Principal's Message

The mission statement of Pilgrim High School states that in order to excel tomorrow, we challenge all students to meet the highest academic, civic, and social standards today. As we evaluate our entire school program, it is important that we look at the latest regulations of all Rhode Island public schools. The diploma that many of us received many years ago will shortly go out of existence. Beginning with the class of 2008, a Pilgrim High School graduate must demonstrate their proficiency in a number of ways: Senior Exhibition (Project), digital portfolio, certificate of initial mastery and standards based assessments. Each public high school in the state of Rhode Island must choose two of the four proficiency based items listed above.

For Warwick students, beginning with the class of 2008, each senior must complete a Senior Project. The Senior Project is a valuable tool to determine a student’s attainment of Pilgrim’s academic expectations in the area of core knowledge, communication, problemsolving and responsibility.

In the real world, all students need to accomplish multi-step problems, using applied learning, critical thinking, and content knowledge. Senior Project with give all Pilgrim students the opportunity to achieve high standards and apply their learning and skills to real world situations. The year-long work will culminate in an exhibition with four distinct components after the topic has been selected: mentorguided fieldwork, a research paper, a product and an oral presentation. As you can see, it is an interesting and challenging time in education. We look forward to this new opportunity for our students to demonstrate what they know and are able to do.

Dennis Mullen
Principal