Last March, following the release of the State Report Cards and the results of midyear exams, the board of education and administration of the Levittown School District made a commitment to increase the standards at Division Avenue High School and close the gap between the district's two high schools.

Since that decision was made last year the board and administration have worked very closely with the new Division Avenue High School Principal, Dr. Harry Chertok, to implement the improvement plans for Division.

With the release of this year's Report Cards, the question of the inequities between the district's two high schools, MacArthur and Division was once again brought to the forefront. In light of these concerns the superintendent of the Levittown School District, Dr. Herman Sirois, and Chertok have spoken at great length about the changes that have taken place, and the improvements that have occurred.

At the April Board of Education meeting Sirois spoke about the academic progress at the two high schools. He explained, "Right now the percent of students receiving Regents diplomas at our two high schools are substantially different. There is about a 20 point difference between our two high schools. One of our high schools is in the top quarter of the county and the other high school is considerably lower than the county average. That is not satisfactory to anybody. The board of education has taken specific measures to shore up that improvement."

Chertok has spoken quite a bit recently about the improvements that have been implemented at Division Avenue High School. At the board of education meeting Chertok stated, "Approximately one year ago I came before you with a plan to improve the academic program at Division Avenue High School. The changes have been very encouraging." Chertok went on to explain some of the major improvements that have taken place.

One of the primary concerns for Division was the lack of full-time department chairs because the school shared chairpeople with Wisdom Lane Middle School. He noted, "The use of vertical supervisors in the past minimized the amount of time each chairperson had for direct supervision." In an effort to correct that problem the use of vertical chairs was eliminated in September in the areas of English, science, and social studies. "Supervisors are now available to work more closely with their respective teachers on matters of curriculum and instruction," added Chertok.

In the past, the primary responsibility of two assistant principals was the discipline of students. Chertok explained that this left the assistant principals with very little time to work on instructional and curricular matters. Chertok went on to say, "With the hiring of a full-time dean this situation has changed drastically. Both assistant principals are now available to work with staff on a daily basis to improve the instructional programs." Some of the projects that have been undertaken since this change include implementing the use of computers in the classrooms, interdisciplinary learning, mastery learning and the inclusion classrooms."

At the same time, with a full-time dean, the school climate has improved. The dean works with parents and students to correct situations before they become major problems. Since these changes there has been a 28 percent decrease in in-school suspensions and a decrease of 54 percent for out-of-school suspensions.

The participation of students in more challenging courses has also been a priority in the past year. The number of students in Advanced Placement courses has increased and in the last year the number of students achieving Mastery Level (85 percent or better) in the Regents exams has increased in every course. This is in large part, according to Chertok, due to the Saturday morning Regents preparation classes that have been offered at the high school for five weeks prior to the exams.

Another improvement, which Chertok credits to the cooperation of the administration and board, is the staff at the high school. Division has made every effort to hire the most qualified and experienced teaching staff rather than just hiring the newer teachers because they are less expensive. They have also implemented a staff development program to keep up with curriculum demands.

Chertok has also noted the importance of homework in the success of students. The school has developed a homework hotline, that in the last year has received 70,000 calls, which allows students, if they missed school or forgot an assignment to access the assignment in the evenings, over the phone. Most recently Chertok, for the ninth graders, has established an automated phone dialing system so if a student does not turn in an assignment for any class they will receive an individualized, automated call explaining to parents that an assignment has not been turned in. In the month that the automated dialing system has been in place there has been a 24 percent decrease in missing homework assignments. This program will soon be expanded to include the rest of the student body.

All these academic improvements, according to Chertok, have taken nothing away from the extracurricular aspects of the students' education and in fact, he said, has enhanced these programs. One such example of the academic improvements going hand in hand with the extracurricular activities is the fact that this year the Girls Varsity Soccer and Basketball and the Boys' Varsity Basketball teams have been named Scholar Athlete teams, indicating that the teams has a combined scholastic average of at least 90 percent.

These changes were all made possible by the commitment that the board of education and the district administration as well as the staff at Division Avenue High School have made to implementing academic improvement at Division.

Chertok concluded, "Given the progress we have made today, I feel confident in stating that our Regents diploma rate will continue to improve."