Regents Not Only Indicator Of School's Success, Wool Says

While students at Harrison High School sitting down to take their Regents exams this week  are likely concerned with their own scores, school officials will monitor scores as a whole to see how the school is doing.

But aside from graduation requirements, how important are the Regents? Are they the best indicator of a school's academic success, or just one in a long list of items that showcase the a school's health?

Patch sat down with Harrison Central School District's Superintendent Louis Wool to discuss Harrison's recent trends in Regents Exams, and what these say about a school system.

"We try not to focus on test scores, we try to focus on the curriculum," Wool said. "If the curriculum is rich we're less worried about test scores."

He said teachers don't talk to students too much about test scores, and instead try to focus on the different academic paths available to students. For example, a student at Harrison might choose to take several calculus math courses, or the student might choose to go in the direction of statistics.

That being said however, test scores don't count for nothing.

"We've had some ups and downs, They're generally positive, but we may have over stretched last year in English," Wool said.

Wool was referring to the school's decision to administer the English Regents Exam, typically given at the end of 11th grade, to students at the end of 10th grade.

Because so many students at HHS are in Advanced Placement English classes, Wool said they first bumped up the English Regents Exam six months so students would take it in January of their junior year. This move was made so students could focus on A.P. exams in the spring.

However last year, the school bumped the exam even further up, so students took it at the end of 10th grade, almost a full year earlier then many of their peers.

"I think we may have been a little bit ambitious. Instead it created a little bit of a dip in our mastery rate," Wool said.

The idea behind the test move was to compact more of the state requirements into 9th and 10th grades. However, Wool conceded the experiment was not everything they had hoped for, and students will be taking the English Regents again in January of the junior year.

Wool said school officials look at scores over a three-year period rather than each individual year. This allows for trends over time to become apparent and takes into consideration any anomolies that might occur any given year.

"Our most compelling trend is our Regents Diploma rate when compared against other similar schools in Westchester," Wool said.

In 2000, Harrison High School had a 60 percent Regents Diploma rate, well below the average 78 percent rate for comparable schools. This rate has steadily increased since then and hovered right around 95 percent since the 2005-2006 school year. This is slightly above the Regents Diploma rate for comparable schools in Westchester.

According to Wool, when Harrison is compared to other schools, it typically includes high schools from nearby Rye City School District, Briarcliffe, Chappaqua and Bronxville.

"We are not very much like those other districts our district is compared to because we have a much more diverse student body," Wool said.

Although there are extreme pockets of wealth in the area, there are also a high percentage of students at the downtown Parson's Elementary for whom English is a second language; 33 percent  in fact.

The trend Wool said hes most proud of is the increase in increase in advanced diploma designations. According to data provided by the school district, the highest diploma earned by a HHS student in 2000 was a Regents with Honors. By 2009, honors has steadily increased so students at HHS attained all four diploma designations. In fact, more students earned an Advanced Designation diploma than did a Regents Diploma.

While Regents exams and diplomas are certainly an indicator of a school's health, Wool said they're not an indicator of success.

"Success is defined differently for each group of students," he said.