October 2001 PTSA Forum Notes - The New LHS Administrative Staff
PTSA Copresidents Betsey Weiss and Barbara Close began the October forum with the election of Claudia Cooper as PTSA treasurer, and the approval of the 2001-2002 PTSA budget. The copresidents then introduced two members of the audience - Interim Superintendent Joanne Benton, and School Committee member Tony Close. The copresidents then turned the forum over to Interim Principal Ernest Van Seasholes.
Dr. Seasholes introduced his staff and stated that the plan for the evening was that each administrator would speak a bit about herself/ himself. Then they would respond to questions from parents. Unfortunately, Assistant Principal Kate Charest had a family emergency and was unable to attend. Ms. Charest is new to LHS and Dr. Seasholes was involved in hiring her. She comes to LHS from the assistant principal position at the high school in Portland, Maine.
Assistant Principal Laura Lasa has been teaching PE and coaching in Lexington since 1981. She feels lucky to able to continue coaching this year. She is a graduate of LHS, and Assistant Principal Aaron Sanders was one of her students. One of the things she loved about teaching PE is that she got to know practically all students. She wants to continue to get to know students, and she has been to almost every freshman and JV event. One of the advantages she brings to the job is that she already knows many of the students.
Assistant Principal David Lautman has been teaching in Lexington for nearly 22 years. At various times he has taught English, history, math, chemistry, physics, and biology, as well as the ACE program. He has been a resource teacher for the last ten years. He sees his new position as an opportunity to give something back in a time of change.
Associate Principal George Mechem is in his 33rd year at LHS. He remembers having both Aaron Sanders and Laura Lasa as students. He has been a teacher and he has coached hockey. Six years ago he became an assistant principal. He believes we need this new administrative model. The enrollment is growing, and with MCAS and the state frameworks he believes we need more administrators so that we can support students better.
Assistant Principal Aaron Sanders is also an LHS graduate. Parents enjoyed a gentle laugh with Mr. Sanders when he mentioned that he was the "senior" assistant principal because this was his second year in the position. Before coming to Lexington, he was a guidance counselor in Newton. This year, he has been working with the the ninth graders to help them make the transition to high school. He believes strongly that he needs to be an advocate for students.
Associate Principal Dionne McLaughlin is beginning her third year at LHS. Before coming to Lexington, she worked in Wellesley and Cambridge. In her current position, she has worked with the National Honor Society, managed parking, and worked closely with teachers.
Interim Principal Van Seasholes is beginning his 44th year in education, and he says he has the same enthusiasm he had when he started. He wants to make this a good year for all students. And he wants to make the LHS principal position as attractive as possible so that the best possible candidate can be hired. He considers himself a teacher. Dr. Seasholes hopes that the new administrative structure will, in the future, allow each administrator to teach one class. He has seen a trend in which the farther away from teaching you get, the higher the status and salary. He does not like this and wants to change it at LHS. He says that it is important to him that administrators not feel that they are leaving teaching, because being a teacher is so important.
Dr. Seasholes then spoke about how LHS is organized. There are more than 1700 students. Each assistant principal works with two guidance counselors. Each team of one assistant principal and two counselors is responsible for 25% of the students, or about 430 students. A student stays with the same guidance counselor and assistant principal for their whole four years at LHS. He would like the assistant principals to spend less time on purely administrative tasks, and more time in direct work with students.
The associate principals have some overall roles at LHS. Mr. Mechem is mentoring the assistant principals, and looking at the broader issues the administrative staff is working on. Mrs. McLaughlin put in tremendous hours on the scheduling tasks. She is also leading the technology initiative.
Dr. Seasholes teaches a class in the ACE program twice a week. He wanders the halls a lot and tries to get to know as many students and teachers as possible. He says that the real challenge for LHS is how can we keep the high academic standards here without its seeming that we are some kind of a little college.
A common theme in everyone's presentation was that they enjoyed working together and were energized by the group. They all spoke of the group's strength, enthusiasm, creativity and willingness to work hard.
At that point, the administrative staff responded to questions.
Parent: How do you actually get involved with students?
Response: The assistant principals use attendance and grades as two tools to get involved with students. After each quarter we get a list of students who received at least one D, F, or I. We also get a list of students whose grades dropped dramatically. And we also get regular reports about attendance. Teachers talk to us about their students. We check in with new teachers--there are 30 new teachers this year--to see how they are doing and we offer suggestions. There's a lot of talking with teachers. Each week, each assistant principal meets with the two counselors in their team and they discuss the students they are working with. The first place you see a student start to fall apart is attendance. We stay on top of that and find out what the reason is. We do our best to be visible. By being around we prevent conflicts from getting out of hand. Our goal is to get to know more students, before there are problems.
