“The research has shown that the districts that are using the Study Island and the Reading Eggs are the districts that have greater success ...

This article was posted February 1, 2012 and is from the "Independent" [Greater  Media Newspapers - A Group of Ten Community Newspapers Serving Monmouth and Middlesex Counties]


Mat-AB BOE sets 2012-13 district goals


Increases in literacy, morale, nontax revenues, graduation rate targeted



BY NICOLE ANTONUCCI, Staff Writer


The Matawan-Aberdeen School District will focus on increasing student performance and morale and reducing spending for the 2012-2013 school year.


During the Jan. 23 Board of Education meeting, board President Charles Kenny highlighted the district’s top four goals for this academic year.


“These goals are very demanding and they will be hard to achieve,” Kenny said. “The nuts and bolts of how this would be achieved is a fluid process and it is a process the administration is charged with.”


According to Kenny, the board held a special meeting on Nov. 20 to prioritize goals for the coming year.


“There are many goals that the board wants to achieve, but these were the goals that we thought were important,” he said.


Superintendent David Healy explained that the administration has already begun to implement various measures to make the goals more attainable.


The first goal is to reduce the non-proficiency rate on the statewide NJ ASK test in reading among third-grade students by 15 percent.


Upon coming to the district, Healy learned some students, particularly in third grade, weren’t meeting the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) benchmark in language arts on the NJ ASK test.


“Having worked in Middletown, being closely involved in a lot of literacy initiatives in Middletown and seeing that success, the most important thing was analyzing the data and knowing what to do with the data,” he said.


Based on the data, different tools are being used, including guided reading for grades 3 to 5 as well as training for teachers.


A portion of the $584,217 in additional 2011 state aid was used to provide classroom libraries with level readers for classroom instruction, Healy said.


He added that a recently added Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) tool would assess progress three times a year.


“It gives us an indication of how students are progressing in the area of language arts literacy, and based on that information, we create strategies toward really addressing what the data provides to us,” Healy said.


“Depending on where the students are or how well they do on the assessment, we either continue to provide the whole-group instruction, small-group instruction, or one-on-one instruction, with the goal to bring every student to at least grade level or above.”


In addition, monies were allocated from No Child Left Behind funds to conduct a language arts literacy summer school for students exiting first through fifth grades who are two grade levels or more behind on the DRA.


The idea, Healy explained, is for those students who are falling behind to attend summer school so they can improve reading grade level.


Students are also utilizing Study Island (grades 3-12) and Reading Eggs (grades K-2), two Web-based programs that follow the core curriculum content standards and directly correlate to the NJ ASK. “The research has shown that the districts that are using the Study Island and the Reading Eggs are the districts that have greater success on the NJASK and some of those other assessments,” Healy said.


Healy said the focus is on early childhood literacy since it can ultimately impact areas such as science, social studies and math literacy.


He added that if students progress in literacy, it could help decrease the need for additional special programs.


“It reduces the need for things like resource room, it reduces the need for basic skills, and we will see a reduction in the classification of students for reading disabilities.


“Oftentimes when we classify students for reading disability it’s not because they can’t read, it’s because they never learned how to read properly,” he said.


The second goal is to prepare an annual budget with a tax levy increase that does not exceed 1.5 percent from the prior year without any reduction in programs.


To do this, the administration plans to improve operational efficiency and to increase nontax based revenue.


“[We are looking at] our use of custodial overtime, we are looking at the utilization of the utilities and how they can be better addressed such as more energy-efficient systems, replacing some of our boilers with more efficient systems,” Healy said.


He said the district could also save money by bringing out-of-district students back to the district.


“When we bring students back to the district, we are bringing them to a program that is equal to, if not better than, the program they are currently in. That is a more efficient way of managing our students that are currently out-of-district placements,” Healy said.


“That can be a tremendous cost savings to the district and we can utilize that money to enhance our programs to benefit those students.”


The district also will identify revenue sources that are not based on taxes, Healy said, including studying how facilities can be used by outside organizations.


“Although we believe that we should provide a service to the community in terms of our facilities we want to make sure the district is appropriately compensated for the use of those facilities,” Healy said.


He added that the state has also approved advertisements on district-operated school buses.


“That can be a pretty solid revenue source when you consider that our buses run all day long between the school programs, our preschool programs, our athletic programs, our summer programs. It is a great opportunity for our district to use the buses to advertise.”


The third goal is to enhance the morale for students and staff by decreasing districtwide suspensions by 10 percent and decreasing district-wide violence and vandalism incidents by 10 percent.


“We have been addressing the problems and not necessarily the symptoms,” Healy said, adding that early intervention is needed.


“We have developed a partnership with CPC Behavioral Healthcare where students are referred and behavioral plans are put into place, creating positive behavioral support systems,” Healy said.


He said that supervision in school hallways and cafeterias has been increased to address problems that may be happening between classes.


“It comes down to good building management and having the team approach from the teachers and administrators to the students all working together. It is very important to have a positive, nurturing environment in our buildings.”


Finally, the district plans to reduce the number of high school seniors taking the Alternative High School Assessment (ASHA) by 25 percent.


When students do not pass the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA), a requirement for graduation, they have the option of taking the ASHA, Healy said.


To reduce the number of students taking the ASHA, Healy said HSPA preparation would be increased.


Healy said that while the district will work to attain the four goals recognized as priorities, there are about 50 other goals that have been identified.


“We believe,” Healy said, “we are going to meet the challenge.”