New England Public Radio

High School Counselors: Not Much New Advice With New SAT

In two years, students will face College Board’s new SAT. To prepare for it, high schools may make changes of their own.

In March, College Board president David Coleman announced the new SAT will have an optional essay, easier math questions, and no penalty for guessing. The board says this effort aims to boost the scores of lower income students. Their scores are, on average, lower than their more affluent  peers who spend hundreds of dollars on test prep services.

The College Board’s goal is to remove the strategic elements from the exam. So the only preparation needed comes from regular schoolwork. If students need any more help, there are in-house experts to guide them.  Angie Cullinan, who is currently the guidance counselor at Hopkins Academy in Hadly, Massachusetts, but has been in her field for eleven years, is one of these experts.

Even though Cullinan believes wealthier students will always have an edge on the test, she applauds the “free service” College Board will provide. The free service College Board will offer is a series of video tutorials by Khan Academy. The website’s wide range of instructional videos — on everything from art history to microeconomics — has received over four hundred million views.

The site’s popularity aside, guidance counselor Fred Itterly at Northampton High School questions the videos’ teaching ability.

He says, “I think you can see the guy doing the problems, write on a white board right as you watch. Pretty cool. But you know, how about if he gets stuck and how do you ask questions and interact if you really don’t know the math? I’m afraid, you know, it’s got limitations that way.”

Despite the College Board’s plans, many high school counselors are not changing much in their current procedures.
Itterly, however, believes the best way to prepare students for college entrance exams would be to familiarize them with the testing atmosphere.

“What enlightened districts would do is pay for everybody to take the PSAT, which is cheap,” Itterly says. “It’s an easy way to have everybody be exposed to the format of a standardized test that’s very similar to the one that’s coming that has high stakes, and the PSAT does not.”

What about students who are poor testers or who don’t want to spend four hours on a Saturday taking a test? Both Cullinan and Itterly boast the good news that there are over eight hundred colleges that do not require tests for admission. Among those listed are Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Hampshire colleges.  Many large schools, such as University of Massachusetts Amherst, are not on the list because they still require test scores for complete application to their schools.

Ed Blaguszewski is the spokesperson for UMass Amherst. Although test scores are an important factor in the university’s admissions, Blaguszewski says an applicant’s high school record, including their G.P.A and extracurricular activities, has more weight.

He says, “We certainly look at SAT and ACT scores. We also look at very strongly high school experience and in many ways we think students who achieve excellence in high school are really providing a very good indication that they will do well in college, even if their test scores are not as high as other students’.”

Like counselors Cullinan and Itterly, Blaguszewski does not expect his school to change much in its procedures.

In fact, many education professionals hope the new SAT will be the only change needed to raise the scores of lower income students. They won’t know for sure until students take the test in two thousand sixteen.

An Unexpected International Marketplace Goes up in Flames

In Hadley, Massachusetts, investigators are still searching for the cause of a Sunday night fire that in a matter of hours wiped out more than a dozen small businesses. They were housed in a strip mall along Route 9 which in some ways was an international marketplace, in a town where you might not expect it.

Thousands of cars a day drove by the mall as they travelled on Route 9, and it a couple of days after the fire, it appeared that every single one of them slowed down for a moment to look at the burnt out store fronts. Route 9 is a major road between two college towns. Many people just pass thru on their way somewhere else, but for others, the stores were a haven for computer repair, a place to get your pants hemmed, or a destination to find foods and products from around the world.

Hai Cheng is the owner of the International Trade Market, one of the stores that went up in flames.

“We carry a lot of Indian products, Indian spices, South East Asian spices, Chinese products, Vietnamese, some Cambodian, Thai, Laos. And fresh fruits when in season,” Cheng said.

Put your face close-up to the chain link fence that went up around the stores remains in the hours after the fire was put out and you’ll see some of those products. They’re somehow still standing on shelves inside Cheng’s store. Cheng bought the business almost two years ago from friends.

As a back hoe scooped up tons of charred debris, he and several other business owners watch, seeing what left of their livelihoods. Refrigerator units were visible. So were broken glasses, tables and chairs, canned goods, and what was meat and produce. While they watched from distance, several fire investigators stood inside the fenced area, looking for the cause of the blaze that for Cheng and other store owners wiped out years of savings.

“You pour everything you have had into this business,” Cheng said. “And now it’s gone. This took all that we had away in one moment.”

Cheng came to western Massachusetts as a teenager from Cambodia. He was a refugee and an orphan and was raised by a family just a few towns away. He’s spent much of his working life as a school guidance counselor in the eastern Mass. But when his wife got a job at UMASS Amherst, they returned here and are now raising their two young children in Hadley.

