Lynnfield super presents SAT plan to school board

LYNNFIELD ?Lynnfield High School Principal Robert Cleary presented an SAT improvement plan to the School Committee Tuesday night that focused on making students as ready as possible for the test without devoting a significant portion of the curriculum to SAT preparation.?We don?t want to get caught up in teaching to the test,” Cleary said.The first portion of the plan, he said, is analyzing test performance data from the PSAT and the SAT to highlight and fix any subject area weaknesses. The other component is getting the students familiar with the format of the SAT and reviewing test-taking strategies.He proposed integrating small, SAT-specific activities into the classes, such as a warm-up exercise, so that students are familiar with the types of questions that appear on the test, while still learning information relevant to the curriculum.Superintendent Thomas Jefferson then outlined three goals that he wants to begin developing: have 85 percent of students in each grade level reach advanced proficiency on the MCAS in all subject areas, make school district improvements in curriculum revision and teacher evaluation and training, and offer instructional coaching to teachers.At the beginning of the meeting, Hayley Timmons, an eighth-grader at Lynnfield Middle School, and Curtis Craffey, a freshman at Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody and son of committee member Michael Craffey, shared their experiences with Project 351. The initiative is an annual community service day, created last year by Governor Deval Patrick, to inspire youth leadership and commemorate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. Timmons was Lynnfield?s student ambassador to the event this year on Jan. 14, and she said she spent the day in Boston listening to speakers at the State House and volunteering at the Greater Boston Food Bank.Before the meeting adjourned, the committee voted to approve the school calendar for the upcoming school year, the high school?s program of studies for the next school year and the high school hockey team?s trip to Martha?s Vineyard for a tournament from Feb. 17 to Feb. 19.The School Committee will meet again on Feb. 28 in the high school media center.Sarah Mupo can be reached at [email protected].