NORWICH – Department chairs took the floor with graphs and charts at last week’s Norwich school board meeting, presenting Regents scores for the fall semester.

English Department Chair Betty Moubray said of the 65 students who took the English Language Arts Regents in January, 97 percent passed and 46 percent earned a mastery level of greater than 85 percent on the exam.

While Moubray said the students did better than last year, she is still computing statistics to look at the breakdown of grades and trying to track individual students’ success rates. While grading the exam, Moubray said the trend among students was that many struggled with the reading content portion of the test. “The students showed difficulty when it came to the essays and multiple choice questions which correspond,” she said.

Social Studies Department Chair Linda Callea said students taking the Global Studies Regents exam showed a 56 percent passing rate, and of the 57 students who took the United States History and Government exam, a passing rate of 91 percent was achieved.

“Most students will take the Global History Two exam in the spring, and the numbers of students examined will be much more,” said Callea.