Kalamazoo Times

Comstock High School Principal Mary Spade provided the Comstock Public School Board with an update on the state of the school at the board's Feb. 13 meeting, noting the school had received a "B" rating.

Spade said the ''B'' rating was an above average performance in the peer group of 30 other high schools including Evart High School, Shelby High School, Newaygo High School and South Haven High School. Comstock also scored significantly above average in its performance for subgroups, such as students of color and students with economic disadvantages.

“I wanted to start with this picture because this is what makes Comstock High School special," Spade said. "I work with a handful of staff, teachers and staff, and this group has a lot of veteran teachers [who] really care about the students and they go above and beyond. 

"The heartbeat of the high school is this group of people right here, the students services team," she added. "Their offices are right there in the middle of the school. They work their tails off. Colleen Grueter worked really hard with the freshmen this year to get them to pass classes, to work with them individually. It's just amazing what this group does.”

For the Michigan Merit exam and SAT standing, Comstock High registered a 920 average out of the 71 juniors who took the test last school year. This was slightly lower than the state average of 957. At Comstock, 48% of students met the reading benchmark, but only 15% met the math benchmark, a trend also shown in the state averages.

To address this problem, Comstock examined all the subgroups and data at a professional development day. The school found that the students in the Kalamazoo-based district have strong math skills in data and geometry, but often leave free response answers blank. 

The school also concentrated on math skills that could help the students do better, such as working on math without calculators, using word problems with graphs and charts, and more practice with decimals and fractions.

The school has also utilized therapists to help address the emotional needs and mental well-being of students while using resources that will help students do better for the standardized test prep.