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MHS students face tough new enforcement
(by George Wirt - October 09, 2008)
Montclair High School students who are late to class are facing something different this school year: Detention.
Or, as school officials prefer to call it, "consequences."
In the wake of a recent intensive state review of the town’s secondary school, Montclair School District officials are insisting on strict enforcement of the high school’s existing rules and policies, especially those requiring students to be in their seats in class on time.
In the weeks ahead, MHS students can expect to see a new in-school suspension program, a revised attendance policy and a new dean of attendance to oversee them and communicate the policies and changes to the entire school community.
Ernestine Gordon, a longtime MHS administrative staffer, has been serving as the school’s acting dean of discipline, according to Schools Superintendent Frank Alvarez, and Gordon will now be given the additional duties of dean of attendance.
Alvarez said the district is responding to the findings of a state-mandated Collaborative Assessment and Planning for Achievement (CAPA) School Review. A 41-page report based on a CAPA Team’s visit to Montclair High School this past May found that students were too lax in the way they responded to attendance rules and other school policies, and that communication within the school should be improved.
The CAPA team, which included staff from the NJ Department of Education as well as members of the district’s Department of Instruction and MHS supervisors, sought to identify why MHS students with disabilities missed their benchmark targets in language arts literacy and math in recent statewide testing.
The team also wanted to determine why African-American and economically disadvantaged students were falling short in mathematics in that same round of testing.
According to Assistant Schools Superintendent Terry Trigg-Scales, the CAPA team spent several days in Montclair High School and conducted more than 100 interviews with students, teachers and administrators. After compiling a small mountain of information, the team pinpointed two root causes.
n "There is little evidence of a systemic understanding among the school community of the relationships between and among structure, freedom, academic excellence and maturation," the CAPA report stated.
n It went on to say "there is no formal process of communication between the school and community or within the school."
To many of the team members, it had become clear that the "open campus" concept, through which so many Montclair High School students in recent years have flourished, has become too relaxed.
Trigg-Scales said that some students whom team members spoke with expressed a desire for more structure.
"The rules and polices have been in place for several years, and students and some staff had become familiar and comfortable with them," Alvarez said. "Our problem wasn’t that we didn’t have policies in place, but that the enforcement wasn’t consistent."
Trigg-Scales explained that MHS officials have to constantly search for the right balance between structure and freedom under which their students can excel.
She said that the school district is determined to maintain MHS’s open campus, but said officials are also just as determined to make sure students meet the proficiency levels set by the state Department of Education.
Another factor is the size of Montclair High School. With 2,000 students from diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds and a campus that sprawls over two blocks, MHS is more like a small liberal arts college, according to Boards of Education President John Carlton.
District officials have responded quickly to the CAPA report. Trigg-Scales said that the school’s new interim principal, Judith Weiss, informed students and staff of the new stricter enforcement policy when school reopened for the new academic year.
Weiss is filling in for Mel Katz, who announced his retirement this past spring after serving as MHS principal for four years. As the Board of Education seeks a permanent replacement, Katz is employed to assist in the transition and work on special projects for the Montclair School District.
Students can expect to get detention for being late. Repeat offenders can expect detention on Saturdays. Unexcused absences will lead to parental notification.
Meanwhile a new action plan developed by administrators will include additional professional development training, biweekly meetings with the supervisors and the assistant superintendent, and walk-throughs of classrooms.
Trigg-Scales said the school will also develop an academic support program for athletes who find themselves falling behind in their classroom assignments.
She said it was vital that MHS students understand the need for good scheduling and making mature decisions and choices.
Contact George Wirt at wirt@montclairtimes.com.
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