming Dwyer presentation because, “it’s  not the Margaret Show, it’s all of us working together including Larry (Killian), and Lucy (Roman) and all the folks out at technology of doing the data analyis. As Larry (Killian) says, we’ve made some gains and  still have a long way to go. And that’s a task for all of us.”

Donna McLaughlin, President of the Board of Education asked if the ever elusive longitudinal study (asked for by Ms. McLaughlin, Mr. McGuire and Mr. Pollak, Board members, for each of the last three years, and not available because of incompatibility of data), from 4^th to 8^th grade would finally be executed.

Mr. Killian went on record as saying that the Board would receive longitudinal result data showing how students fared on the achievement tests from the 4^th to the 8^th grades. He also reported results would be broken out by ethnicity.

McLaughlin finished the discussion with a positive note, saying “When you hear about all the things that go on in this District, when you hear about the National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists, and everything, I just hate when people look at numbers and say that’s what White Plains is all about because it’s not. It’s so far from it, it just breaks my heart when the Westchester Magazine with their statistics and everything else. It just does not tell the whole picture…I just wish people would come to White Plains and see the whole picture and see all the wonderful things that are going on. This is an unbelievable district. You cannot just look at numbers and know what this district is all about. As much as we talk about it and want our scores to be better, we know what White Plains is all  about and it’s not these numbers.”

Maria Valentin added that she felt the reason to be concerned about testing is the scores was different: “I hopefully speak for the Board, but I definitely speak for myself, but I think for us the concern with  testing is really because it addresses the issues of the (achievement) gap….aside from that, we know it’s a great district. It is a great district. But, clearly the numbers are important for that very important issue (the Achievement Gap).”

The New S.A.T. Challenge.

At the close of the meeting, Henry Cafaro, Director of Guidance at White Plains High School, and Coordinator of English Language Arts, Ron Palladino gave detailed presentations of the redesign of the Scholastic Aptitude Test which would be administered to WPHS students for the first time in March.

Cafaro explained that the verbal section emphasis had been shifted to “critical reading” now, that the analogies portion of the verbal had been eliminated. There was also a section on finding and correcting grammatical errors. Another major new change in the SAT, (which students have known about for a least a year, and should have been aware of taking place, according to the CitizeNetReporter’s resident teen), would be a 25-minute spontaneous essay as part of the test.

Cafaro noted the test would last longer, there would be more reading for comprehension and analysis as part of the verbal portion of the exam.  He confided to the CitizeNetReporter that there are no standards set yet on how the spontaneous writing section of the test would be graded, though a rough first draft quality was expected by the S.A.T. creators. Palladino said the writing assignment would, from what he had seen, would ask a student to take a position and defend it.

Mr. Cafaro reported that there was a help section on the new S.A.T. available on the Board of Education website that was available free to students, and that they should check with the Guidance Office (422-2174) to find out how to access it and use it as a resource. He also made note of the after school preparation course for the new S.A.T. the guidance office sponsored. Parents and students should stop by the high school guidance office

Palladino said that a national representative from the Scholastic Aptitude Test organization would be visiting the district to walk WPHS and Middle School English teachers through the new components of the exam on a staff conference day in advance of the Spring S.A.T. “launch.” He also said that an effort was under way to encourage teachers to provide practice in “writing on demand.”  Mr. Palladino confided that he was "thrilled" to see the concentration on grammar skills that was present in Middle and high school English classes since the start of the year, based on S.A.T. grammar questions. He also said a grammar course was under consideration next year in the Middle School.

Maria Valentin, Board Member, said whe was happy to hear that because "nationwide, we have veered away from the teaching of grammar."

Board of Education President Donna McLaughlin sounded a cautionary note, saying she was very worried about the students’ ability to work through the new test in an efficient manner, because there was a need for great reading for comprehension in what the sample tests she had read were asking:

Specifically, Mr. Cafaro reports the new Writing Component of the  SAT will consist of:

• 25-Minute Multiple Choice Grammar (identifying errors, Improving Sentences and Paragraphs)
• 25-Minute Student Written Essay (Communicating a Viewpoint, Defining and Supporting a Position)
• Worth 200 to 800 Points in Scoring.

The Verbal Section consists of:

      Paragraph Length Critical Reading Passages Added.

      Analogies have been eliminated.

The Math Section will change as follows:

      Content from Third-Year College Prepatory Math Has Been Added. (Advanced Algebra or Algebra II). This will make up about 10% of the math questions.

      Quantitative Comparisons Have Been Eliminated, (about 15 "easy math questions"), giving more time for the math problems.

The three sections of the SAT will now be worth a total of 2,400 points, and the test will last 3 hours and 35 minutes. Cafaro noted this would extend time for certain children entitled to extra time, to 5 hours and sometimes 6 hours for the test. The cost has gone up to $41.50 to take the test, from $29 previously. Cafaro observed that the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude test, being administered this coming Saturday to sophomores and freshmen would "pretty much parallel" the new S.A.T. format, and would give the administration a read on how the students would do.

Ivan Toper, Principal of White Plains High School said that  the students should be used to the way the test was being changed, because they have been taking previous aptitude tests that have changing to parallel the evolution of the new S.A.T. "A lot of the data parallels what experiences they currently have."

Cafaro reported that a number of tools are available to acquaint parents with the S.A.T. changes, and bring students’ confidence levels in negotiating the new test to ready levels:

He encouraged reading the regular Testing Bulletin, and taking advantage of the School District’s connection to online SAT/PSAT preparation that is free of charge, Parent Nights, reading the advisories in the Guidance Bulletin, using the preparatory material on the WPHS website, in the College and  Career Center, and attending the After-School Prep Program (which is free).

A Bereavement Seminar

Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connors started the evening with a moment of silence for members of the White Plains educational community who had died in the last month: Jason Soury, the senior at WPHS who was killed in an automobile crash on North Street October 3 and Alice Barrett. Mr. Connors said that a bereavement counselor would be addressing parents at a meeting at White Plains High School tomorrow, Wednesday evening, to help parents help their children deal with the griefing process now being experienced by WPHS students over Mr. Soury’s untimely death. The meeting takes place at 7:30 P.M. Wednesday for parents at the high school.