Valley Regional High School (VRHS) is located in Deep River

Deep River, Connecticut

Deep River is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 4,629 at the 2010 census. The town center is also designated by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census-designated place...

, Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It serves the three towns of Regional School District #4 - Essex

Essex, Connecticut

Essex is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 6,505 at the 2000 census. It is made up of three villages: Essex Village, Centerbrook, and Ivoryton.- History :- The Great Attack :...

, Chester

Chester, Connecticut

Chester is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 3,743 at the 2000 census. The town center is also defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census-designated place .-Geography:...

, and Deep River

Deep River, Connecticut

Deep River is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 4,629 at the 2010 census. The town center is also designated by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census-designated place...

.

Since 2006, the school has had a high turnover in administrative leadership. In April 2011, Kristina Martineau was selected as the school's new Principal, making her the fifth principal in six years at the high school. Additionally, the selection of music teacher Matt Talmadge in that year as Associate Principal marked the third person to hold that position over the same period.

Despite this turnover, in its 2011 edition, Newsweek

Newsweek

Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

 magazine named Valley Regional as one of "America's Best High Schools," ranking 334th out of 500 nationally.

Administration

After Principal Alan Frishman and his Associate Principal vacated their posts at the close of the 2005-06 academic year - following a major school renovation and a pending NEASC accreditation - Valley Regional High School has had a relatively high turnover in these two key administrative positions.

Following successful careers at Portland High School in Portland

Portland, Connecticut

Portland is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,732 at the 2000 census. The town center is listed as a census-designated place . It is situated across the Connecticut River from Middletown....

, Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

, Donald Gates and Michael Sidoti agreed to come out of retirement during the summer of 2006 to serve as interim Principal and Associate Principal, respectively, for the upcoming academic year. These two men oversaw the reaccreditation of the high school by NEASC and generally, were quite popular among faculty, staff, and students. By June 2007, then-Superintendent of Schools Kim Caron asked Gates and Sidoti to remain for a second interim year through 2007-08, citing the need for stability of leadership at the high school. Gates and Sidoti accepted, however only Gates remained by the end of that academic year, after Sidoti resigned due to illness. Subsequently, the high school was led by Principal Ian Neviaser, a former social studies teacher and Assistant Principal at Guilford High School

Guilford High School (Connecticut)

Guilford High School is a four-year public high school in Guilford, Connecticut. According to the school website,College Board Scholastic Assessment Test and Connecticut Academic Performance Tests results for GHS students are consistently above state, regional and national averages...

, and Kristina Martineau, selected as his Associate Principal. After one year on the job, Neviaser was the recipient of the Connecticut Association of School's "Outstanding First Year Principal" Award.

At the regional level, in Spring 2009 Superintendent of Schools Kim Caron resigned. By July of that year, then-Assistant Superintendent Ruth Levy was selected by the Region 4 Board of Education to succeed Caron as Superintendent. At the time, Levy stated she was firmly committed to maintaining continuity in a regional school district that had seen many abrupt administrative and budgetary changes over the last three years.

Shortly after Levy's selection as Superintendent, Neviaser was chosen as the next Assistant Superintendent during Summer 2010, after serving just two years as principal of the high school. Neviaser replaced Diane Dugas, who resigned in May after about nine months on the job. A search for Nevaiser's replacement was undertaken immediately.

Eric Rice Controversy

In July 2010, the Region 4 Board of Education announced its selection of Eric Rice, a local Chester resident and principal for the University High School of Science and Engineering, a magnet school in Hartford, to succeed Ian Nevaiser at the high school. Superintendent Levy was a vocal advocate for Rice's selection, stating he has "an outstanding background in science, mathematics, and technology,” and a strong “commitment to our school community."

However, after less than three weeks on the job, reports surfaced of his possible dismissal with unconfirmed accounts that Superintendent Levy had given an ultimatum that Rice resign or face possible dismissal. Approximately two weeks later, the Region 4 Board of Education accepted the resignation of Eric Rice, making him the shortest serving principal in school history. Board of Education Chairwoman Linda Hall declined to comment on whether Rice's resignation was voluntary or whether there would be any legal action against the school district. The Board of Education did release details of Rice's severance, with Levy adding that it represented less that one-half of one percent of the current education budget. At a special meeting of the Board of Education, where over 100 residents turned out to challenge the Board's handling of Rice's dismissal, Levy stated, "We have a great district. Do we have things to learn, always, there are issues but that does not mean things are terrible.” The Board quickly appointed Kristina Martineau, Associate Principal at the high school, as the interim principal for the remainder of the 2010-11 academic year.

