Week One Done, Students Back, and I Love This Place ...

Our students are back in the classrooms and halls at MSSPA. Music is being composed, Shakespeare sonnets recited in the halls, and dancers are leaping and stretching all over the place. has its highest enrollment to-date, and the energy in the school is fueling the staff to go farther and reach higher than before.

With the new tools the MDE has provided, we are better able to focus on students who are struggling with concepts and assist, tutor, and help them feel prepared in math, science, and reading. We are especially excited, as this is the first year the MCA math test will actually have to be passed by sophomores. Up to this point, if you tried the test three times, you were done without consequence. Now it is a must-pass-in-order-to-graduate test. The access to information provided by MDE will help us push those scores up this year. And as a small school, we are uniquely able to implement prompt and impactful changes as needed in our curriculum and instruction. 

I was fortunate to have time during our prep week to sit down with members of our math department and discuss a clear focused plan for working on our math testing this year. The MSSPA math team is driven to motivate our students in the classroom, so they fully reflect their grasp of subject matter at MCA testing time. Our instructors’ focus includes two “in-school” remediation periods a week for struggling students, an after school option, one-on-one meetings with each student to discover particular math roadblocks that may be holding them back, and a focused curriculum that allows for greater demonstration of knowledge. These tools are not unique to Main Street, but given our size and student to teacher ratio we can make a significant difference in a shorter period of time.

Although it may seem like our performances take the focus of the school, it is performance in all aspects of a student’s life at Main Street that matters most to our amazing staff. 

Fun Fact # 241: A student must be passing all of her classes in order to participate in any performance, rehearsal or extra-curricular activity at the Main Street School of Performing Arts.