SAUGUS — The School Committee meeting yesterday included an in-depth presentation of how their schools performed on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS).

Dr. Maureen Lueke, principal of the Belmonte STEAM Academy, was the first speaker for the presentation. 

Lueke started her presentation by saying, “Our MCAS scores are a tool for understanding strengths as well as opportunities within our school’s academic program.”

Lueke stated that the overall math scores for grades three to five showed that their children were performing at the state average.

“This is most likely because of our math program, enVision Math, and we can attest that our math coach, Tracy Ragucci, continues to support all of our educators at all of our grade levels,” Lueke added. 

The overall English Language Arts (ELA) and Science scores were both below grade level for the MCAS, but Lueke believes that students are working hard and getting support from coaches to make improvements. 

Though the Science MCAS test is only a grade five section, Lueke says they will build the science curriculum in all grade levels.

Lueke also wanted to highlight that the Student Growth Percentile (SGP) was showing improvement in multiple areas, which was an indication of long-term growth. She added that the school would be taking action steps to help with improvement.

“We want to find additional opportunities for focused instruction, building extra practice for key skills for students, and making adjustments in our teaching methods,” Lueke said. 

School Committee Chair Michael Serino also commented on the scores, saying, “I’m disappointed … and I know how the teachers work … but it never seems like we make improvements. It’s two steps forward and two steps back.”

Serino continued to say that the School Committee is a part of what’s happening and that there was no need to assign blame to anyone, but that they needed to figure it out together as a community. 

Every committee member spoke to offer their help and hopes to continue to give support to the STEAM academy and improve communication between everyone. 

Dr. Carla Scuzzarella, the new principal of the Saugus Middle and High School, spoke next.

“We had an opportunity on a professional day to have our teachers get together for a good amount of time to really dig into the MCAS with the coaches and, in some cases, with the program coordinators,” Scuzzarella said. 

Scuzzarella was honest with the committee, saying there was a lot of work to do, but that positive results were already being shown. 

“Both sixth, seventh, and eighth made some gains…We have made progress, and it’s all hooked into the coaching support that teachers are receiving, the high-quality instructional materials at all grade levels that are now being used regularly, and the curriculum scope and sequence,” she said. 

The school is looking to focus on 10th grade ELA, and they are hoping to move it up two points to get their average to the “meeting” category.  

“We’re really proud of what’s been happening in math. Math is moving along at a good pace,” Scuzzarella added. 

She continued that their current ninth graders had the highest student growth in math in the entire state. 

“Let’s recognize the two teachers and the math coach at the secondary level who did all the leg work on this,” Superintendent Michael Hashem said. “Credit the students because they had to perform, but I want to recognize Mark Schruender, James Fitzgibbons, and the math coach, Andrea Wheeler.” 

Scuzzarella also highlighted the need to focus on improving science scores, while also recognizing the school’s impressive scores at the AP level.