SAUGUS — The School Committee opted to delay a scheduled vote on the proposed handbook for the Saugus Middle-High School Thursday evening, with only three of the committee’s five members present for the meeting.
The committee was set to vote on the handbook Thursday, which contained two significant policy adjustments for the district — raising the standard for students graduating with honors, and bringing athletic-eligibility requirements in line with those of the MIAA, more than a month after Middle-High School Principal Brendon Sullivan first sought the committee’s support. But, with Vice Chair John Hatch and Committee member Dennis Gould absent, Chair Vincent Serino said the committee members didn’t want to vote without two members.
Sullivan brought the handbook before the committee on June 15, and committee members opted to table a vote that night to take more time to review the proposed changes, which proved somewhat divisive. Specifically, Sullivan wanted to bring the threshold for graduating with honors up to a GPA of 3.7 or higher, replacing the current 3.0 benchmark, and allowing athletes to fail up to two classes while maintaining their eligibility, as opposed to the district’s stricter policy allowing just one failing grade.
Student-athletes who do fail two classes would be required to enroll in the high school’s credit-recovery program, and Sullivan stressed that the work students were doing there and in the classroom would have to come before their athletics. More than half of the students in the Class of 2023 cleared the 3.0 benchmark, Sullivan said. He added that the athletic-eligibility change would only affect a handful of students and would not have altered results on the field.
The proposals garnered a mixed reaction from the committee, perhaps best evidenced by the 3-2 vote to table the handbook vote during the committee’s June 15 meeting. Both Serino and Committee member Ryan Fisher said the two proposals seemed to contradict one another, while Gould objected to the higher standard for honors.
“I’m confused by this kind of mixed message,” Serino said. “We want achievement. But then, we’re going to let a student-athlete [fail two classes]… I’m kind of torn on this, to be honest.”
Sullivan, at the time, pushed back on the notion that raising the standard for honors while amending the standard for student-athletes were in conflict with one another.
“They’re driving at different points,” Sullivan said.
He noted that it was his view that amending the eligibility requirements for student-athletes could incentivize students to stay engaged with their school work.
Gould expressed strong support for the athletic-eligibility requirement shift, and wound up voting against tabling the handbook despite his objections to the new standard for honors.
Serino supported the motion to table the vote, saying he didn’t feel prepared to vote on the document and wanted more time to digest the changes.
The committee is likely to take up the handbook again during its next meeting, which Serino said is scheduled for Aug. 12.
