School improvement plan continues for Hodgdon H.S.

By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
    HODGDON — After appearing on the state’s “persistently low-achieving schools” list for two straight years, school officials at Hodgdon High School believe they have the programs in place to start turning things around.
    Hodgdon High School was one of 10 schools named by the Department of Education back in April as a low performing school based on SAT scores over a three-year period from 2007-2010. It marked the second straight year that the school appeared on the list.
    The district could have applied for federal funds to assist in improving its scores, but had to agree to one of four options — fire half of the existing staff and principal; convert to a charter school; close the school and send students elsewhere; or fire the principal and change the way material is taught in the school.
    The SAD 70 board twice declined to accept the federal funds offered to them, and instead placed their trust and support in the school’s principal Clark Rafford to come up with a high school improvement plan for HHS. Rafford updated the board on that plan during a July 11 meeting.
    “When we made the list in 2010, we put an action plan into place,” Rafford explained. “We won’t see if the impact of that plan was successful until the test scores are reviewed and the new list comes out next April. I do feel that we have made some growth.”
    Being named to the list is not an indication that Hodgdon High School has performed the lowest on its SAT scores in the state. Instead, it means that the school has not shown enough growth on its scores over a three-year period.
    “Whether we agree with the method or not, what drives this list is performance on the SAT,” Rafford said. “If you have 150 kids taking the test, you can absorb a few scores that aren’t so good. But when you have less than 50, it’s much more significant.”
    Simply having a higher score from one year to the next is not necessarily enough to get off the list, Rafford explained. A school must show significant improvement in its scores, based on a formula created by the Department of Education.
    In the first year of his plan, the high school put an SAT preparatory course into place for juniors as an elective, but that was then changed to make it a graduation requirement at HHS. The course is given to juniors, but if it is not passed, that student must re-take the course in his or her senior year, even though they have already taken the SAT.
    “We understood that SAT prep needed to be brought more to the forefront so we made it a requirement,” Rafford said. “It really made a difference for a lot of kids. I talked with some of them after they took the SAT exam and the comments I heard were they felt they were better prepared.”
    The second year of the plan calls for increased involvement with parents in all aspects of the school.
    “We would like to get a parent group of volunteers to offer their time to sit down with us to come up with ways to get more parental engagement in the high school,” Rafford said. “It’s not really to talk about policies or curriculum, but to talk about how we can get more parents coming in and volunteering in the school; talking about what they had to do to get to the point they are at in their careers.”
    Rafford said this effort would give students first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to work in specific fields and what is required to get into a particular career and be successful.
    The students have been feeling the need to show improvement, Rafford added.
    “The kids understand the SAT is what makes or breaks our placement on the list,” he said. “I think they all understand that. The expectation is we need to improve. We all own it.”