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Is the investment paying off?
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According to the most recent school report card data, Mohonasen’s average spending per pupil is the lowest of all 13 Suburban Council school districts.
Mohonasen's per pupil spending is also ranked as the
third lowest in K-12 school districts in New York State.
While our spending ranking is impressive, it’s only good if our academic standards are met as well.
With all the talk about the high cost of education, it’s only fair to ask, “Is this investment paying off?” Consider the following as you decide:
- Graduation rates are up. Despite the increased rigor of high school, 96 percent of Mohonasen’s 2006-2007 senior class earned their diplomas last June — and that number climbed to 99 percent when summer school was included in the percentage. Nearly 85 percent of the original freshman class from 2003 (also called the 2003 cohort) graduated from Mohonasen High School by August 2007. This number has climbed 13 percent over the past two years.
- Regents diploma rates are up. 85 percent of the diplomas awarded to Mohonasen’s Class of 2007 were Regents diplomas, thanks in large measure to more help for struggling students and a “try, try again policy” that requires students to continue taking required Regents exams until they are successful..
- College attendance is up. Almost 90 percent of students in the Class of 2007 said they were going straight on to a two- or four-year college — up from 75 percent in 1998.
- Success is “required” at Draper Middle School. Over 97 percent of all middle school students passed every quarter of every class last year. Students are rising to the challenge in a school-wide initiative that expects, encourages and rewards hard work and persistence from every single student.
- Draper Middle School was recently named a “high performing/gap closing school” by the state thanks to student achievement on the eighth-grade math and English language arts exams. As a result of new achievement initiatives put in place at Mohonasen, eighth-grade ELA scores rose by 14 percent from the prior year.
- Pinewood combines the expertise of its special education teachers and regular education teachers to offer a “collaborative” teaching team to meet the needs of special education students in a regular education setting.
- Bradt Primary School continues to help all students read at or above grade level. This focus on early literacy is laying the foundation for long-term academic achievement. Specific reading-level benchmarks have been established by trimester in grades K-2, to measure student progress toward those benchmarks.
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Other measures
of student success
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Test scores are important, but there are other ways to measure our students’ success in preparing themselves for healthy and productive lives. For example:
- Our schools’ daily attendance rate averages around 96 percent each year.
- A number of our students are actively involved in our many music performance
groups, which include various bands, choirs and orchestra. The numbers are as follows: 33 percent or 325 Mohonasen High School students participate in a music group; 423 Draper Middle School students are involved in a music group, which translates to 54 percent of the student body; and Pinewood Intermediate School has 345 students or 51 percent actively involved in a music group.
- This year, approximately 40 percent of high school students are involved in at least one interscholastic sport. Not only are our athletes performing well on the field, but they are making the grade in the classroom, too. During the fall and winter sport seasons, eight varsity teams were named “Scholar Athlete” teams by the New York State Public High School Athletic Association for achieving team grade-point averages of 90 percent or higher.
- The girls’ varsity swimming and diving team and the girls’ varsity soccer team both won the Sportsmanship Award this past fall. The Suburban Council Athletic Directors developed a point system where athletes, coaches and parents can recognize teams and schools for making sportsmanship a priority. In fact, the girls’ volleyball team and the cross country team earned sportsmanship points as well, giving Mohonasen School District the third highest point total in the entire Suburban Council.
- Our interscholastic athletic teams achieved great accomplishments: The boys’ varsity bowling team won Class A Sectionals and were crowned Section II champions overall; the boys’ swimming team qualified four swimmers for the state meet; Mohonasen student Steve Gering was crowned high-jump sectional champion; the varsity boys’ basketball team won the White Division in the Suburban Council; and the JV football team ended its season with an 8-1 record, and won the Section II, Class A Superbowl for the second year in a row.
- Approximately 90 students in grades 3-12 participate in the Mohon Masque extracurricular theatre group. This student theatre group has earned a reputation for putting on outstanding performances,
playing to packed houses year after year.
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