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The grades are in
by Eliana Mazin
by Daniel Chen This year, the Maryland State Board of Education decided to implement a new system to track student progress within individual schools. The state accountability model, named the “Maryland Report Card,” assigns grades and stars to all public schools within the state based on five factors, formally named Academic Achievement, Graduation Rate, Progress in Achieving English Language Proficiency, Readiness for PostSecondary Success and School Quality and Student Success. These factors are based on four primary attributes of each school: graduation rates, PARCC achievements, achievements within classes and chronic absenteeism. The percentage of points earned in these respective categories then determines the number of stars earned. The results of the annual report, released to the public on Dec. 4, revealed that Maryland schools generally performed relatively well, particularly those in Montgomery County. In fact, all MCPS high schools received at least four stars out of five. Among these schools, Walter Johnson High School, Winston Churchill High School and Thomas S. Wootton High School earned five out of five stars. To obtain this rating, schools must be awarded above 74 percent of the available points.
Evaluated for the 2017-2018 school year, RM received four stars, as it earned 57 out of 90 available points—63 percent. These numbers land RM at the 56th percentile. RM has strong points in the Graduation Rate category, with a four-year graduation rate exceeding 90 percent. However, it falls behind in the other categories, including achievement on tests. For example, only 51.6 percent of students at RM scored “proficient” or higher in state tests on English Language Arts, earning RM 17.8 points out of 30 for the “Academic Achievement” factor. RM also lost several points in the “Progress in Achieving English Language Proficiency” category. The report stated that 54.3 percent of ESOL learners are making progress in learning English, suggesting the need for more focus on the education of the large population of non-native English speakers at the school. “Maybe there’s a lack of resources,” junior Lydia Wei said. “Maybe there’s just not enough teachers or maybe they have too much stuff during lunch and after school. Learning a language is something that’s a lot more involved than any other course, so if they’re not getting the attention they need, they might not be making that much progress.” Yet what proved to be the primary impediment to a strong
school performance was the School Quality and Student Success Indicator. The category is divided into chronic absenteeism and a well-rounded curriculum. Although RM earned 8.4 out of 10 points for its curriculum, it lost 10 points out of 15 due to poor GRAPHICS BY VALERIE WANG attendance. “In terms of attendance, it’s important for students to understand the consequences related to
not attending school,” Magnet Coordinator Mr. Jelen said. “I think it’s also important that we create an environment here
at Richard Montgomery where students want to attend on a regular basis, so it’s a welcoming and warm environment for everyone.” According to the information the Maryland Report Card gathered, 29.8 percent of RM students were chronically absent in the 2017-2018 academic year, meaning they were absent for 10 percent or more of instruction days in the school calendar. “This is still a wake-up call to those who aren’t meeting that expectation that it’s their own future that they’re shaping at school,” freshman Kevin Zhang said. “Judging by the table, it looks like our graduation rate isn’t too bad, so this just shows that teachers have to convey to their students there’s more to just graduating.” However, some staff members believe that the report warrants an administrative response to combat the shortcomings exemplified in the report. “The report tells us many things we already knew,” principal Mr. Monteleone said. “We knew that attendance was one of the biggest issues in this building. I know for a fact that the largest factor that impacts students is when they are not here. We know that we have a lot of work to do.”
One Acts spotlight creativity by Shane Querubin
PHOTO BY EMILY PAN
Senior director Brynne Schoen works on their musical, “Chemistry.”
Inside The Tide...
MoCo’s snowman
Opinions, 5
School off for more diverse holidays?
Richard Montgomery High School’s Black Maskers are back to work once again this winter season. Their next project is the One Acts Festival, a one-night show featuring four different student-written, student-directed, and student-produced plays. Each show will be around thirty minutes long, featuring four different plots, casts, and sets. The first play follows a detective helping a politician clean her slate, while the second is a historical drama between three sisters working to advance the feminist movement. In the last two plays of the night, two supervillains and their minions plot their evil schemes
and a lovestruck chemistry student cooks up a love potion to make the girl of his dreams return his affections. Juniors Eli Protas and Tudor Postolache will be showcasing their co-written piece “A Pawn in the City.” “It follows a stereotypical noir theme, but mocks the ideas of the genre,” Protas said. The pair has worked long and hard to get these plays written for the show. “We drew inspiration from a short teaser segment we both collaborated on in eighth grade that exemplified the noir elements used,” Protas said. Despite this long partnership, writing the play still held some obstacles. “We often struggled to coordinate ideas,” Protas said. ONE ACTS, cont. page 16
La Marea, 9 Centerspread, 10-11 Spanish cartoons
High school jobs and internships
When the air becomes crisp and the mornings get darker, students all over Montgomery County donning fur coats and snow boots eagerly anticipate snowfall. This shared love of snow days is what inspired the creation of MoCoSnow, a website which compiles local weather forecasts to make predictions about how snowfall will affect school openings. The mastermind behind the MoCoSnow franchise is Alexandros Tsironis, who was born and raised in Montgomery County. After Tsironis graduated from University of Maryland, he came back to MCPS to teach P.E. and Health. His imagination blossomed in the classroom where he and his students frequently discussed snow days. Despite MoCoSnow’s current magnitude, it had very humble beginnings. “In 2009, I was doing it on a bulletin board in class,” Tsironis said. At the time, Tsironis taught at Roberto Clemente Middle School, but after graduation, his students dispersed to many different high schools. This made it difficult to reach all of them; thus arose his idea of making a website. Tsironis’ blog, created in 2011, continues to be a colossal success. “It’s altogether enjoyable and convenient because it’s easy to locate the information. I like that it has predictions because MCPS usually doesn’t let us know if they’re considering a delay or a closure,” sophomore Claire Gelillo said. After the website burgeoned in popularity, Tsironis expanded his platform. “I remember one of my students told me [that] I had to get on Twitter. I didn’t think it would be a good fit but it ended up being a great fit. It grew to be really big–we have over 21,000 Twitter followers.”
GRAPHIC BY LANCHI NGUYEN
MOCO SNOW, cont. page 12
Sports,17
Lady Rockets bounce back