Revere test scores on rise as students return to class today

REVERE – School is off to a good start with a boost in Revere High School’s mathematics and science scores, thanks to help from a non-profit training program.The Massachusetts Math and Science Initiative spent $13.5 million provided by major donors to help high schools with low-income and minority students improve advanced placement scores in those two academic areas.Advanced placement math and science scores rose 39 percent for participating schools including Revere High.School officials hope to build on that positive when students who spent Thursday and Friday in school start their first full week of the 2009-2010 academic year today. Superintendent Paul Dakin said 25 new students registered each day last week at the parent information center in the Beachmont School.The School Department launched the center last year as a central registration point for public schools.”The PIC has been a Godsend in the sense that it keeps the confusion created by registering students out of the buildings during school time,” Dakin said.Construction workers suspended roof repairs at the Beachmont School for the first few days of the academic year in order to reduce the confusion typically marking the school year’s start. Dakin said schools faced relatively few traffic problems but police Capt. Michael Murphy urged drivers to stay alert this week and into September for students crossing streets on the way to school.Murphy urged parents to remind children to cross streets only at marked crosswalks and to walk children to school when possible.”It sets a good healthy example and helps reduce traffic around school facilities,” he said.Paul Revere students are attending Beachmont School while their new building is being built. Contractors spent most of this year razing the old school on Revere Street and preparing a foundation for the new building.Contractors will work through late summer and fall finishing the building with interior work underway by late winter and spring.School officials managed to balance the budget for the upcoming academic year in the face of state spending cuts with the cooperation of teachers, administrators and other employees who negotiated unpaid work days or deferrals in bargained pay hikes.For the second year, Whelan and Garfield middle schools are extending school days with teachers and students using the late afternoon time to focus on homework, arts and music programs and physical education.Dakin said school officials submitted applications to the state seeking to extend the school day at the McKinley and Anthony schools.Regular school hours for 2009-2010 are as follows: Kindergarten – 8:35 a.m. to 2:05 p.m.; grades one through five – 8:35 a.m. to 2:40 p.m. and middle and high school – 7:50 a.m. to 2:20 p.m.