KINGSTON — Oct. 22, 2026 — Fewer than half of Silver Lake Regional High School students met or exceeded expectations on the 2026 MCAS in English, math or science, the high school told the Silver Lake Regional School Committee last Thursday, and its accountability percentile fell to the 33rd from the 44th. The committee then took voice votes on four new Advanced Placement courses and the 2026–2028 high school improvement plan.
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The high school’s slides showed 35% of students meeting or exceeding expectations in English language arts in 2026, down from 65% in 2023. Grade 10 math fell from 55% to 44% over the same period, and science fell from 52% to 33%. The share of students not meeting expectations in English rose from 5% to 22%.
The school is still classified as not requiring assistance or intervention, but its progress toward improvement targets fell to 23% in 2026, in the limited or no progress category, from 57% in 2023. Its accountability percentile, which the presentation describes as a measure of performance relative to schools serving similar grades, fell from the 44th in 2025 to the 33rd.
The high school’s principal, Michaela Gill, told the committee the faculty heard a similar presentation at the start of the year and was told the school is closer than is comfortable to the point where the state intervenes
We all need to own this and that is definitely a culture shift that we need to make. Our students deserve better.
— Principal Michaela Gill 1:27:56
The action plan in the presentation calls for identifying ninth and 10th graders who are partially meeting or not meeting expectations and pulling them for small-group tutoring during Laker Block, holding item-analysis sessions with past released MCAS questions, and moving freshman science from physics to biology. It also calls for a weekly attendance committee that reviews students’ records once they reach five absences, and for testing students in familiar locations with proctors they know.
The school received no points for advanced coursework this year. Gill said some advanced courses had not been coded correctly for state reporting and that the courses have since been reviewed. The presentation put advanced coursework completion at 65.1% for all students and 10.8% for students with disabilities.
The four courses put to a vote Thursday — AP Cyber Security, AP French, AP Pre-Calculus and AP Economics — are among the advanced courses the action plan lists. Gill said the AP Economics proposal may not have made it into members’ folders. The action plan also lists AP Art, which was not part of the vote.
The improvement plan in the committee’s packet is marked draft, with this year’s additions in red. They include a student learning goal that all students will meet or exceed expectations on 2026–2027 ELA and math Star scores and 2027 science MCAS scores. Gill also asked for help finding a community member from Halifax, Kingston or Plympton without a student at the high school to fill a committee seat.
