Letter from the Superintendent

Higher Standards     

For many years, we as parents and community members have heard a great deal about “higher standards” for our students and our schools from the State Education Department. The push was originated from the former commissioner of education, Richard Mills, and the standard he set was the bar we as educators strived to reach year in and year out. Here at North Collins, our school report card as issued from the State of New York, as well as your child’s report card from school, indicated that we have done a very good job of reaching commissioner Mills’ ideals of higher standards.

As the summer winds down and we prepare our schools, and you prepare your children to return to “work,” you will be informed that the standard for which we strived to achieve has risen once again. The newly-appointed Commissioner of Education, David Steiner, along with the Board of Regents, have determined that the success of our students has reached a plateau, and the standard of what is considered success should be substantially raised. The difference in this process over the previous movement, however, is that the standard is being set immediately and the test scores from our students’ testing this past May and June will be compared to the new standard. 

What this essentially means is that our district result on state testing appears to be about 30 percent lower than last year. Unfortunately, it also means that many of our students’ individual results on state testing will be about 30 percent lower. These results are typical of most schools across New York State. It is important to note that had the standard stayed consistent with the past few years, we would have met or exceeded the requirement in all subject areas. This may be a source of frustration, but the idea reflected by Commissioner Steiner is that the state tests had become too easy and predictable and that it is a failure of the state to design adequate assessment, not a failure of schools and teachers.

The Commissioner’s position is to clearly make a one-time, full-scale movement to raise the bar of performance for all of us – and I am confident that we as a district, our students, and our teachers will rise to the occasion. We have shown that we are a capable school in academics, athletics, music and drama, and that our graduates often go on to make significant contributions to our world. With a time period of adjustment, and modification to our programming, we will again reach the success of our students that we have experienced over the last several years.

I welcome all of you to the 2010-2011 school year.

Respectfully, 

Benjamin A. Halsey

Superintendent

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