Adding insult to injury, an Essex resident filed a complaint with the Connecticut Department of Education against the Superintendent, alleging an "abuse of power" by Levy, resulting in the resignation of Eric Rice. The filed complaint also stated that the civil rights of the high school students had been violated due to a supposed "gag order" that "prevented students from discussing the circumstances of Rice’s departure." The Connecticut Department of Education responded in a letter dated November 8, 2010 dismissing the complaint due to a lack of accompanying evidence to support the allegations. Superintendent Levy vehemently denied any "gag order" had been placed upon the students at the high school; the Board of Education subsequently hired an independent party (later determined to be Madison lawyer Stacey Lafferty) to investigate reports of a gag order. In December 2010, the Board of Education accepted a four-page report written by Lafferty that found "no evidence or support for the claim that a gag order was issued or sanctioned by Central [Superintendent's] Office,” or that the civil rights of students were violated. The exact reason(s) for the abrupt departure of Eric Rice have remained confidential and were not revealed to residents of Region 4.

In February 2011 the Board announced that a facilitator from Project Learn, a regional education consortium, will assist with the search for a new principal, although a search committee has not yet been formed. On March 21, 2011, Superintendent Levy announced the process by which the new Valley Regional principal would be hired, stressing that the search would have a "different structure" than previous hiring efforts. The most significant change to the hiring process is an extensive interview phase, during which the top two candidates will be presented to the district via a public question-and-answer session on April 5, followed by candidate interviews with the Region 4 Board of Education on April 12. According to Levy, over a dozen applications were received by the district and each applicant would be subject to an initial phone screen by a group composed of herself, the Project Learn facilitator, Board of Education Chairwoman Linda Hall, and Assistant Superintendent Neviaser. In April, the Region 4 Board of Education announced that current interim principal, Kristina Martineau, would be the next principal at the high school.

FOI Request

Newly released emails obtained by the Hartford Courant, through a June 2011 Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request, show "administrators rapidly and hopelessly losing faith in the leader they had hired and praised just weeks earlier." The emails go on to describe how the Superintendent and other regional school district administrators started to keep a typed record of complaints about Rice's performance days after his arrival. Criticisms ranged from poor performance during a school speech, which contained "an inordinate amount of um's" to deeming Rice's written abilities and knowledge of common educational terms as poor

Other email messages reveal a "tired and frazzled" Superintendent Levy during the separation agreement negotiations in October. Likely a requirement of the agreement, Levy subsequently moved forward with the drafting of a letter of recommendation for Rice, calling him a "caring educator" and someone who "quickly established positive relationships with teachers, students, and parents." According to the Hartford Courant, such language "was unquestionably at odds with Levy's true feelings."

In response to the newspaper's investigation, letters to the editor were critical of the Courant's front-page coverage, regional school district administrators, and the handling of the situation, with several commenting the story was either not newsworthy or that Rice was treated unfairly and not given enough time to demonstrate his abilities at the school.

Federal Investigation

As of March 2011, a separate, but related investigation began at the high school by the United States Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, which "opened an investigation of a discrimination complaint involving disciplinary actions taken against an Asian American student at Valley Regional High School last fall."

The father of an American born Laotian student is questioning his son's ten-day suspension in September 2010 after he downloaded a flyer on a school computer concerning a rally in support of former Principal Eric Rice. The federal complaint alleges that other students received much milder punishment for similarly distributing rally information. Named in the complaint are Superintendent Ruth Levy, Assistant Superintendent Ian Nevaiser, interim principal Kristina Martineau, and Stacey Lafferty, the Madison lawyer hired in November to investigate the possible gag order.

In the midst of this investigation, the Region 4 Board of Education voted on March 5, 2011 to approve a statement supporting Superintendent Ruth Levy.

The approved resolution stated: "The Region 4 Board of Education formally and publicly acknowledges the ongoing leadership and professionalism displayed by Superintendent Ruth Levy during the 2010-2011 academic year. Given the many challenges and distrations that have emerged during this school year, Dr. Levy has remained steadfast in her commitment to the education and well being of the students of Region 4.”

In late June 2011, the United States Department of Education Office of Civil Rights announced that it would drop the investigation due to the father's withdrawal of the complaint against school administrators.

