Chamber Members Go "Back To School"

Seeking to give members of the community a sense of the day-to-day operations of different grades in the , the district hosted a “Back to School” event on Tuesday for members of the Eastern Connecticut Chamber of Commerce.

Dr. Nicholas Fischer, superintendent of schools, said the idea of the tours was to combat negative perceptions of the school district. He said the schools were not prepped ahead of time for the visits, aside from student guides.

“There is a fair amount of misinformation out there, frankly,” said Fischer.

A handful of Chamber members took the tours, which visited classes and locations at the , , and . Members of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps led the group at the secondary schools, while fifth-grade students led individuals around Jennings School.

Barry Runyon, owner of PrimExcellence, said he found the students to be polite and the buildings to be well-kept. He said he was also impressed by the student-teacher interaction.

“There wasn’t that authoritativeness just for the sake of being authoritative,” he said.

“It’s obvious it’s a learning environment,” said Frank McLaughlin, downtown investment coordinator with the Chamber. “It’s obvious that the students are enthused about learning.”

Speaking to the group prior to the tours, Fischer said the district intends to make improvements in three areas. One would be to increase the number of students achieving a goal score in the Connecticut Mastery Tests to 80 percent of the student body. Currently, 40 to 60 percent of students reach goal in the English tests and 30 to 50 percent do so in the math tests. Fischer said the schools also want to reduce the dropout rate to under five percent or increase the graduation rate to 95 percent, and that a graduation requirement of 10th grade level literacy will be introduced within the next few months.

Fischer said teacher evaluation is now based entirely around student achievement. In response to a question regarding the perception that teachers are sheltered from termination, he said 11 teachers were let go last year, including four tenured teachers, due to performance.

Chamber president Tony Sheridan questioned whether New London might look into consolidation with the Waterford district, noting that Waterford High School is located only a mile away from New London High School. Fischer said such an option is hampered by politics regarding the question.

“We’ve got too many towns, too many school districts,” said Fischer. “If we’re going to talk about consolidation, it has to go both ways.”

Fischer said he has also been talking with local businesses to find out what areas students need to be better prepared in. He determined that students need to develop both academic skills and life skills, such as problem solving and working with others, to succeed beyond school. Jack Cervera, dean of students at the Ella T. Grasso Southeastern Regional Technical School, said he agreed that an internship model is good for student development.

“It just creates in the kid a sense of ‘I can do this,’” he said.

The district plans to begin hosting three such tours each year.