ABINGTON - June 9, 2026 - The Abington School Committee revealed that Abington High School has been placed in the bottom 25 percent statewide for student growth on MCAS scores, triggering an invitation into the state’s Accelerating Achievement Partnership (AAP). High School Principal Jonathan Bourn presented a sobering data analysis to the committee, identifying massive achievement and credit-earning gaps among English Language Learners (ELL) as a core challenge driving the district’s low ranking. The district is embarking on a targeted three-to-five-year academic improvement plan with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) focused heavily on secondary-level literacy.
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The regularly scheduled June meeting opened with a major academic update that re-centered the district’s strategic priorities. Principal Jonathan Bourn presented data from a recent state convening in Waltham, detailing why the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education invited Abington High School into its Accelerating Achievement Partnership. The state’s “heat map” metrics placed Abington in the lowest quarter of Massachusetts schools regarding academic growth on standardized testing.
A deep dive into freshman credit-attainment data highlighted a critical vulnerability. While 91.7 percent of students with disabilities and 86 percent of the general student population passed all of their ninth-grade classes, only 50 percent of English Language Learner (ELL) students achieved the same benchmark.
Principal Bourn emphasized that the district is treating the designation as an opportunity for structural growth rather than a punitive measure. Because high school educators are traditionally not trained in foundational literacy instruction in the same manner as elementary school teachers, the upcoming School Improvement Plan will heavily prioritize reading comprehension and vocabulary breakdown across all high school departments. The initiative will also evaluate the high school’s “Vision of the Graduate” compared to state standards, specifically noting that the district’s current framework omits “creativity” and “literacy” metrics. Assistant Superintendent Dr. Christopher Basta clarified that the partnership is voluntary, noting that state officials toured the high school facility to begin aligning resources and exploring peer-school mentorship structures.
