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Vol. 4, No. 44
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Friday, November 2, 2018
School administration pleased Haunting at Hill School once again with MCAS results By Christopher Roberson
T
he accountability data from the most recent MCAS assessment continued to reinforce the message that Lynnfield has one of the best public school systems in Massachusetts. “The big story tonight is the accountability piece – that’s new,” said Superintendent of Schools Jane Tremblay during the Oct. 30 School Committee meeting. Lynnfield’s Director of Teaching and Learning, Kevin Cyr, said the Next Generation MCAS was administered at the elementary schools and at Lynnfield Middle School, adding that the 2017 data is the new baseline for those schools. He said the traditional
MCAS will continue to be used at Lynnfield High School until 2019. “The high school is in a different boat,” said Cyr. He said that according to the recommendation from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, schools should strive for an accountability rating of at least 75 percent. In addition to the test scores, the accountability rating is based on other indicators, such as academic growth, chronic absenteeism and the completion of advanced coursework. Cyr was pleased to report that the high school led the district with an accountability rating of 87 percent. “You are outperforming 98 percent of the high schools in Massachusetts,”Tremblay said to Lyn-
nfield High School Principal Robert Cleary. The grade 10 Math scores showed that 81 percent of those students earned scores in the Advanced category. Despite being up one percent from last year, the number reflects a 10 percent improvement since 2016. The grade 10 English/ Language Arts (ELA) scores showed that 100 percent of those students scored in the either the Advanced or Proficient categories. In 2017, 98 percent of grade 10 students scored in Advanced or Proficient categories, and in 2016 the combined figure totaled 99 percent. The results of the grade 9 Bi-
MCAS RESULTS | SEE PAGE 7 Shown from left, Davin McClory, Nikhil Kumar and Luke Smallenberger show off their stellar costumes at the Hill Elementary School Halloween Parade on Wednesday morning. (Courtesy photo)
New Hampshire therapist calls for greater action against child anxiety By Christopher Roberson War Memorial at City Hall, Peabody
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L
ynn Lyons, a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist in Concord, N.H., recently spoke to parents at Lynnfield Middle School about why there needs to be a stronger emphasis on childhood anxiety. “What we are doing is not working, if it were working I wouldn’t have done 92 presentations last year,” said Lyons during her Oct. 24 lecture: How To Help Your Anxious Child. “Anxiety is a feeder into depression, we need to get ahead of this thing.” She also spoke about the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which allows humans to reflect on the past and think about the future. Lyons said she had a child come into her office one day who was very distraught. After talking with him, she discovered that the boy had watched his father navigate the complex process of filing his taxes. She said this made the boy anxious, as he knew that one day, he would have to do the same thing.
“The research is pretty clear, anxiety runs in families,” said Lyons. “Family culture is very powerful, what we do as adults is very powerful.” In addition to the prefrontal cortex, Lyons highlighted the function of the amygdala, which is located in the middle part of the brain. “This is your fight or flight system,” she said, adding that the amygdala is not capable of differentiating between real fear and imagined fear. In addition, Lyons said the adrenal glands are also activated when a person becomes anxious. She said this physical response causes all non-essential systems to automatically shut down. Among them is the digestive system, which is why a person tends to feel nauseous during an anxiety episode. Lyons said that at school, some districts are actually doing a disservice by allowing students, some of whom are in eighth grade, to wait outside the building during a fire drill as the fire alarm triggers
ANXIETY | SEE PAGE 6