Great Mills High Gets Once Over

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This was the good news for the Great Mills High School Enhancement Study Group when it met on February 22. There were 36 attendees when the group was called to order, but more than 40 people attended as the meeting continued. Interim Suprintendent Dr.Lorraine Fulton announced the names of 5 others who were unable to attend on a Tuesday, but would attend future meetings.</B></div> <div> <B>Dr. Fulton told the group they “did not have to reinvent the wheel.” There is, she said, a a 5 year plan for eliminating our achievement gap. She promised that that plan along with the Master Plan and the Safe Schools Task Force report would be available to the committee.</B></div> <div> <B>Dr. Linda Lymas, Principal of Great Mills High School said she had nothing to hide, then proved her point by displaying on the video screen all the current information about achievement, arrests, referrerals, attendance, as well as the ethnic composition of her school and the attendance of students on Free and Reduced (cost) Meals (FARM), those with Limited English Proficiency, and those identified as Special Education for the study groupto examine. In reply to a question from a study groupmember, Dr. Lymas said that her school is the most diverse in the County.</B></div> <div> <B>Then came the rest of the news. Arrest data shows that arrests at Great Mills have doubled since last year. A group member who also is a member of the Safe Schools Task force noted that the Sheriff’s data on arrests includes some arrests made on school grounds at 11:00 PM which are obviously not school related. There was no information as to how many of the arrests might fall in this category. The data presented showed that year Great Mills has twice as many arrests (30) as Chopticon High School (14) and 20% more than Leonardtown High.(25).</B></div> <div> <B>One Study groupmember observed that arrests at Spring Ridge Middle School, a feeder school for Great Mills, are higher than at any other middle school (12).</B></div> <div> <B>Dr. Lymas noted that the student body has gone from 9.75% Special Education Students in 1993 to a current 11.75% in 2005, with a peak of 12.4% in 2001. Special Education Students have a lower average attendance rate than FARMs students or Limited English Proficiency students, and this affects school attendance.</B></div> <div> <B>Study group members volunteered for one of three subcommittees - achievement, behavior management and intervention strategies, and staff retention and recruitment. Dr. Lymas noted that she did not have the data she wanted on staff retention, but expected to have it by the next meeting. Committees will meet March 21 when mid point reports will be shared at the next whole group meeting.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>