Michael Chester, the newly-appointed commissioner of education for
Massachusetts, laid out his vision for schools at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School Performing Arts Center this morning for an audience which included the new principal of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, Stephen Nixon.

Meanwhile, approximately 2,280 Vineyard students will have their first day at school this week; a sign, argues superintendent of schools Dr. James H. Weiss, that the sharp decline in high school enrollment will stabilize over the next decade.

“The overall enrollment is pretty much the same; it’s leveling off, which is what we anticipated,” he said.

Final student count will be made with a school census on Oct. 1. Mr. Weiss projects high school student enrollment between 725 and 735, about 40 fewer students than last year. Student enrollment at the elementary school level is as follows: Edgartown, 370; Oak Bluffs, 330; Tisbury, 300; West Tisbury, 290 to 300; and Chilmark, 38.

The downward trend at the high school will continue for the next five years before slowing and leveling off at approximately 618 by 2018, according to a recent study by the New England School Development Council.

The trend has coincided with staff shortages, addressed with a large scale recruitment drive this summer.

“As of now we’re fully staffed,” said Mr. Weiss, who confirmed that staff positions were filled at the high school in German and math, and in Spanish at the high school and elementary school levels.

“Who knows about tomorrow?” he added.

At issue is a combination of budgetary constraints, high cost of living and strict federal teacher qualification requirements which involves taking classes off-Island. Together these have made teacher recruitment and retention a struggle over the past several years, particularly in foreign language instruction, according to Laurie Halt, assistant to the superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

Special education is one area where both student enrollment staff numbers are up, in line with a national trend.

According to Mr. Weiss 15 to 18 per cent of Island students are now in special education. There are two Project Headway, or pre-elementary, classes at the West Tisbury School this year instead of one, and a new kindergarten-to-second-grade bridge class added at Edgartown school. An additional special education teacher has also been hired.

The expansion accounts for a significant piece of a $3.5 million 2008 superintendent’s budget, which was up 20 per cent on the previous year.

At an administration level, Carlin Hart begins as interim assistant principal of the high school, filling a position vacated by Mr. Nixon. Mr. Nixon took over as principal of the high school in June following Margaret (Peg) Regan’s nine-year tenure. Back from a year-long leave of absence, Laury Binney will return as principal of the Oak Bluffs school.

Mr. Nixon told the Gazette last week that he intends to introduce a range of changes at the school, but slowly.

“I have a lot of ideas but you can’t do it overnight, you don’t want to overwhelm people,” he said.

Mr. Nixon came to the high school as history teacher in 1998 and spent the past four years as assistant principal in charge of discipline and other administrative areas.

This month he rolled out Edline, an online system which will allow parents instant access to their child’s academic performance and behavior records. The software will also show student timetables and teacher lesson plans.

“It’s basically moving everything into the electronic age,” he said, “now parents don’t have to wait for letters which would sometimes get lost or the students would hide them. And it takes out the lull time.”

Parents are issued a password for the site and can receive e-mail alerts on their child.

“We don’t want to replace human contact [between parent and teacher]. That’s not what we’re saying. The doors are open here, you can pick up the phone to a teacher,” Mr. Nixon said.

He has also eliminated home room on all school days except Mondays. Since roll call is taken in the first class of the day, Mr. Nixon felt that home room time could be more effectively spent on instruction.

“This is nine minutes, but it adds up,” he said.

The state requires 990 hours of instructional class time per year in 180 school days.

“You figure it’s 45 minutes a week, over 10 months. You’ve got students engaged for 30 hours a year in some form of instruction,” he said.

Work will begin this month on the upcoming school budget. Together with the high school committee, Mr. Nixon will create a three to five-year plan to address declining enrollment.

He takes over the school budget following a season of high drama which involved the first instructional cuts at the high school since it was established in 1958.

Last year’s budget dropped a full time music teacher position to half time, canceling guitar, piano and individual voice classes. That position has now been fully vacated by Daniel Murphy, who no longer works at the school, and will be filled by Melanie Sroka of West Tisbury.

Mr. Nixon said he could not speculate about whether this year’s budget will call for more instructional cuts.

“I don’t look at the budget as a battle. Our goal is to give the best education we can give and you need to look at everything economically. You have to look at where you can cut things back and say ‘How can I spend this better?’” he said.

“You know, these are working people,” he added, of Vineyard taxpayers.

With her position as drama director down to part-time due to cuts made insufficiently filled classes in the department, Kate Murray will take on the position of manager of the performing arts center when director Jim Novack retires this year. The school is currently conducting a job search for a technical director to assist Ms. Murray at the arts center.

“We believe that’s a full-time job,” said Mr. Weiss of Ms. Murray’s new position. He added that though Mr. Novack will be eligible for retirement this October, the school will look to retain him as a consultant as long as possible.

“He established the place, we don’t want to lose what’s in his head,” he said.

Meanwhile the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School, in its 13th year, appears to be unencumbered by many of the issues troubling other Island schools.

A record 179 students will attend this year, with 40 students at a high school level, doubling those classes to four.

Using a $100,000 matching grant from an anonymous donor, the school will begin construction this year on an extension with a new arts room. Principal Robert Moore said the extension should be ready by October 2009. A full-time humanities and part-time information technology teacher will start next week at the school.

“We’re meeting at the growing student needs with wonderfully caring and talented staff,” said Mr. Moore.

In other school news a new fleet of school buses costing more than $1 million is scheduled to arrive early next year, joining two special education buses in use by next month.

Transportation manager James Flynn is finalizing a new route which will extend the area covered by school buses, in an effort to curb car use. Last year Ms. Regan estimated that up to 250 vehicles are driven to the high school each day by students and faculty.