At its February 15 meeting, the Board of Education granted Newtown High School a half-day March 23 to administer the SAT.

“The state has decided that this is a good year to do the full digital implementation of the SAT,” said NHS Principal Dr Kimberly Longobucco at the school board meeting.

Longobucco requested the half-day on March 23 in order to provide the test to the 358 current NHS juniors.

The undertaking, Longobucco shared, will include having 80 teachers to proctor the test.

“This is a monumental task for us to take on at the high school,” said Longobucco, “which also means, we need to do something else with our ninth- and tenth-grade students.”

NHS seniors will not attend school that day, but they will have other school work to work on, according to the meeting’s discussion.

In a slide for the presentation to the school board, Longobucco shared that the testing will start at 8 am and it will end around 12:30 pm. Students will be tired and fatigued from testing; over 30 students will get extended time on the SAT; and over 50 students will have accommodations for testing.

“We can’t test fairly and quietly enough and have 600 to 700 other students wandering around and moving,” said Longobucco.

Longobucco then said NHS was requesting a two-hour early dismissal on March 23 to accommodate the testing and release the students after it is done.

“A two-hour early dismissal would allow us to test our full-scope of juniors and also make it to the bus at 12:30 and allow our students with extended time or other accommodations to take the middle school bus route,” Longobucco said.

For ninth and tenth graders, Longobucco explained the plan is to bus them to Newtown Youth Academy and Newtown Community Center for a Social-Arts-Team (SAT) Building day that will include basketball, pickleball, board games, a hypnotist, a movie, yoga, pottery, and more.

“They will have a little bit of a mental health day,” said Longobucco.

This plan takes the ninth and tenth graders out of NHS for the day, and, with the day falling at the end of the third quarter, the principal said it gives the younger grade students “a little bit of fun.”

In order to oversee the SAT Building day, Longobucco said 30 teachers, two assistant principals, school resource officers, and two secretaries will be at NYA and Newtown Community Center.

She also shared a schedule with the school board for the SAT Building day. All-Star Transportation, which oversees the school district’s main bus routes, has already worked with the high school to plan the day’s transportation.

After discussion, the school board approved the March 23 early dismissal for NHS.

Education Reporter Eliza Hallabeck can be reached at eliza@thebee.com.