Academics

Valley Regional offers students a variety of classes spanning numerous subjects, including Art, Business, Mathematics, Music, English, World Languages, Science, and Technology Education. The school functions according to the block schedule

Block scheduling

Block scheduling is a type of academic scheduling in which each student has fewer classes per day but each class is scheduled for a longer period of time . A student might be taking 7 different classes, but only 4 per day, and the specific daily classes would rotate through a changing daily cycle...

, with each student enrolling in four courses per semester.

In order to graduate, students must earn 28.5 credits - a mixture of required as well as elective coursework. Specific requirements include:

• Four credits of English (four semesters)
• Three credits of Mathematics
• One credit of Physical Science Survey
• One credit of Biology
• One credit of an elective Science course
• One credit of Global Studies II
• One credit in The Constitution and Civic Responsibility
• One credit of America in the Twentieth Century
• One credit of Contemporary Issues or Western Civilization
• Two credits of Physical Education (1/2 credit per year)
• One half credit of Health
• One credit in the Arts, Vocational Education or Technology Education
• One half credit of Summer Reading over four years

For those that are particularly academically motivated, Valley Regional also gives the students the option to take Advanced Placement courses so long as they meet prerequisites. These include AP Biology, AP U.S. History, AP English, and AP Chemistry.

The school also maintains a relationship with the state's flagship collegiate institution, The University of Connecticut

University of Connecticut

The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...

. The UConn Early College Experience program is "designed to allow high school students an opportunity to pursue college-level courses for which they will receive full college credit at UConn." Students must earn a grade of "C" or better if they wish to use an approved course at the university.

Newsweek Ranking

In its 2011 edition ranking "America's Best High Schools," Newsweek magazine named the Valley Regional 334th out of 500 nationally. The high school is just one of 12 from Connecticut to appear on the list, and the only one from Middlesex County

Middlesex County, Connecticut

Middlesex County is a county located in the south central part of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was created in 1785 from portions of Hartford and New London counties. As of 2010, the population was 165,676....

. According to Newsweek, the public schools were judged according to 6 criteria: Graduation rate (25%), college matriculation rate (25%), AP tests taken per graduate (25%) average AP/IB/AICE scores (10%), and AP courses offered (5%).

Athletics

Valley Regional is a part of the Shoreline Conference of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC), with the exception of football, which is a member of the Pequot League, Sassacus division. The school's varsity sports consist of soccer, cross country

Cross country running

Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...

, American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

, volleyball

Volleyball

Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...

, field hockey

Field hockey

Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...

, indoor track, basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

, gymnastics

Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...

, swimming

Swimming (sport)

Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

, track

Track and field

Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...

, lacrosse

Lacrosse

Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...

, baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

, softball

Softball

Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...

, golf

Golf

Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

, tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

, and high school quiz bowl

Quizbowl

Quiz bowl is a family of games of questions and answers on all topics of human knowledge that is commonly played by students enrolled in high school or college, although some participants begin in middle or even elementary school...

. The high school shares an athletic relationship with students from Lyme-Old Lyme High School

Lyme-Old Lyme High School

Lyme-Old Lyme High School is a coeducational public school located at 69 Lyme Street in Old Lyme, Connecticut. -Sports:...

 for both the football team and the school's crew

Rowing (sport)

Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...

 club.

The Fall 2010 athletic season saw particular success for the boy's soccer, football, and girl's cross-country teams. The soccer team, under the guidance of Class S Coach of the Year, Mick Fearon, achieved a 16-4-1 record and advanced to its first state final championship match since 2000. The football team had first undefeated record (10-0) ever, won the Pequot conference title, and advanced to the state final championship match, eventually losing to St. Joseph. The girls cross-country team ended the season undefeated, with a record of 19-0, won the Shoreline Conference title, and placed third in the state overall.

On March 18, 2011, the boy's basketball team won the Class S State Championship, defeating Classical Magnet School 70-46 in front of over 3,700 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville

Uncasville, Connecticut

Uncasville is an area in the town of Montville, Connecticut. The area traditionally known as Uncasville is a village in southeastern Montville, at the mouth of the Oxoboxo River...

, Connecticut, capping an impressive 25-2 season. The win brought the high school its very first state basketball title.

At the close of the 2010-11 academic year, the CIAC awarded the high school 1st place in the Michael's Cup Award for Sportsmanship.