Lynn all ready for start of school Wednesday

LYNN – Classical High School students are all under one roof again and hall monitors are back in schools Wednesday as educators look to a smooth start for the 2009-10 academic year.?The Classical work has been completed and freshmen are back in the building,” said School Superintendent Catherine Latham.Major structural reconstruction in the O?Callaghan Way school forced the relocation of freshmen to Fecteau-Leary School on North Common Street. With the work completed, Classical starts a new year with new Principal Gene Constantino at the helm.?The building looks wonderful,” Latham said.School starting times are the same as last year but Latham urged parents of students attending Fecteau-Leary to double check start times.Latham and principals kept an eye in August on last-minute enrollment numbers. In past years one or two schools saw an influx of new students.This year new enrollments are spread across the public school system with English High seeing a particularly large enrollment spike: Over 1,700 students are expected to start school there.Despite shifting enrollments and other concerns, Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. said only six out of 316 public school classrooms will have as many as 30 students to a class. City and school budget makers overcame financial problems to restore hall monitors to schools.Local schools launch a new year even as public education across the state earns high marks with recent results on the state?s comprehensive assessment tests.Massachusetts students scored higher on the MCAS exam in most grades and across all subgroups, improving on several years of flat or lower test scores in elementary and middle schools, state officials announced last week.Four-fifths of 10th graders scored “proficient” on the English/Language Arts test, and three-fourths earned proficient marks on the math test.Ninety percent of this year?s high school seniors have posted MCAS scores sufficient to allow them to graduate. But achievements gaps for minorities and low-income students still persist: only about half of seniors with limited English proficiency, two thirds of seniors with disabilities and about three-quarters of Hispanic or Latino students are among those on track to graduate.State officials highlighted the performance of students now entering their junior year, telling reporters at a press conference that their across-the-board improvements indicate “significant and persistent progress.”The 10th-graders made gains in math and science, and gains were recorded among African American, Asian, Hispanic/Latino and white students, along with students with disabilities, limited-English students and low-income students.But fewer than half of students in seventh and eighth grades earned proficient grades on the MCAS math test, which state officials highlighted as “an area of concern.”The MCAS results buoyed state education leaders, who expressed confidence that even when federal stimulus funds for education dry up, educators were poised to continue fostering strong results. State officials frontloaded $412 million of federal education aid, originally intended for use next fiscal year, to help balance the fiscal 2009 budget.The move ensures that a so-called funding cliff n when federal aid runs out – will materialize quicker.The announcement, the earliest-ever release of statewide results for a test that?s been administered annually since 1998, comes as the Patrick administration prepares to vouch for bills to enable the state to more proactively intervene in underperforming school districts and to lift the cap on charter schools around the state.District and school results are still being compiled and will be released publicly later in September.