On Sept. 14 at the Metuchen High School library, Acting Principal Bruce Peragallo identified a number of his specific goals for the 2009-10 school year.
He also took a minute to note the school’s dress code policy by confirming that as of that day, not a single student had been forced home due to violation of the dress code, despite rumors to the contrary.
“We have not sent anyone home due to the dress code,” Peragallo said. “We will, however, literally redress some kids during the day if need be if we feel that what they are wearing is inappropriate, as we do keep some clothes for that purpose. We are trying to create the behavior that says students understand this is a workplace.”
Peragallo also assured parents that sweatpants are allowed, as long as they are pulled up and the same pair is not worn for physical education classes or athletic training.
“We don’t want kids who are going to sleep in sweatpants coming to school in them, going to physical education or practice in them, and then sleeping in them. Some may then even return to school the next day in the same pair in an extreme example. We want clothes to be in good taste, washed and so on and so forth.”
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Standardization of Lesson Plans. I think it was when I first came to the high school that one of the things that surprised me was a lack of standardization in our lesson plan. I have since created a template that all our teachers use for our lesson plans, which I then also receive a copy of. As a result, there is now a level of accountability to the supervisors and also to me. That has gone very well, and most of our teachers have embraced a standardized lesson plan format.
Standardization of Grading Practices. I feel that at some level we need to standardize some of our grading practices. This is an evolving goal which I am talking to Mr. Pinero, our Director of Curriculum, about. We are looking at this in each one of our schools, and it is more or less a district goal. It is something that we are looking at very seriously in consultation with our supervisors and central office staff. An assessment process to me is very important… and we will put together committees to study our grading policies to see if we need to make a change or if everyone is okay with where we are at. I want to look at everything.
Online Grading. We hope to have online grading in place by the second half of the school year. I am piloting it right now with different members of the faculty. I have also asked representatives of each our departments to make suggestions as to how we can refine it so it works best for our high school.
Middle States Accreditation. The Middle States (wiki) is an ongoing six-year process in that we have action plans in place for our student performance objectives. Our academic objective is to raise HSPA (wiki) scores by three percent for the target year of 2016. We will also begin to do more professional development in the areas of differentiated instruction and assessment, and using the Understanding by Design strategy that has been developed by the state Department of Education in the development of their core standards. We will receive a final formal report in the next month or so. Once we have that the Board of Education will receive it and there will be an opportunity for us to speak to present the finding of that final report. But from the draft we have seen and from what we have heard, we feel very confident that we will get full accreditation through the Middle States process.
You can read more about the Middle States accreditation standards in full detail in this .pdf file.
Community Service. I am hoping through this initiative to get our students to understand the importance of community service and volunteering. I think we should link community service or volunteering experience with exposure to a career path if we can.
Principal’s Round Table. This is something that came out of Middle States, but it is something that I enjoy doing. I am creating a Principal’s Round Table which will meet in October for the first time. It will be an opportunity to identify different students each month to get a pulse as to what is happening in the building and to hear from students if there are any concerns that they have. They are the heartbeat of what is happening in our schools and I want to be a part of that heartbeat. This means talking to students that are a cross-section of our student body and not just those that are in the AP or honors classes.
Academic Recognition. I have also asked our teachers to help me with identifying students who have achieved at a level that we have not recognized in the past. What I mean is I am very concerned with our academic achievement. In the past we have done an excellent job with our athletic achievement, but I want to begin recognizing those students who do very well in class and on the SATs. I want our teachers to bring those students forward. So we are beginning the process of recognizing those academic achievements, possibly on our website or in newspaper releases. But if nothing else, we may just get their names up on our TV screens in the cafeteria and in the hallways so that those youngsters receive the recognition that they deserve. We are also looking to create a Student of the Month program. We will hopefully identify a student at each grade level that has had high academic performance and has done something extraordinary in the school community. Academic recognition is where we need to go.
Improving Public Relations. In addition to academic recognition, there are other wonderful things that take place here at Metuchen High School that we have not done a good job of communicating. Things such as our co-curricular programs, volunteerism, our Buddy Ball program… there are many things our kids do very well.
