A letter sent by Superintendent, Dr. Paul Ash, points out the following:
Recent LPS Accomplishments
November 29, 2011
- Bridge School wins the Massachusetts Gold-level award for health and wellness. This award is given yearly by the DESE to a school with a strong commitment to the health of its students and staff. Bridge School faculty and staff members were commended for their outstanding achievements in school health policies, health education, physical activity, nutrition, staff wellness, and tobacco prevention. As part of this award, Bridge received $500, which will be used to purchase pedometers for physical education classes and fitness games for indoor recess.
- SATs – For the fifth year in a row, LHS had the highest average combined SAT scores in the State of Massachusetts.
- LHS received the College Board’s 2nd Annual AP District Honor Roll for significant gains in advanced placement access and student performance. There were 367 districts across the nation that were honored, based on meeting all three of the following criteria: the number of AP tests (LHS = 741), the percentage of students scoring 3 or above (LHS = 92%), and a steady increase in the percentage of exams taken by African American, Hispanic/Latino, and American Indian/Alaska Native students.
- MCAS – Lexington had the highest MCAS scores in grades 3 through 10, as compared with other high performing towns in eastern Massachusetts. Please see the attached report to the School Committee.) For example, 99.8% of all grade 10 students scored at the proficient (23.8%) and advanced (76%) levels on the ELA examination. By definition – we closed the ELA MCAS achievement gap on this test, since 99.8% of the grade 10 students scored proficient or above in ALL subgroups (ELL, Special Education, Students of Color, and Low Income). On the grade 10 mathematics examination, 87% of the students scored at the advanced level, which is the highest percent scoring at the advanced level in the state. I hope all teachers take pride in the grade 10 results – Great teaching, starting in elementary school, made these results possible.
- The other MCAS scores in grades 3 through 10 were outstanding. See report to the School Committee at: http://lps.lexingtonma.org/cms/lib2/MA01001631/Centricity/Domain/565/MCASLexington2011.pdf
- METCO – In the last two years, the combined grade 3 through 10 MCAS scores in mathematics increased from 40% advanced and proficient to 57% advanced and proficient (up from 38% two years ago). The grade 3 through 10 ELA scores were 72% at the advanced and proficient levels (up from 57 percent two years ago). Please see the METCO presentation to the School Committee at: http://lps.lexingtonma.org/cms/lib2/MA01001631/Centricity/Domain/565/METCOreport28Nov11.pdf After years of hard work by many of you, we now have METCO general education support structures in place at every level of the district. Some of the METCO support programs include: The MELP elementary learning program (grades 2 through 5), MathPath summer school program for middle school students, a new middle school extended day support program, tutoring programs in many schools, expanded middle school mathematics and reading intervention programs, the LHS Academic Achievers Program, a summer institute for incoming grade 9 students, the Success Highways program to build resiliency skills, the LHS Scholars Program, and Today’s Students Tomorrow’s Teachers program at LHS. These programs and quality teaching in your classrooms helped produce these results.
- Special education – Lexington had the highest MCAS mathematics scores in grades 3 through 10, as compared with other high performing towns in eastern Massachusetts. Please see report to the School Committee at: http://lps.lexingtonma.org/cms/lib2/MA01001631/Centricity/Domain/565/MCASLexington2011.pdf. Twenty-four percent (24%) of our students in grades 3 through 10 scored in the advanced level. The range of scores for high performing school districts in our area was 6% to 17%.
- LHS was awarded high honors from the Massachusetts School Counselors Association for its submission: – Increasing access for our METCO students to college entrance exams – Organizing Career Day to address MA Career Development Education Benchmark W3-3 (increasing student knowledge of risks and rewards of various careers)
