Londonderry High School’s New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) Steering Committee submitted its Five Year Progress Report for final evaluation, closing out the decennial review cycle, Principal Jason Parent reported at the School Board’s April 6 meeting.
“Now, we’re just waiting to hear the determination if we will be accredited through 2020,” Steering Committee Chairman Steven Juster said.
Highlighted recommendations in the school’s Five Year Progress Report, all of which were classified as completed, include the following: ensure the emphasis on depth over breadth in all curricula; provide sufficient time for professional planning and teacher collaboration; and develop a plan, with a timeline for implementation and sources of funding, to provide appropriate performance space for music and drama students.
To complete the recommendation that the school investigate building an auditorium, the School Board authorized $25,000 to the Londonderry School Community Auditorium Committee for conceptual, architectural and site analysis for the purpose of building an auditorium.
Based on the Committee’s resulting 71-page report, the School Board voted to create a warrant article to fund up to $500,000 for architectural and engineering plans for the construction of an auditorium. The Budget Committee voted 4-3 to support the warrant article.
“We believe the recommendation has been completed. No one can predict the public vote in March, but the process, in as much as we can control it, has come to its logical end,” the report said.
Although the voters ultimately voted against funding the architecture and engineering plans for the auditorium, Parent told the Board the recommendations don’t necessarily require a change to be classified as complete.
“When they ask us to complete a recommendation, it’s to do the leg work and to thoroughly investigate other options,” he said.
For example, NEASC asked the school to study alternative scheduling to LHS’s eight, 45-minute periods, according to Parent.
“The Committee looked at modified blocks, block scheduling, visited some schools, and spoke with faculty,” he said. “It’s still an ongoing discussion we’re having.”
In the case of the auditorium, the Steering Committee submitted the Auditorium Study Committee’s research and investigation with the School Board’s $25,000 commitment, as sufficient for completion of the recommendation.
In addressing the recommendation of emphasizing depth over breadth in all curricula, the report said the school’s philosophy is supported by the curriculum coordinators and reinforced in teacher observations and evaluations.
Students complete anonymous course evaluations, and the high school recently adopted the College Board Assessment Suite (Readi-Step, PSAT, SAT), which has increased flexibility in the pacing and emphasis of information delivery, according to the report.
“’Ensure’ is a difficult verb, as it represents an absolute. However, we believe we have completed this recommendation by embedding a process, which we will continue to ‘tweak,’ to ensure its implementation,” the report said.
The progress report goes on to describe professional conferences and department meetings, as well as other programs and training to provide professional development for teachers on the creation and use of rubrics and performance-based assessments; and for professional planning and teacher collaboration.
Parent said the school is pleased with Juster’s leadership of the review process and noted the Commissioner called him, as well as the Superintendent, to compliment them on the thoroughness of the school’s report.
Juster said the steering committee will regroup in about a year-and-a-half to begin the next cycle, which started in 2011 and follows a new format that requires submission of a pre self-study.
The Five Year Progress Report is available on the high school website at www.londonderry.org/lhs/.