Recent grads return to campus for Alumni Tea

Some 60 members (or about 42 percent) of the Marcellus High School Class of 2012 returned to campus Thursday to visit favorite teachers, strut the corridors and compare notes on their first six months of post-Mustang life.

They also had the opportunity to turn the tables a bit – by “grading” their alma mater.

Visiting 2012 Marcellus alumnae flank
Spanish teacher Mrs. Shelly Marsh.

As part of the school’s annual Alumni Tea, Principal John Durkee welcomed the recent grads back to the Learning Commons, where they nibbled on sugar cookies, sipped fruit punch, reconnected with classmates and faculty members and delivered a no-holds-barred assessment of how well Marcellus High prepared them for college.

“I’m going to say something you almost never hear me say: Please take out your cell phones,” Mr. Durkee said.

Mr. Durkee asks students to "grade" Marcellus High
in an online poll, using their cell phones.

Using a web-based poll projected onto a screen, Mr. Durkee then asked the alumni to answer a series of questions via text message. The website then posted the responses in real-time on the screen. Questions focused on their first-semester grades, the type of technology they use in college and how well the curriculum and teaching styles they encountered at Marcellus prepared them for the rigors of college academics.

Another question asked students to list the one course that best-prepared them for college. Answers included English, history, calculus, business math, economics, physics… and study hall and lunch.

Mr. Durkee said he’ll present the data he collects from the poll to the Board of Education in January.

2012 grads peek into a classrooms while
visiting the school for their Alumni Tea.

Before the poll, the alumni took the customary lap around the hallways, to peer into classrooms and visit some faculty favorites.

Jordan Markham, who served on the yearbook staff for three years at Marcellus, stopped to visit faculty yearbook adviser Mrs. Cathy Arvantides.

“I just wanted to come back and see the school and visit with old friends,” said Jordan, who is now pursuing a humanities degree at Onondaga Community College.

Krissy Boyle, a freshman in the doctor of pharmacy program at the Massachusetts Institute of Pharmacy and Health Services, said she wanted to “see friends and see what’s changed and see how the high school has prepared us or not prepared us for college.”

For her part, Krissy said her math classes at Marcellus provided a strong foundation for the chemistry and math she’s now studying in college. She wanted to stop and thank math teacher Richelle Schettine for that.

“I felt the math department did really well,” she said.