‘Crisping’ out for AP and honors students at John Stark

Goffstown Editor — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:56:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

Honors and advanced placement students at John Stark Regional High School will not be able to partake in one of the many rewards of hard study and determination next year, known as “crisping.”

And Weare resident Helen Ray is not happy about that, especially since her daughter, Sarah, 14, just completed her freshman year at Stark in the honors program. Crisping allows students at Stark to be excused from final exams if they’ve earned a minimum 90 average in the class.

Advanced placements students can crisp with an 80 average if they take the state standardized AP test at the end of the class. The problem is not in taking away that opportunity, said Ray, but in continuing to let those students in the regular program crisp if they qualify.

“As of right now, every student and parent I talk to is like, ‘how could this be fair?’” said Ray. “All I want is for them to come across as fair. Either everyone gets the opportunity, or no one gets the opportunity.”

It is only slightly easier pointswise for honors and AP students to “crisp,” as honors students automatically get half a percent added onto their averages, and AP students get a full percent added on.

Superintendent Christine Tyrie said the ultimate decision lay with Stark Principal Michael Turmelle, adding the decision to take crisping from honors and AP students was about a year in the making and involved parents as well as school administrators.

Despite repeated phone calls, Turmelle was not available for comment by press time.

The rationale behind the decision, said Tyrie, is that honors and AP students need to have the utmost confidence in their test taking abilities prior to entering college.

“These are generally students that are headed for competitive universities, and test taking is something the student should have experience with,” Tyrie said. Tyrie added that she understands Ray’s position that the opportunity to “crisp out” of finals should be equal across the board, for students in the upper eschelon and average to lowlevel students.

“Would I agree? I don’t know. I don’t know enough about it,” Tyrie said. “We’re largely sitebased, which means that principals are pretty much in charge of running their schools.”

Ray said the fact that the kids in the highest levels are most likely to go to competitive colleges is no reason to have different rules regarding crisping for Stark students.

“They wouldn’t be in these honors programs if they didn’t know how to take tests,” said Ray, pointing out that students in open classes will also apply to colleges and universities when they graduate. “It’s too bad, and I really wish he had just taken it away from everybody.”

Crisping, or averaging out of finals, has been done for a long time, said Ray, and her older daughter Samantha, now a freshman at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, was given that opportunity at Stark as an honors student.

“It’s maddening because these kids will do well if they want to do well,” said Ray. “I couldn’t have given my daughter a better education than what she got at John Stark, and I think (Turmelle) is selling his own teachers short,” she said.

Group provides a learning experience for parents, children

Goffstown Editor — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 16:09:00 GMT

BY ROD HANSEN

A local group for the families of children with special needs offers a place to socialize, to learn about children’s different learning styles and share in the common experience of raising a child deemed to be different.

“We want this to be an uplifting experience,” said Laura Brooks, a local parent and educator who founded LD Talk last May and has seen the group grow in size significantly over the past year.

The “LD” in LD Talk initially stood for “learning disabilities,” though Brooks said she prefers the term “learning differences.”

The group meets the second Saturday of the month from 10 a.m. to noon at the Christ Community Church at 727 S. Stark Highway in the church’s back classroom. Brooks said the group has proven a resource for students with a wide range of learning styles and their parents.

“We run the gamut with age and learning differences,” said Brooks, noting families of young people with conditions including autism, Asperger’s syndrome, nonverbal learning disabilities, child bipolar disorder, attention defecit-hyperactivity disorder and Tourette’s syndrome are among those who use LD Talk as a place to learn more about themselves and their children.

The need for companionship can be demanding for children and families coping with special needs, said Brooks.

Citing one study conducted by a national mental health organization, Brooks said 20 percent of the parents surveyed would not allow their children to play with a child with depression or ADHD.

The challenges of raising a special needs child often arrive with the initial diagnosis, Brooks said.

“There is a grief cycle that goes along with finding out you are the parent of a child with learning differences,” Brooks said. “We are a service to parents in all stages of the process, from childhood to college-age.”

A long list of educational experiences precede Brooks’ work at LD Talk, including a bachelor’s degree in education and a master’s degree in administration from the University of Vermont.

Brooks also taught elementary school in the Vermont communities of Shoreham and Williston, as well as teaching literacy at Center Woods Elementary School.

Brooks founded the Parent/Teacher Resource Center at Center Woods through educational grants four years ago.

That service functions as a lending library by making educational materials available to parents, teachers and students, Brooks said.

She said she founded LD Talk with her husband Leo and another parent as a means of outreach to others raising a child with special needs in Weare and surrounding communities, she said.

The group now attracts residents from Weare as well as Goffstown, Londonderry and Manchester, and LD Talk now hosts an Internet chat group and at most meetings makes educational materials and handouts available to the parents and children.

Just as importantly, Brooks said she tries to maintain a positive atmosphere at the LD Talk meetings.

“This is a place where people can come to let their hair down, and we try to keep away from complaining. We want everyone to leave happy,” Brooks said.

Weare News : education

‘Crisping’ out for AP and honors students at John Stark

Group provides a learning experience for parents, children