NEW GLOUCESTER – The SAD 15 board Wednesday excused all Gray-New Gloucester high school juniors who take the SAT exam April 1 from attending classes April 14.
“We are requiring all students come in on a Saturday to take the test. That is analogous to someone working Monday through Friday being told to come to work on Saturday and not getting a compensation day,” Chairman Alan Rich of New Gloucester said. “The incentive of a compensation day is not extravagant to bestow on these students.”
New Gloucester director Sharon Vandermay said, “It gives the wrong message to give a compensation day. The state did us a disservice after school began when the MEA went out the door and the SAT came in,” she said.
Last fall after schools opened, the state Department of Education did away with having 11th-graders take the Maine Educational Assessment. The standardized test is now taken only by third- through eighth-graders to measure comprehension and critical thinking skills in reading, writing and math.
The 11-graders are now required to take the SAT, which is a type of standardized test frequently used by colleges and universities to aid in selecting students for admission.
School leaders are worried that a 95 percent turnout for the SAT won’t be met as the federal No Child Left Behind requires.
“It’s really important that we make adequate yearly progress based on a 95 percent turnout,” Rich said.
He cited the average student attendance rate on a given day as roughly 93 percent.
This year, the penalty for not making adequate yearly progress, which is a benchmark set by each state, required SAD 15 to spend $50,000 in Title I funds to pay for tutors, director Tod Bennett of Gray said.
“The government has larger things they will do with our funds,” he said, if students fail to attend the SAT session.
In other business, Geoff Robbins who heads up SAD 15 athletics and student activities, told the board that Gray-New Gloucester students achieved high performances during the winter season.
The varsity girls basketball team placed sixth in the Western Class B and went on to the regional semifinals. The girls were awarded the Western Class B Girls Sportsmanship banner, a first for Gray-New Gloucester High School.
Varsity cheerleaders placed sixth in the Western Class B and at the state meet finished in fifth place.
Emma Lobozzo from the alpine ski team placed second in the state meet in slalom and sixth in giant slalom.
Dustin Cormier in the skimeister competition finished first in the Western Maine Conference and fourth in the state, making him one of the top four all-around skiers in the state in Class B.
Indoor track athletes placed in the he top 10 in their events.
Ice hockey players from Gray-New Gloucester and Poland high schools finished with an 11-8 record in the regular season and qualified for the Class A East tournament for the first time in the history of the program.
The Gray-New Gloucester High School drama team placed first in a recent festival and will go to the state competition in Camden on March 24 and 25.
Six teams of Gray-New Gloucester students who ranked first in the Western Maine Destination Imagination celebration will go to Orono in April to complete in the state meet.
The board spent the remainder of the meeting in a workshop finalizing the proposed 2006-2007 budget.
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