Levittown Board of Education Discusses New Curriculum

By Susie Trenkle

One of the main issues that the the Levittown Board of Education discussed at their Ja. 14 meeting was how the new regents standards would effect the students who are currently in Special Education.

Dr. Sirois summarizes some of the changes in Regents standards and how they will affect Levittown students.

Robert Davis, the assistant superintendent for instruction, reported on these new standards and how they would affect the district as a whole. The largest concern at the moment is that children who are not severely handicapped (a severe handicap is one such as mental retardation) will have to follow the same diploma track as everyone else. This is a concern for anyone who is in Special Education or is learning disabled. With the new standards, the Regents Competency Test will be phased out by 2004 and all children will have to pass five to eight Regents in order to receive a diploma. In the first year of the phase-out special education students will be able to use the RCT as a safety net, if they do not pass the regular Regents those students will then be able to take the competency exam. In the following year students with the special education designation will not be able to use the RCT as a safety net but they will be able to pass the Regents with a lower grade, possibly a 55. The problem with this is that the child's diploma and transcript will reflect that they either passed the RCT or that they passed the Regents with a lower score. In this phase-in period for the new standards, if a child does not pass the RCT then the local diploma will still be in effect until the year 2004, depending on which class the child is in. What the district is extremely concerned with is the fear that there seem to be children who are going to have difficulty as the state moves forward with these requirements and that there are some students who will get lost and are not going to be able to earn a diploma. "It is not what we want and it is not what we are going to try for, but I think that there are some children who will have difficulty earning their diploma," Davis stresses.

These new requirements do not affect the rest of Levittown students as much because the current requirements of the district already surpass those of the state. Whereas the state only requires five Regents exams for a regular regents diploma and eight for an advanced diploma, Levittown already requires their students to pass nine or ten Regents. The only difficulty in this is the fact that children may feel that it is okay to lower their standards. Davis states; "We fear that we will have children wanting to fall back to the lesser degree, the five Regents degree." They may also believe that it is not worth it for them to struggle to pass the Regents the first year and get one credit for the course when they can take it over a period of three years and gain three credits for the same class, which is possible with this new plan. Dr. Herman Sirois, superintendent of schools, says, "Clearly this has not been thought through by anyone who has ever worked in a high school." The last thing that the district wants is for the students to lower the standards that they have worked so hard to raise over the years.

Another problem that the district has with the new requirements is concerning students who have come to the U.S. from a foreign speaking country in ninth grade or later. The new standards allow students who fall under this category to take their Regents, except for English, in their native language. The concern that the district has with this is that they have nobody who would be able to grade these exams in the time period that is allowed by the state which is usually one to two days. The administration is worried about the lack of a cogent plan on the part of the state. Davis says, "We have some concerns because the State Education Department has not been able to deliver a cogent, organized support system or a cogent plan on a number of related issues." One of these issues is the fact that the state is saying that students can use the RCT as a safety net, yet the RCT is being given before the regular Regents so the child does not yet know if they need to take it or not. Davis adds, "We have some severe concerns about that kind of scheduling even though it is supposed to be a safety net."

According to the new standards there will no longer be remedial classes. Additional services will be available for those students but they will not have separate classes. One of the anxieties about this was raised by board trustee Gary Fisch who asked if the current special education teachers were certified to teach regular classes. The answer was that they are not and that regular teachers are not trained in special education. This is one of the many considerations that the state has not addressed. Davis cautions, "It is questionable as to how much of this is going to be etched in stone and how much the state can deliver on, nonetheless, at this point and time this is the law of the land and I think that we need to move forward with some thoughts on it and plan for it as we are doing. During the public session of the meeting Emma Burkert suggested that parents who are concerned about these issues should write to the Board of Regents to express their displeasure. Sirois says of these plans; "One of the most important things that is happening with the Regents change and the change in graduation requirements is that all the ground rules are being changed, and we need to rethink our whole course structure. This is going to change how we look at our course structure, probably from elementary school straight on through."