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Date: 11/21/2023
WEST SPRINGFIELD — Middle school administrators and teachers need to share a “sense of urgency” about their falling state rating, School Committee members said on Nov. 14.
Their comments followed West Springfield Middle School Principal Peter Gillen’s report on academic progress at the school, in which he spoke about dips in English and math achievement “relatively consistent with state[wide] performance in middle schools,” and described some of the new curriculums teachers are training to implement in 2024-25. School Committee members said the improvement must start now, however.
“The sense of urgency certainly is there,” Gillen said in response. “As we look at the work to do, there’s nobody waiting until next year. There’s nobody saying ‘a new curriculum is going to fix it in ’24 or ’25.’ … I agree and I’m on that same page.”
In his report, Gillen had noted that the school’s “accountability” score, a state measurement that compares schools with similar populations on their student test scores, individual improvement in test scores, absentee rates and the progress of English language learners, had fallen from the 28th percentile last year to the 22nd percentile this year.
Committee member Colleen Marcus found that drop “very concerning.” She said the state makes a point of commending schools that raise their accountability scores by 5 points or more, so the equivalent decline should be treated seriously.
"Technically, 78% of other like schools are higher,” Marcus said. “Another year like last year and you will drop below 20. I’m proud of the West Springfield public schools. We are better than below-20%.”
Marcus added that the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education sets improvement targets tailored to each school, and WSMS achieved only 12% of its targets, while other comparable schools reached 23% to 55% of their targets.
Gillen also had some positive statistics to share. He said this year, WSMS had been ranked in the top 25% of middle schools in the state by U.S. News & World Report for the first time in its history. He also touted progress in reducing chronic absenteeism — which spiked in all schools in the aftermath of the COVID-19 shutdowns — and illicit use of e-cigarettes in the school building.
He said staff caught students vaping 40 times in 2022-23, but so far this year there have been none. That doesn’t mean vaping has been eliminated completely, Gillen said, but it does point to a “tremendous, tremendous success” in efforts to educate middle schoolers about the dangers of e-cigarettes, and the installation of vaping detectors in school bathrooms.
School Committee member Nancy Farrell said the reduction in chronic absenteeism to just over 20% is a good start, but the goal has to be to return to pre-COVID-19 levels, which were 9%.
She said she appreciated hearing that all West Springfield Middle School teachers, not just English learner specialists, are receiving training on teaching students with a different first language. Gillen said more than 100 of the school’s approximately 900 students are classified as English learners or former English learners, and he emphasizes to the faculty that reaching this group is the responsibility of every teacher.