Saugus alum bequeaths $500G to high school

SAUGUS – Superintendent Richard Langlois announced Thursday night that Gloucester resident and Saugus High School alum Edward O?Neil bequeathed a gift of $500,000 to the high school.?I want to thank the family of Edward O?Neil for their support for the Saugus Public Schools,” said Langlois. “It?s a great investment and it?s nice to know someone still has fond memories of the school system.”Langlois said O?Neil?s will states the gift is only to be used for new projects and is not intended to offset any spending in the school budget.?He was very specific in his gift that it was not to supplant any local funding or offset any local funding,” said Langlois. “It will go directly to the high school to supplement any building effort particular to teaching and learning programs.”Langlois said attorneys for both the school and the O?Brien family are currently working on the details of the gift “in order to provide a statement of guidance as to how we will manage the investment.”Almost a month after the 2011 MCAS scores were released, Langlois gave a presentation on how Saugus schools fared this year.Langlois pointed to grades 3, 5 and 6 as all showing improvement from last year and said the high school improved by nine points in English from 2010. Langlois said the improvements are due in part to low class sizes, updates to text books and technology and an increase in high quality teachers.In response to two separate acts of vandalism from last weekend, Langlois said he?s meeting with a monitoring company to look into updating security systems at all the schools.The Waybright playground was vandalized with broken bottles and what Langlois called “vulgarities” on Saturday and that same night two people broke into the Belmonte Middle School and caused under $1,000 in damage said Langlois.Langlois also presented a Certificate of Academic Excellence to Saugus High Senior Stefani Terrazzano on behalf of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents.?Stefani is truly an outstanding member of the senior class,” said Langlois. “She?s consistently earned a GPA over 3.8 over her last three years. Stefani has always challenged herself by signing up for and being successful in the most advanced courses Saugus High School has to offer.”Terrazzano is a member of the National Honor Society, a peer mediator and is captain of the varsity soccer and softball teams. She plans to pursue a career in pharmacy after high school.?I just want to say thank you for the consideration for this award,” said Terrazzano. “It?s a big honor and I really appreciate it.”Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter @MattTempesta.