![After Massachusetts voted to remove the MCAS graduation requirement, policy makers are reshaping graduation standards. "The top-line understanding is that we’ve moved away from a system that we’ve known for about 24 years, which is one where every school district in Massachusetts had wide latitude to decide what their graduation requirements were in terms of coursework or other experiences, but every single student, in order to earn a diploma, needed to pass the MCAS in one English, one math and one science assessment," Massachusetts Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler said. "We’ve moved away from that now, by virtue of the outcome of [the MCAS] ballot question in November, to a place where communities can still decide what their graduation requirements are, but there’s no requirement for students to pass the MCAS.”](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/img_3067_720.png)
![Troy Hoyt finishes the Boston Marathon, running for the Hoyt Foundation. T. Hoyt is the son of Hoyt Foundation CEO Russ Hoyt.
“[Running a marathon] might seem like a big thing, when it’s presented to you at first, but if you break it up and just keep telling yourself, “Yes, you can,” you can start chipping away at it. And before you know it, you’ll be running the whole 26 miles, and you won’t even think twice about it.” T. Hoyt said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/C36E8761-1CBB-452E-9DF2-543EF7B1095E_1_105_c.jpeg)
![From left to right, junior Ben Pyhtila, sophomores Aadith Charry and Owen Chislett play their cello instruments. Junior Jubin Kim also plays the cello and has been playing the instrument since third grade. "I think that [the cello] is a good balance between a high instrument versus a low instrument, and I just really like the rich sound that it makes," Kim said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/IMG_6540-1200x800.jpg)
On November 23rd, ’07 graduate Chris Lash and ’06 graduate Stan Seiden will bring their Yale University improvisational comedy group to Wayland High School. The group, called “The Purple Crayon,” will make Wayland High School a stop on their fall tour.
The Purple Crayon was founded in 1985 and is Yale’s longest continuously-running improvisational troop. The name was inspired by the children’s book Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson, a story of a boy who creates his own imaginative world by drawing with a purple crayon.
Several past members of the Purple Crayon have gone on to be highly successful; alumni can be seen in Beverly Hills 90210, Renegade, and the movie Dead Poets Society. Phil LaMarr, the founder of the Purple Crayon, went on to create MadTV, an American sketch comedy television series.
Improvising is an interactive theater technique where cast members feed off the audience to create short comedy skits on the spot. The Wayland improv show will take place at 2 pm on Sunday, November 23rd in the Wayland High School Little Theater. Tickets cost ten dollars and can be purchased at the middle school and high school main offices, as well as at the Wayland Depot. Proceeds of the show will benefit CAPA (Creative Arts Parents Association) and the Purple Crayon.
