3 Saugus schools fail to hit AYP goals

SAUGUS – Three of the district’s six schools failed to make state improvement targets in MCAS, but no one seemed particularly surprised at the news.Superintendent Richard Langlois told the committee Thursday that the Oaklandvale Elementary School along with the Veterans Memorial School and the Belmonte Middle School missed the improvement mark again this year.Schools that fail to meet their improvement targets, known as Adequate Yearly Progress are deemed in need of improvement, corrective action or restructuring. The Oaklandvale and Veterans schools were marked for improvements, while the middle school is undergoing restructuring.Langlois said the schools are required to provide action plans to outline the steps they will take to address the problems, which they are doing.Oaklandvale School Principal Kathleen Stanton said she began to read her MCAS scores, “but I stopped because it was sad.”The Oaklandvale lost ground with its scores this year, but Stanton said she is not surprised.Last spring Stanton, along with the district’s other principals, laid out how scheduled budget cuts would affect the schools.”We lost resources,” she said simply.The elementary schools took the budget cuts hard when reading teachers and other positions were cut. At Oaklandvale, classes were shifted with time taken from science and social studies to address remedial reading issues.”We knew we’d take a hit and we did,” Stanton said. “You can’t help but feel like you’ve been punched in the stomach when you read the scores though. Everybody worked so hard with so little and you think, ‘Oh for crying out loud is this our reward?’ but we will try and reverse it.”To do that, Langlois said the district will use a couple of different approaches. First, school officials will collect statistical analysis to pinpoint specific areas of weakness and strength.Reading teachers have already been restored at the elementary level and the middle school has added math and literacy specialists. Langlois said they also plan to target professional development, building curriculum maps and investing in technology.”We will commit to working to get off the radar for AYP,” he said. “It will take the whole community but we’ll continue to meet regularly to address it. We’ll meet weekly if we have to do that.”