With Vineyard Heading Back to Class, Dozen Teachers Enter Their Last
Year

By CHRIS BURRELL

For a dozen Vineyard public school teachers, the new academic year
that opens this week is a huge benchmark for them and a big headache for
administrators.

The reason? All 12 teachers will lay down their chalk at the
year's end, their collective retirements forcing principals and
the Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. Kriner Cash to recruit
replacement teachers at a rate nearly three times the level in a typical
year.

"That rate is significant, and I'm very concerned about
it," said Mr. Cash. "Next year, there will be another dozen
or so leaving. That's where the crisis is in education."

Most years, no more than three or four teachers retire from the
Island school system. Clearly, the biggest hurdle to filling the faculty
rosters is the Island's prohibitive real estate prices. Applicant
pools for new teacher positions have been dwindling for the last two
years.

"There's a wonderful corps of young people who would
love to work here but they're challenged by the cost of
housing," said West Tisbury School principal Dr. Elaine Pace.

While school leaders will have to cast a net for new teachers, they
are also looking at the other side of the equation - the numbers
of Vineyard students. The census, not official until next month, shows
flattening enrollment in all but one school, where student population
has actually fallen sharply for the second year in a row.

Total enrollment at the West Tisbury School has dropped this year to
348 students, down from 374 last year and 392 the year before - an
11 per cent decline since 2001.

"West Tisbury surprised me ... dropping precipitously,"
said Mr. Cash.

Neither Mr. Cash nor Ms. Pace could offer solid reasons for the
decline. The superintendent simply suspected the cause could be -
again - the high cost of real estate and the departure of families who
cannot afford to live on the Island, or up-Island in particular.

Incoming kindergarten classes at West Tisbury are very small. Each
class will be under 16 students, said Ms. Pace.

Elsewhere on the Island, enrollment numbers are virtually the same
as last year.

The regional high school will open the doors this week to 817
students. Enrollment at the Martha's Vineyard Public Charter
School stands at 155, same as last year. Chilmark, Edgartown, Oak Bluffs
and Tisbury Schools are all expecting little change in the number of
students this year.

Edgartown will boast the largest number of students aside from the
high school, starting with 456 kindergarten through eighth graders. They
will also be christening a new school building Thursday with an early
morning open house and barbecue luncheon scheduled for the first day.

"Everybody will go into the new school and into their
classroom," said Edgartown School assistant principal Anne Fligor
"The playground is going to be ready. It's just going to be
wonderful."

Mixed in with all the excitement that comes with a new school year,
some Island schools are under pressures to correct problems. At the
regional high school, a scandal involving a culinary arts teacher
stealing school-owned equipment and funds has forced school leaders to
tighten up their financial oversight practices.

And a federal civil rights investigation of the Oak Bluffs and
Tisbury Schools last spring has demanded changes and improvements to the
English as Second Language (ESL) programs. Tisbury School, cited for
lack of space devoted to ESL instruction, has cut into its playground to
make room for a leased, portable building that will house ESL and other
programs.

The good news this year for some students at the regional high
school is that they may stand a good chance of traveling overseas, after
almost two years of seeing the school committee ground foreign travel in
the wake of the 9/11 terrorism and then the war in Iraq.

The regional high school committee last week decided to give a green
light to foreign trips this year. Travel already planned includes trips
to England, Germany and Ireland. Middle school students at the Charter
School will be heading to Italy in the spring.

Another theme of the new school year calls on teachers to teach
their colleagues. In Oak Bluffs, principal Laurence Binney said this is
the second year of a mentorship program aimed at bolstering teaching
skills.

Veteran teachers Barbara Jones and Maia Norris are trained mentors
to eight other teachers in the school, spending as much as two hours a
day in those classrooms to share their tips on better teaching.

Oak Bluffs, Chilmark and West Tisbury Schools all have teachers on
their staffs who have become trainers in a social curriculum called the
Responsive Classroom. Those teachers can now train other teachers in the
program, which features morning meetings on a daily basis and fosters a
disciplinary system of rules and related consequences.

While teachers are picking up new leadership roles in their schools,
the students at the regional high school are also taking the lead on
some issues. Duncan Pickard, a high school senior and the student
representative to the school committee, told the Gazette yesterday that
students will re-write the student council constitution this year.

Students are also lobbying for better food in the cafeteria.

Mr. Pickard has also called on high school principal Peg Regan to
change the way the school assigns class rank. He wants them to consider
more than just the grade point average, asking them to weigh a
student's writing skills and extracurricular activities before
bestowing the honor of valedictorian, for example.

Mr. Pickard is confident that the new student congress - made
up of students elected from their homerooms - can make a
difference in high school life.

"The administration is not clamping down on student
expression," he said. "They've done a great job of
welcoming student input."