Overtime Test Prep - superintendent mandates pre-SAT classes - Brief Article

School Administrator, June, 1997

Concerned over how his school district was perceived solely on the basis of students' SAT scores, Frank Ameruoso has taken to cracking a whip.

Ameruoso, the first-year superintendent of the 4,500-student Agawam district, decreed that students who scored poorly on the Preliminary SAT take a seven-week, after-school preparatory course at no charge this spring before they could take the SAT at their own school. Nearly 110 students completed the class prior to the May administration of the SAT.

For students unable or unwilling to add another course, the district purchased 20 CD-ROMs on test preparation strategies. Those students must compile 21 hours of independent study under official supervision of their log-on and log-off times.

"Can I legally do it? I have yet to find out," the superintendent said.