Swampscott High faces sanctions from New England schools group

SWAMPSCOTT – High School Principal Layne Millington told the School Committee that he needed “no interference” to address 56 recommendations within five years in order for the high school to retain its accreditation, highlighting the myriad issues facing the School District as the news overshadowed two separate requests that the committee revisit the controversial Chemical Health Policy”I can do this work, but it’s got to be done without interference,” Millington told the Committee after presenting a preliminary report from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). “The minute there are too many cooks in the kitchen, we’re going to fail.”The report is a result of a two-year self evaluation completed by the high school in June 2010 and the results of a visit to the school from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3 of this year.The unofficial report from the NEASC – which accredits schools, colleges and universities in New England as part of a national accreditation consortium representing research-based best practices – revealed that the high school will be sanctioned for not meeting three out of the seven standards by which schools are evaluated, Millington said. Those three areas are Mission and Expectations for Student Learning; Curriculum and Assessment of Student Learning.”Being sanctioned by NEASC is an enormous liability,” Millington wrote in a PowerPoint presentation, explaining that NEASC standards are used in standardized testing as well as college admissions.Millington and Superintendent Lynne Celli said that many of the issues identified in the report are being currently addressed in the district’s curriculum review. For instance, while it praised the high school’s interdisciplinary courses, the report criticized that there was no complete written curriculum for the school or for all the grade levels in the district. Earlier in the meeting, Celli presented a proposal to restructure the current assistant superintendent position and add a new administrative position which will unify the district’s curriculum among all grade levels to help Millington address this issue.”I can’t achieve our goals for the high school, or the community goals for the high school without that person in place,” Millington affirmed.But meeting the recommendations will require “immense” work including community evaluations and forming committees of students, faculty and community members for each standard that the school needs to address, Millington said. The board had also earlier agreed to form another committee of community members and students to review the Chemical Health Policy.”We’d like to allow folks who didn’t have a say (previously) to have their voices heard,” said Heidi McCoy, of the Repeal and Rethink Swampscott’s Chemical Health Policy.Committee Chair Jacqueline Kinney said that the committee had voted to review the policy at their Monday meeting and would work with McCoy to incorporate more community members. She offered a similar response to Student Body Representative on the School Committee William Travascio after he presented a survey showing that 77 percent of surveyed students agreed that the policy “should be suspended until additional testimony can be given from students, parents and members of the community.”McCoy also requested that the policy – or at least the 365-day application of the policy – be suspended until Sept. 1, saying that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was “primed for the first summer infraction” to initiate litigation against the town or schools, which was “the last thing that anybody wants.”And although she made her request before Millington’s announcement about the NEASC report, McCoy said that “by no means are we looking to further burden the School Committee and Mr. Millington.”Nobody on the committee made a motion to accept McCoy’s request.