SAUGUS — Saugus School Superintendent Michael Hasham has told the School Committee he’s developing a plan to fill the gap left by the elimination of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) as the result of last month’s election.
“I’m working on a policy for the competency determination for graduation,” Hashem told the committee.
Massachusetts residents voted 59.9% to 41.1 in favor of dropping the MCAS. This fully eliminated the test as the standard for seniors to graduate, leaving schools to decide on what the next step is.
“I’m working on putting a policy together for you to review and approve or make suggestions to,” Hashem said.
Chairman Vincent Serino agreed that the policy committee will need to have a meeting at the beginning of the year, but he believes the state will create a new competency test to replace the MCAS.
“I think they will too,” Hashem said. “The biggest concern is for the class of 2025. Moving forward, I think everything will work itself out, but we have a senior class that needs to graduate.”
He said that seniors who have not passed the MCAS, even if they take the retest moving forward, don’t count anymore.
“If they’ve already passed it this year, it does [count], but moving forward, we need to come up with something,” he said.
