For three years the Class of 2025 put hours of studying into working to memorize and learn the best ways to prepare for the SAT, specifically by taking the paper PSAT twice a year beginning in eighth grade. However, not long before their junior year, they were thrown a curve ball when they found out that their testing would be online instead of the paper format they had been preparing for.
Although this sudden change hindered the nation, South students seemed to excel after the change, which can be credited to the teachers at South who adjusted their lessons to help students succeed. Principal Moussa Hamka recognized how impactful the teachers were to helping the Class of 2025 thrive and how positively it has reflected back on South as a whole.
“In the state, in the nation, we are experiencing a reduction of scores, and we [South] accelerate by widening that gap. It just really shows we have got something special here,” Hamka said.
Even though all teachers contributed to this impressive achievement, specifically the Math and English departments made a very large difference in the test scores. English department chair Kevin Cox revealed that the department as a whole attempted to give a lot more exposure to online English assignments in preparation for the test.
“Last year with the transition, we included more online-only tasks to help students get more familiar with some of the features that they will find on the AP and SAT exams,” Cox said. “To hopefully make it less of a jarring transition for them to be able to maneuver online as they go back and forth and look at tasks.”
Students such as Olivia McMillin ’25 who studied outside of class for the SAT explained how although her tutoring helped her a lot it ultimately was the things inside of the classroom that boosted her scores.
“I went to a class outside of school hours once a week where I was given great advice on different tips and tricks that would help me out during the test,” McMillin said. “However it was the constant exposure to AP classroom and online annotating within my AP Lang class that I think really helped me improve my score on the English section of the SAT.”
On the other hand, Math teacher Jenna Roebuck expressed that although students may have not realized it at the moment, all the online assignments the math department was incorporating had been in preparation for the SAT.
“We spent a week of focused preparation time that was specifically designed for online math tests prior to the SAT,” Roebuck said. “And although many students may not have realized, the incorporation of Delta math from their teachers was a great resource to help them prepare for how to solve online math problems.”
Beyond including these online assignments Roebuck also explained how the teachers made their best efforts to expose their students to not only a variety of problems they would encounter on the SAT but the new online tools they could use to solve them such as the Desmos calculator.
“As a math department one way we prepared students for the SAT was by conducting practice tests in the classroom, specifically ones that involved the Desmos calculator to give them the proper exposure they need to succeed on the online SAT,” Roebuck said.
As the statistics have proven, the hard work of the teachers helped the Class of 2025 succeed in their testing and will continue to help future classes. Counselor Troy Glasser is one of the many staff members who is impressed with this year’s outcome and wants to give recognition to this achievement.
“During this period, the growth from the seniors was truly incredible and this can be credited back to the hard work from the teachers,” Glasser said.
