Brentwood BOE touts 72% graduation rate

At the Brentwood board of education’s town hall meeting last week, residents got a chance to ask questions and officials got a chance to tout the district’s latest achievements, including improved graduation rates and middle school math proficiency in the 2011-12 school year.

The 2008 cohort -- students who started high school in fall 2008 and graduated in June 2012 -- had a graduation rate of 72 percent, five percentage points higher than the 2007 cohort.

And for the first time in at least two years, all of Brentwood’s 17 schools are in good standing, meaning none are on the state’s “improvement” or “corrective action” list, said Paul Nolan, director of funded programming.

About 60 taxpayers and parents showed up to the town hall meeting to ask questions and offer input. A few residents had questions about blending, a process where children from the same household could be sent to different schools in the district because of overcrowding in some and lower numbers in others. Several residents had concerns about out-of-district students using fake addresses to come to Brentwood schools.

“We really need to redistrict,” said Brentwood High School PTSA president Sonya Black. “If we have kids coming here from Bay Shore, they need to be going to Bay Shore schools. It’s not fair to our students . . . It’s not fair to our teachers.”

New trustee Keith Allison agreed, and said it’s a concern he’s heard before. “We’re trying to make improvements in the way we’re registering kids,” he said. “We know it’s a concern and it’s definitely something we’re looking into.”

Photo: Graduating seniors from Brentwood High School on June 23, 2012.