Cheng said running a store had a big learning curve. He said he was just starting to get the hang of it.

“I wanted to try a new area – small business which is at the heart of Americans’ life, ” he said.

Business was good and picking up, and Cheng said he had a variety of customers who were white, Asian, and African. He ran his store alongside a market owned by a Moroccan – who carried products from north Africa and Halal certified meat. On the other side, a Vietnamese take out place that sold Banh Mi sandwiches.

Banh Mi Saigon owner Chuong Son, proudly described the sandwiches he used to make here. He said they were originally inspired by the French baguette. But the Vietnamese make it in their own way.

“It started with head cheese, food that was tough to eat, basically,” Son said. “And they put that together with pate and it caught on.”

Son  opened Banh Mi Saigon about a year and half ago. He’s no stranger to the food business — he was a cook at a UMASS dining hall. He came to the area from Vietnam when was seven, and it was his wife – also Vietnamese – who wanted to open the shop.

“She wanted to live the American dream and the opportunity presented itself,” he said.

Together with his family’s help, they put about $130,000 into that dream. And Son, like others including the owners of Greggory’s Pastry, Mi Tierra Mexican restaurant, and the computer store – they’re waiting to hear from their insurance companies.

It’s hard to see the place gone overnight, Son said. But after all his family already went through leaving Vietnam, this is nothing.

“We can overcome this,” Son said. “There’s people out there now that don’t have much, that’s going through much, much more heart ache than we’re going through.”

Son plans to rebuild. He may have to go elsewhere, but he’d like to find a place right here in Hadley.

Tony Maroulis, Executive Director of the Amherst Chamber of Commerce, whose membership includes many Hadley businesses, says one of the surprises about Hadley is that many people see the town as dominated by Big Box stores. But Maroulis says there’s probably more small immigrant based business within Hadley, than within the rest of Hampshire County. “It’s of course a community that was built by immigrants, mostly Polish and Irish immigrants before, and now and they’ve been there for several generations. But the new demographic of Hadley is one is very diverse and one that is quite different than what we think a New England community like this would be.”

International Food market owner Hai Cheng says he’s still tallying the loss of his business, and it’s already in excess of $250,000.

“What I got from insurance, I’m not sure yet. I just hope to restart,” he said.

The former school guidance counselor says, at least that’s how he’s thinking about on this day.

Fire Destroys Strip Mall in Hadley, Mass., Route 9 Reopened

A section of Route 9 has reopened after closing when a fire engulfed a business complex in Hadley, Massachusetts Sunday night.

The blaze started just after 7 pm, and spread quickly through the entire complex, home to several businesses and restaurants including Banh Mi Saigon, College Pro Computers, Mi Tierra Mexican Restaurant, Casablanca Halal Market, and Wing Wong Chinese Restaurant. 

“This is a decades-old building, it’s all wood construction, multiple roofs on it, no sprinkler system,” says Lindsay Stromgren, an assistant chief with the Amherst fire department. “So it got up into the roof ways and pretty much traveled throughout the whole building.”

Nancy Chan, owner of Wing Wong, says the fire didn’t spread to her business until about midnight. She says she’s not sure whether she will rebuild or reopen the restaurant.

The cause of the fire is still unknown. An investigation by the Massachusetts State Fire Department is ongoing. Route 9 reopened around 2:30 Monday afternoon.

 

MA Maple Syrup Producers Optimistic for Better Season than Last Year

With daily temperatures fluctuating between the 20’s and low 40’s for the past week in western Massachusetts, conditions are right for maple sugaring season. Some maple sugar farmers around the region have already had taps in trees for several weeks. Shelley Boisvert, manager of North Hadley Sugar Shack, says her farm began collecting sap in mid-February.

“I hope we’re just beginning really, like a couple weeks in or so,” she says. “So I hope we have another four weeks left.”

Boisvert says a longer season would be welcome after last year, when warm temperatures ended sap runs in mid-March. She says despite the shortened season, her farm still managed to bring in about 75 percent of its average crop because she chose to start tapping trees in early February. Boisvert says milder winter temperatures over the past three years have prompted the North Hadley farm to plan on starting every sugaring season one or two weeks early. 

“That two weeks is a huge difference for us in a four to six week season. If we don’t tap at the right time, that can mean a half a crop, possibly. So, it’s more on our end. We just have to pay attention to the weather pattern and get used to getting ready and getting out there a little bit earlier.”

Boisvert says the North Hadley Sugar Shack produces between 60 and 75 gallons of maple syrup per day at the peak of sugaring season. She says about 40 gallons of sap must be boiled down to make one gallon of syrup.