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Graduation rates up significantly at all district high schools

Date: 6/5/2015

SPRINGFIELD – Superintendent of Schools Daniel Warwick told the School Committee on May 28 that graduation rates are “up significantly at all [high] schools.”

He said committee members should expect longer ceremonies.

He noted the district had the highest increase in graduation rates in the Commonwealth and that teachers and administrators “are going to try to match that.”

“If the number of students is up, we should talk shorter,” School Committee Vice Chair Christopher Collins joked.

The committee also heard a status report on asthma and its relationship to pollution caused by traffic. May was Asthma Awareness Month and Professor Sylvia Brandt of the University of Massachusetts Amherst spoke about recent finding on the cause and the impact of the disease.

Asthma is one of the most common childhood illnesses, which has a national rate of between 8 to 9 percent. In Springfield, though, the rate is as high as 23 percent in one school. Asthma is one of the leading causes of school absenteeism, she added.  

A family with a child with asthma faces an average cost of $3,500 a year between the cost of medical services and the loss of workdays to care for a sick child, Brandt said.

Tonya Hayes, a Springfield parent, explained that she lost her job because of the time she had to take off because of her sick child.

Brandt said studies have shown asthma can be reduced by not locating schools near highways or major roadways to reduce the exposure to traffic air pollution. She urged that anti-idling laws be enforced at schools to decrease air pollution and that barriers between roadways and existing schools be considered.

The School Committee also formally recognized the efforts of a group of students artists form Central High School and the Springfield Conservatory of the Arts whose work had been selected to be exhibited at D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts earlier in May.  

The honored students were: Hannah Hall and Taeya McMillian for “Urgency of the Moment;” Jania Pagan-Cruz for “My Hand Painting and Identity;” Lourdes Claudio and Amaya Hernandez for  “Legitimate Discontent;” Taryn LaPlatney for “My Hand Painting and My Passions;”? Yomaily Vazuqez and Aiden Costa for “Destiny Tied Up;” Alexis Suarez for “The Growing Heart of Scars;” Janaya Languer-Ford for “I am Funny and Loud;”? Mahailey Butler for “Struggle in My Life, by Art is Me;”? Phung Bui for “The Anatomy of a Rose;”? Isabel Caraballo  for “The Wolf’s Howl; Jenny Ly for “Crisp Skull;” and Nachaly Reyes-Santos for “Still-Life.”

The artwork had been in display from May 9 through 17 and the students received their choice of a free art course offered by the museum.