Schools

West Deptford Report Card Places Greater Pressure on Schools, Administrators

Although the state numbers show a need for improvement, Chief Academic Officer Kristin O'Neil said West Deptford is already working to address the issues it identified.

Although they offer a greater depth of information than ever before, the 2012 school report cards issued by the New Jersey Department of Education might pose more questions than they answer—for parents and educators alike.

West Deptford Chief Academic Officer Kristin O’Neil said that although the report has merit in its “attempts to try to promote transparency throughout the district,” that its findings were “a shock."

“I think what they’re trying to showcase is important,” O’Neil said; “however, the problems are kind of like building a plane while flying.”

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Consider the data at the high school level, which describe a mixed bag at best.

In terms of academic achievement, which “measures the content knowledge students have in language arts literacy and math” as based on the New Jersey High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA), WDHS hit 88 percent of its performance targets.

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Yet it only outperformed 35 percent of schools statewide and 21 percent of schools in its peer group.

In terms of college readiness, which is based upon student participation in the SAT and PSAT as well as in advanced placement (AP) courses, WDHS hit 40 percent of its performance targets. That means it’s better than only 45 percent of schools statewide and 38 percent of schools in its peer group.

The high school also was meeting its graduation and post-secondary requirements at a 50-percent clip, despite outperforming only 21 percent of schools statewide and just 5 percent in its peer group.

But the high school also has an 85 percent graduation rate—10 percent better than the statewide target. More than 40 percent of the students who take the SAT score better than 1550 (out of 2400). And 80 percent of students taking an AP exam score 3 or better, which is usually the standard for judging college placement.

“They’re looking at things and analyzing them by specifics,” O’Neil said. “We’re focusing on the graduation rate.”

Surprises

Despite these rankings, some elements by which their performance were measured on the state report card were unknown to the districts themselves before the findings released, O’Neil said.

For example, administrators were not notified that the percentage of high school students in the district who take the PSAT exam would be one of the metrics used to determine its college-readiness score.

“If we had known that the PSAT was something we would have been judged against, we could have made adjustments in the beginning,” O’Neil said.

“There’s no way to mandate that unless we’re covering that [cost]. We can’t require students to sit for the SAT unless we pay for it. It is something now that we’re investigating.”

The implications of that college-readiness rating were even considered at the elementary-school level. The sole indicator there, O’Neil said, is the count of students who miss 18 days or more of school.

Statewide, the average is is 6 percent; at Green-Fields, where chronic absenteeism has been an issue, it’s 7 percent.

Another challenge is to consider the broader implications of the peer group within which the district is being judged, which do not include any other Gloucester County high schools. Its closest neighbors are schools like Haddon Heights, Haddon Township, Cherry Hill West, Timber Creek and Highland.

That peer group is selected based upon socioeconomic characteristics, which includes the number of students receiving free and reduced-price lunch, and not necessarily geographical ones.

Still, O'Neil said, “I don’t think that the sky is falling.

“The Department of Ed gives us this data for us to use. The message should be that we don’t panic when we see it; we use it.

“School districts and children are more than a number,” she said.

What parents can do

In response to the report card, the district is looking into ways to provide even greater accountability, O’Neil said. That includes an effort to strengthen core skills at the elementary-school level with an extended school year for at-risk students.

Strengths of the district remain its technology focus, its advanced participation in the next generation of electronic student assessments, and using the data in the state proficiency reports “to target that instruction,” she said.

“We need to react and put things into place to support the teachers so they can do their jobs, but the whole thing falls on the teachers,” O’Neil said.

“I could not be more proud of the job they are doing because it is significantly different from education five years ago.”

Most importantly, O’Neil said, the district needs its parents as partners in the process, practicing basic math skills and reading with their children daily. In even five or 10 minutes a day, she said, parents can make a difference.

“I’m a mom of three kids,” she said. “I get it. I am at a field every day. When we’re in the car, practice your words, do multiplication. Those things, you can do that 5-10 minutes a day just driving to soccer practice, that will make a difference.

“And they need to be in school,” she said. “Learning is so hands-on that we can’t recreate that.”


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