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.
Preseason practice awaits high school athletes regardless of what sport they play, but only the fall warrants its own moniker: Hell Week, which began this year on August 23. After the relatively lazy days of summer comes a fast-paced week of tryouts and tune-ups. Dawn workouts are considered the standard of Hell Week (some groups prefer the early practices because they allow players to continue their summer jobs a little longer), but on any given day in the week leading up to school you’ll find at least two teams on the fields in both the morning and the late afternoon.
When Charles McGrath wrote about the annual Island Cup game between the Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket football teams for the New Yorker in 1984, he likened it to a fierce sibling rivalry. What mainland team could hope to drum up a rivalry as poignant with either of the Island squads? For all that the Vineyarders can’t stand about the Whalers, they also know that the only football team in the entire country that could possibly understand what it means to be an Islander is that of their brother-in-isolation, Nantucket.
Forget the season behind them; forget the playoffs ahead. This week, for the football squad and fans alike, Saturday's battle for the Island Cup - like many a legendary sports rivalry - is the only thing that matters.
Martha's Vineyard enters Saturday's game against Nantucket at 9-1, having already clinched the Mayflower League Large title. The Vineyarders have outscored opponents 180-40 in their last five games.
At 5-4, the visiting Whalers have had a disappointing season. But ending the trophy's two-year stay on the Vineyard would turn it into a successful one.
If you came into gym class at the regional high school looking for Jay Schofield, it might take a minute to find him. He's not out in the center of the floor with the other two gym teachers.
School superintendent Kriner Cash this week blasted a proposed zero-tolerance policy for high school athletes caught using drugs or alcohol, calling it an "ignorant" response to the problem and demanding new consideration of the draft policy.
More than 2,000 fans were on hand last Saturday to watch the Vineyarders harpoon the Nantucket Whalers 34-0, winning a third consecutive Island Cup for the first time since the trophy was created in 1978.
By halftime of last Saturday's game, with Vineyard's 34 points already on the board, the battle was apparently over. In the second half, spectators - bundled in jackets and hats to block the northeast wind - began to converse with their peers rather than pay particular attention to the game.
A few minutes after the first bell yesterday morning at the regional
high school, seniors Kurstin Meehan and Elise Chapdelaine stepped into a
four-sided piece of cardboard painted to look like a car and went racing
down the halls.
Scores of high school students went to the prom Saturday night and
then roamed the Vineyard looking for a party, and in the course of that
night, at least seven figured out they were in some kind of trouble and
needed a ride home.
It would be the ideal night to kick off another season of SafeRides, but the student-run service that gives kids in trouble a free ride home won't be up and running this New Year's Eve. The service officially starts up Jan. 10.
