On Tuesday, March 12, the monthly Board of Education (BoE) voting meeting was especially exciting due to a half-hour long presentation by the new principal of Lehman Alternative Community School (LACS), Deborah Ptak. The resulting discussion, which ranged from contentious to optimistic, shined a light on the future of alternative education in ICSD, and the goals of LACS and the BoE in their continued partnership.
Ptak began her presentation by outlining changes to LACS graduation requirements. Because LACS students don’t take regents exams, their performance is holistically analyzed by their educators. Ptak, currently in her first year as principal of LACS, has tried to overhaul the system of determining and testing fluency in core areas, aiming to give students greater agency in this process. This has come in the form of so-called “performance-based assessments,” which test all students in performance tasks in the areas of research, literary analysis, scientific experimentation, and problem solving. Students have the chance to create authentic experiences that reflect their interests, but they must complete tasks in each of the major subject areas required for graduation. Once students complete a task, they speak before a panel of advisors to assess their knowledge; if they complete their task, it is in lieu of a regents exam if it is deemed successful. Given that performance-based assessments are relatively new to LACS, Ptak notes that the infrastructure for supporting students through these tasks is still being developed. They hope to create classes for seniors that offer support with staff members, and to incorporate help sessions into their master schedule in the coming year.
After the presentation, the Board had the chance to ask Ptak questions about LACS’s direction; the questions were tough, and several led to roundabout answers. One such question related to the math curriculum at LACS—the school has lagged behind considerably in state metrics for assessing math performance in recent years. Ptak noted that LACS faces a challenge of integrating students with varied mathematical backgrounds given that it is a school that receives students from every feeder in the district. She also said that LACS strives for “alternativeness” and innovation even in traditional course offerings like math, which assessments don’t reflect. Nonetheless, Ptak said that she has encouraged the LACS math team to sit in on math classes in other alternative schools with high scores on the same metrics that LACS lags behind in.
Another question regarded the LACS graduation rate—in comparison to the IHS rate, which sits at around 90 percent, the LACS rate is about ten percent lower. Ptak defended this number—given that last year’s LACS graduating class consisted of only 44 students, she described the graduation rates at the two schools as “apples and oranges.” She also stated that individual students with unique needs must be considered, given that LACS receives students who wouldn’t succeed in a traditional academic setting. Ptak went on to list several individual cases of students who failed to graduate due to unique circumstances, but eventually agreed that the school needs to focus on better serving students at risk of failing to graduate.
In other LACS news, the presentation given by LACS students at last month’s board meeting about cultural biases in the ICSD calendar (see Board Meeting—Enfield Update and LACS Initiative, March 2019) struck a chord with students and staff at IHS. Staff members noted that they have to use personal absences to celebrate religious holidays that aren’t represented in the calendar; by the middle of the year, Jewish and Muslim staff members may not have personal absences left. Additionally, while an effort is made by some IHS staff to inform all teachers of religious days on which students may be absent, or where circumstances may affect athletic or academic performance as in Ramadan, many emails and reminders are simply ignored.
While LACS dominated the discussion at this meeting, future meetings will pertain more to upcoming changes at IHS and throughout the district. With a vote on the capital project and 2019 budget coming up in May, students are encouraged to attend meetings—which take place every other Tuesday—to learn more about the direction of their district and to speak to the BoE about their experiences and concerns.