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Schools

Bloomingdale Schools Focus on Test Scores, BSI Program

District working toward state-mandated 100 percent proficiency on standardized tests in 2014.

Principals from two schools in the made a presentation to the board of education and members of the public on Monday night, highlighting standardized test scores for district students in grades 3-8.

The presentation started with principal Sherri Glaab, who conducted her study on a longitudinal basis. This means that, in addition to tracking year-by-year scores on the NJASK for the school’s grade levels themselves, it tracks students’ progress as they advance through different grade levels.

“What I’m trying to provide for everyone and for my staff is a longitudinal study. We’re comparing apples to apples,” said Glaab. “We go through and we look for patterns: we look for patterns within our own classes, as well as within the grade levels.”

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On the language arts portion of the NJASK, fourth graders at SRD improved their scores on the whole. A total of 56.9 percent of fourth graders at the school scored as being at least proficient in language arts literacy, improving on their overall scores as third-graders, when only 45 percent of the students in the class managed at least a proficient score.

Last year’s third-graders, however, had some difficulty transitioning from the early elementary test of the TerraNova, which is meant to expose children to the standardized testing experience, to the more advanced NJASK 3. In second grade, 96 percent of the students in the class scored at least “Average” on the TerraNova, with 39 percent scoring “Above Average”. In third grade, only 60.2 percent of the class scored at a proficient level.

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Glaab said she and others within the district believe that stylistic differences in the test may account for some of the drop in test scores. To combat this, the district is trying several different approaches to improve scores and classroom efficiency. One thing SRD is doing is departmentalizing its faculty so its teachers can instruct to their strengths.

“I have one teacher who has a strong math background who is just teaching math,” said Glaab. “I have another teacher with a strong writing background who just teaches writing.”

That doesn’t mean, though, that teachers are not collaborating across grade levels and departments to enrich the overall educational experience for the school’s students.

“They’re in the same building; we want them to put their professional education hats on to work together and that’s what they’re doing,” said Glaab.

This includes the integration of basic skills instruction (BSI) courses into general education curriculum throughout the district. The current BSI model enables students to receive extra help in a subject of need while not missing any other class time.

“The children who come into the program, instead of just reading, if we know specifically that Little Suzie needs help with writing, that’s what we’re giving her,” said Glaab. “It’s more of a differentiated approach, as opposed to a ‘one size fits all.’”

The importance of the BSI program was also echoed by Principal Frank Verducci. The program, which occurs in subject-specific, 60-day tri-mesters, currently has 36 students enrolled out of 53 students at the school who were recommended for the program after scoring below a proficient level on the NJASK.

All of the 17 recommended students who are not part of WTB’s BSI program have been held out of the program by their parents.

“We can only encourage (parents) that this is a program that they want to be involved in, but some people have different ideas and chose not to put their child into the BSI program this year,” said Verducci.

Verducci, as well as members of the board of education, believes that the school can get more recommended students in the BSI program as long as parents can understand the importance of BSI instruction for their children.

“One of the things that I would say is that we need to communicate better to the general population the importance of having their child get this extra help,” said Verducci. “It’s like a free tutor for a trimester of 60 days. Their kid might have scored a 194. That’s one or two questions away from passing.”

It was even suggested that the board of education could enact a policy in the district that would require students who score below proficient on the NJASK to enroll in the BSI program.

“It’s something we could work on, and we probably could have some intelligent conversation with parents who are willing to do it,” said Board Member Sheldon Bross.

Overall, the district’s three principals—including Principal Cheryl Mallen—are working together with Interim Superintendent Dr. Terrance Brennan to make sure district test scores improve in time for 2014, when the state expects all of its school districts to have 100 percent proficiency on the NJASK.

Although the administrators have work to do, Brennan is confident in the ability of the district to bring test scores up to speed.

“I’m hoping the four of us can come up with a way to make it better,” said Brennan. “I have faith in these three people.”

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