GHOSTWRITER Westford Academy
December 2015
Vol. XX No. 1
MCAS 2.0 slated for 2017 implementation Last school year, students in grades three through eight took the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test in place of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). This was supposed to prepare students for the likely permanent implementation of PARCC in the future. However, on November 17th, 2015, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to replace the math and English PARCC with a new test that incorporates parts of both previous tests; science MCAS will remain as is. The hybrid’s implementation is planned for 2017, and according to Math Curriculum Coordinator Cathy Coughlin, the catalyst behind the change was that the MA board did not want other states telling them what they could do regarding testing. The MCAS is a
Massachusetts test, while the PARCC is not specifically geared toward any individual state. “When the PARCC came in, it was a consortium of different states,” she said.
that [isn’t] strictly tuned to Massachusetts state standards although our standards are modeled after Common Core,” said English Curriculum Coordinator Janet Keirstead.
“Massachusetts has been number one [...] in the country in terms [...] of a number of different scores. [...] If we’re setting the bar -- and we’ve been setting the bar -- why would we do something that doesn’t fit with what we’re doing? We don’t want to regress,” said Keirstead. “That’s a concern people have: if Massachusetts is already number one, why are we changing to a national test? Why isn’t the national test changing to what Massachusetts does?” As MA moves away from 100 percent PARCC or MCAS, teachers and faculty have mostly positive feelings towards the hybrid. Photo by Ciara Barstow
Kai-Lou Yue Editor-in-Chief
Students at WA will take the hybrid test in the 2017-18 school year.
Additionally, the PARCC itself is not tuned to MA state standards, leading to some unwillingness to give the test. “It sounds as though a lot of the concern comes from the idea of [...] taking a test
Because of MA’s current high rank in the nation based on various scores, educators and members of the board do not wish to give a test that could cause our testing system to regress.
experience onto the field. “We pulled most of our starters and put on JV kids to give them more experience,” said Barnas. “We came out and got an early lead. We did our job early.” They made it to the playoffs as the second seed in the north division and won their first game against North Andover. However, because the playoffs is single elimination, the team was forced out after losing to Reading. In the game, they were leading 3-0 until there were six minutes left in the fourth quarter. “That was an offensive struggle,” said Cassidy. “Defense played very well.” “They just kind of wore us down and pulled ahead,” added junior co-captain Connor Degenhardt. With the high ratio of wins to losses, Head Coach Adam Gagne attributed the team’s overall success to the experience of returning players. “The foundation of this team and their success stems from the strong senior leadership. I am very proud of each and member of this Championship team,” said Gagne. Continued on page 7
assessed on skills such as the 4 C’s (collaboration, critical An increased presence of thinking, creativity and technology at Westford communication) as well as Academy and at schools content area knowledge.” across the country has caused Though the technology a movement to go one to one staff is only in the beginning with technology. With this stages of the plan and the system, every student as well implementation date is yet to as every teacher is given a be determined, an outline has laptop that they can use both been designed in and out highlighting of school. the details The digital necessary for learning carrying out staff of the plan. Westford “Such a has recently plan requires been much exploring attention to the small details possibility such as of infrastructure, implementing Laptops could be more accssible for professional the one to one students. learning for system at WA. teachers, device selection, The goal of this plan is to rollout plan, technical provide an advanced learning support and most importantly, environment where technology community support and is infused into the learning finance,” said Instructional process. Technology Specialist According to the Digital Stephanie Gosselin. Learning Plan created for During the 2013-2014 Westford Public Schools, “we school year, the technology envision a successful mobile staff conducted a ‘Needs digital learning environment Assessment’ of how where students are at the technology was currently center of the learning process, being used in the classrooms. students become expert learners, and students are Continued on page 5
Continued on page 7
Football shines in DCL New tech on the horizon This fall season, the Westford Academy Grey Ghosts put together a performance that has not been seen in years. With their 9-2 record and Dual County League win, the football team has set the bar high for future seasons. At the beginning of the season, the football team won nine consecutive games, including against Chelmsford, which the team has never beaten prior to this year. Throughout the season, they won games against difficult opponents such as Lincoln-Sudbury. According to senior co-captain Ben Cassidy, LS had a chance to win towards the end, but WA surpassed them in the final moments of the game. “We had a comeback and won that game in the last couple minutes,” said Diamond. “That game was tough.” In the DCL game clincher against Cambridge, the team won 45-34. At halftime, the score was 38-8 with Westford in the lead, so the team made the decision to take off their starting players and allow players without as much
Humans of WA Page 6
Ellie Smith Editor-in-Chief
Photo by Ellie Smith
Kai-Lou Yue Editor-in-Chief
Travelers Pages 8-9
Priceless
Students produce parody website
Kai-Jia Yue Varshini Ramanathan Staff Writers
The WA Ghostwriter has competition. With a knack for jokes and a passion for exposing hypocrisy, the WA Ghostbuster’s parody of the Ghostwriter has made a sizable impact among students and parents just days after its debut on October 10. Unlike the Ghostwriter, the Ghostbuster is dedicated to writing satire, utilizing humor and irony in order to make light of various events. Their articles range from suggestions to change the school’s apparently private-school name to the issue of male-only gunmen in ALICE training. The Ghostbuster is an online paper run by a handful of anonymous Westford Academy students. The idea to start a Westford Academycentric satire emerged at the end of the 2014-15 school year, but was only finalized by the beginning of October. The newspaper was born out of the staff’s “teenage angst” and a love for their high school. They began writing these articles not only to provide a “#sorelatable” for WA students but also for the staff to enjoy writing in a relaxed setting. “It's a way for the writers to enjoy and experiment with writing satire in an ungraded, freely creative environment,” said the Ghostbuster staff in an anonymous email interview. Although the Ghostbuster makes a point of exposing what they consider to be flaws in the Westford Academy school system, they caution readers that their material is satire and not a traditional newspaper in any sense. They also make clear that their aim is not solely to make fun of their school. “It's important to take everything we say with a grain of salt. We really aren't targeting anything in particular; we just look for any hypocrisy or irony that appears in the happenings at WA,” said the staff. The site has already received quite a bit of attention from the entire WA community. Most readers seem to enjoy this satirical newspaper, especially the students. Continued on page 14
Calender Art Page 10