Parent: You alluded to academic stress as one of the issues you are working on. Do you plan to work with the student organizations on this?
Dr. Seasholes: During the last three weeks of the first quarter, there will be specific days for projects, and tests, for each department. This is a new initiative and we will look at this again at the beginning of the second quarter to determine its affect on the stress level. I met with the LHS Senate and have talked with faculty members. I have some reservations about some of the things the Senate has put forward. It is an organization that is supposed to represent all LHS students, in fact all of LHS, and yet its members are not representative of all students, nor of the whole LHS community. For example, no METCO students participate, and there are no secretaries or custodians in the Senate. I will certainly continue to work with the Senate.
Parent: Would it make sense to work with them to make them more representative?
Dr. Seasholes: There were no METCO students who ran for the Senate positions. The METCO coordinator says they do not see the Senate as relevant to their needs.
Parent: Are we evaluating any of the stress reduction methods that have already been implemented? For example, the information about the class's grades that is no longer on the back of report cards. This has actually added stress for us because now my kids spend time looking for this information.
Dr. Seasholes: Previously the back of reports cards showed how many As, Bs, Cs,and so on, were given in each class. A decision was made that that was too competitive. For some students it is not competitive. I do not know that we have a way to evaluate whether this reduced stress.
Lynn Meltzer: I'm a parent member of the academic stress committee. The committee includes administrators, teachers, students and parents. We have been meeting for a year and a half, and we recommend changes to reduce stress based on data and surveys. We recommended the staggering of days for tests and projects by departments. We looked at what other schools were doing. The changes we will recommend in the near future are based on the questionnaire that every LHS student took last year. The answers have been statistically analyzed. The decision about removing the grade distribution from the backs of report cards came from the LHS Senate.
Parent: We as parents cause a lot of stress. There are a lot of overrides of teacher recommendations by parents. That is a significant contributor to stress. The current debate on the number of honors classes is somewhat motivated by students who are being pushed by their parents to take all honors classes.
Parent: As a new LHS parent, I'm concerned about the abrupt transition for freshmen to different levels of classes. Also, with the MCAS graduation requirement, is there pressure to put programs in place to help students who do not pass?
Mrs. Benton: We need to have more conversation between fifth- and sixth-grade teachers, and between eighth- and ninth-grade teachers to have smoother transitions.The way that we are dealing with failure of MCAS is support after the school day.
Parent: What are you doing to help new teachers?
Mr. Mechem: One of the reasons for the new administrative structure is to better help new teachers. With 30 new teachers last year, and 30 new teachers this year, we must help teachers transition into LHS. One of the associate responsibilities is that we work with and evaluate the new teachers. We have a mentoring program that pairs experienced and new teachers. We have a general session where we share problems and do problem solving. Supporting new teachers at LHS is a huge concern for us.
Dr. Seasholes: We don't want to be administratively top heavy. But enrollment is growing. I would hope that in another year that all administrators will be teaching, Six administrators teaching is equivalent to a full- time teacher so that is a savings.
Parent: Does my student know all the other students that have the same administrator? Is there any sense of community among students?
Mr. Mechem: The students are assigned by building to assistant principal and counselor. They have a homeroom that meets once every two weeks and for special events. In terms of trying to make this a smaller school, the scenario would be that the counselors and assistant principal and their students are all together. We do not have this now but we are working to make it happen.
Parent: I've heard a counselor say that she really wishes she could get to know her students. Why can't she?
Dr. Seasholes: Our counselors have a heavy load compared to many schools. We have eight counselors and 1700 students. Our teachers also have a heavy load. We are losing teachers because we pay less for more work as compared to similar schools. It is unfair to expect this of them.
Parent: A lot of classes were missed last year because of no substitutes.
Mrs. Benton: We switched to a new substitute service this year. Already, we are getting much better coverage.
Parent: Is there a protocol for how you get involved in a student situation?
Mrs. McLaughlin: We try to differentiate between curriculum and discipline problems. If it is a curriculum problem, we encourage you to work first with the teacher. If there is no resolution, you should consult with the department head. If there is still no resolution, you should consult with your student's assistant principal. For a discipline problem, you should work with the teacher first, and if necessary with your student's administrator. A good source to find out who to consult with is the LHS Communications Guide. The guide was included with the September newsletter, and you can also access it online The URL is http:// lhs.lexingtonma.org/PTSA/ 7js4parm/comguide.htm.
-Tova Cohen, LHS/PTSA Secretary
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