Tim MacBain, North Penn School District Board of School Directors.
(The following is a submission from North Penn School Board Director Tim MacBain. The views expressed within are his own.)
Greetings Neighbors of North Penn,
Last week The Knight Crier offered candidates for school board a chance to send messages to North Penn students and families. I took a moment to speak to our high school students who, like those I teach in a neighboring district, are starting to think about choices they’ll have to make about what to do with their lives after graduation. For those continuing their education, many students can get caught up in the rankings of colleges and universities which various publications put out each year. I reminded students that while acceptance to those highly ranked schools is certainly something to be proud of, don’t forget that those rankings from websites and other publishers are quite limited in their scope, and can never calculate the one thing that is most important: whether that school fits each student. Yes, rankings can be a good place to begin for folks looking in from the outside but to find the experiences and opportunities an individual student will need to excel towards for their next chapter in life, a student needs to consider quite a bit more than test scores and reputation.
Just as a student might look to college and university rankings to begin to understand the options for their next steps, so do families from across the nation who are considering a move to Montgomery County look to websites like Niche or US News and World Report (USNW) as a first step in understanding what local school districts can provide for their student. These sites use standardized test data, in some cases measure the age of school facilities, and rely upon informal surveys to create their rankings each year. But just as a college-bound student must understand the significant limits of these website rankings, so must families consider the many ways in which an academic community like ours cooperates and innovates well past these singular and often outdated measures of student success.
Take for example a primary responsibility of public school districts: preparing our students to further their education or to enter careers after graduation. US News and World Report (USNW) attempts to quantify and rank public high schools nationally on their ability to prepare students for college through their "College Readiness Index Rank,” and "The College Curriculum Breadth Index,” which together account for 40% of the total score for each school. Their results are found by looking at the number of students who take an Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate Exam, and the number of students who score well enough to earn college credit. While these numbers do help paint a picture, they are an undeniably limited one. Here are just some of the many opportunities which our North Penn neighbors and educators provide for students who are college or career bound, which are not factored into the USNW and Niche ratings:
When students or families approach our teams of teachers and administrators with praise for these programs, we don’t ask them to leave us a positive review on Niche — we get back to work expanding those programs and looking for more ways to reach every student.
It’s also worth noting that UNWR makes no measure of school district success for students entering the workforce after graduation. Here in North Penn, we’re proud of the opportunities created by our North Montco Technical and Career Center, which helped students earn over 400 industry certifications last year alone in fields like social media marketing, welding, culinary arts, HVAC, and biomedical technology to name a few. These quality programs ensure that our students can find these paths to local in-demand careers, and in many cases allow students to begin working in their chosen field even before they graduate.
One of those more obvious measures is the age of the district’s buildings, a simple calculation and in the case of North Penn, a problem we’ve addressed with a bright and revealing light when we arrived. Years on from our facilities assessment, this community is now ready to make a decision about our flagship building, North Penn High School, through the most democratic method of all: a referendum which will put the next 30 years of education for our students in the hands of you all in our entire community.
North Penn comes together to create opportunities and learning spaces for our students, from thriving home and school associations that enrich the experience of students and support families, to one of the best educational foundations in the state, to the innovative partnerships with local businesses and organizations which provide students with meaningful insights into their prospective careers.
Please don’t get me wrong. Our educators, administrators, and board directors are glad that North Penn has been consistently recognized by these websites and publications as one of the top learning communities in Pennsylvania over the past five years. But that doesn’t mean we’re finished finding innovative ways to expand opportunities for the next generation of North Penn students and families.
With best wishes for a rewarding, healthy, and safe fall season,
Tim MacBain
North Penn Board of School Directors
