SAT scores at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School were above the national average in 2012 in the three areas of critical reading, writing and math, high school guidance director Michael McCarthy said this week.

Mr. McCarthy gave his annual report on SAT scores to the high school district committee on Monday night.

On average, Vineyard students performed better than their state peers in all areas except math, where they were behind by five points, Mr. McCarthy said.

Average SAT scores at the high school last year were 530 in critical reading, 525 in math, and 509 in writing. Average state scores were 513 in critical reading, 530 in math, and 508 in writing. Average New England scores were 503 in critical reading, 509 in math and 495 in writing. Average national scores were 496 in critical reading, 514 in math and 488 in writing.

Scores for the class of 2012 improved over the previous year’s class.

“It’s important to keep in mind that we encouraged students to take multiple testing,” Mr. McCarthy said. “Most kids, when they multiple test, their scores go up.”

Seventy-nine per cent of the class took the SAT, with 77 per cent going on to post-secondary education and 68 per cent attending a four-year college.

Mr. McCarthy also presented the exit survey for last year’s senior class that allows students to give feedback on their high school experience.

The overall impression of education quality at the high school followed the national norm, with student responses falling between good and average.

Students were most satisfied with the availability of counselors and least satisfied with the cafeteria and food services.

In other business, the committee took up the long-running subject of new office space for Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss and his staff.

Plans for new office space have been under discussion for nearly a decade; the current building on Pine street in Tisbury is considered outdated and inadequate.

“We have outgrown it,” Mr. Weiss said. “It has poor electrical wiring, the building is falling down, it’s not handicapped-accessible, and so on.”

The current plan is to sell the Pine street building and put the proceeds toward a new building on the high school campus.

A subcommittee examining the feasibility of the project found early designs too large and too costly and urged a scaled-down plan.

“The next step is to come up with the funds to have actual architectural drawings done based on the general work in the feasibility study,” said Mr. Weiss.

The committee voted to give Mr. Weiss a green light to approach the six towns to put a place-holder article for architectural funds on the upcoming annual town meeting warrants in the spring.