Good Morning, Henry As I've said before ,one of the delightful things in my life is reading your Forum , and occasionally I decide to reread some of the postings. The recent referenced article in the Free Press caught my eye this morning and I remembered my reaction earlier this week when I read it , but at the time forgot to add my " two cents ".....( senior moment
?.....again
? ) . At any rate the stated Drop-Out Rate , to me , is more of an indicator of both a school's and communities' effectiveness then the standardized test scores which NCLB puts so much emphasis on. Two percent is a terrific rate ( I'm sure BFA & Fairfax wish it was lower , but the school is probably doing better then 95 % of the state , much , much better certainly then the rest of the nation ) and it has been so since the mid-70's. To me , it is a distinct result of a K-12 system within one complex whereby the town and the staff support its children , work together to better the instructional delivery components and where history & tradition are not thrown out when new strategies are brought up. The administration , the Supervisory Office ,the staff ( from bus drivers to classroom instructors ) and the Board all see as their primary purpose to educate those BFA students, no matter what town they are from.......especially the Board.
As a previous administrator I never heard a Board member delineate which town's kids should be served first , and ultimately it is that decision which filters down to the process and makes BFA special to work in and loyalty easy to bear. Congrats , once again, to BFA for its low and impressive Drop-Out Rate.
