MANCHESTER – School officials recently discussed curriculum and ways the district is using data analysis of New Jersey Student Learning Assessments (NJSLA) and other testing results to increase student success.
Board members heard a presentation in December that served as a follow-up to a NJSLA Results presentation held in October.
Diane Pedroza, the district’s director of curriculum, reviewed the steps that are used at the district level. Last July, administrators participated in a summer training with Dr. Tracey Severns called “The Leader’s Role in Using Data to Improve Student Outcomes.”
Pedroza said it was a valuable session to help prepare them to focus on the data as a team.
“What she discussed with us was ‘Let the data create a picture. Look at the data. See what’s there and then determine what the trends are and what story it is telling,’” she said.
Once the data was released, there was a follow-up meeting in October with Dr. Severns to process the information. This was followed by building level meetings and then administrators met with the superintendent to review each building’s data to look at trends and discuss how to address them.
At the elementary schools, Supervisor Michelle Nichol said there were building level committee meetings and staff collaboration using what was learned from Dr. Severns. “Most importantly, to let the data tell the story, to see the data as more than just the numbers.”
Nichol described the way officials analyzed the data. “We wanted to see individual students, were they growing a year’s worth of growth from one year to the next? We like to look at individual students, individual grade levels, and look at growth to make sure our students are growing at the rate that they should be.”
Nichol’s added, “there were grade level meetings for analysis of instructional practices and refinement of lesson plans and strategies to elevate standards. We took a really good look at our lesson plans and we refined our lesson plan templates to help teachers really refine their standards-based instruction, to help them look at the standards, create really solid objectives and then use our resources and strategies to be able to implement those into our classrooms.”
The elementary and middle schools continue to use the district’s Tiered System of Supports for intervention and targeted instruction. They have implemented the new Ready Classroom mathematics program and new social emotional learning practices.
“We’ve infused our personalized learning resources,” Nichol said. “We have set guidelines in terms of the targeted interventions that are taking place in those programs. Teachers are getting specific lesson plans from our iReady data that they can pull into those programs, and each individual student’s needs are being met.”
At the middle school level, Supervisor Linda Saraceno said they changed the format of their department, grade level and faculty meetings to meet as a whole group and then break off to department level in certain meetings. “Nowadays, it’s not just the book it’s the whole program that you are assessing so we want to look at what we have and what’s available out there.”
Saraceno added the middle school brought in Schoolwide Inc. to provide professional development in writing instruction, including a coaching day where the representative went into classrooms to observe and coach teachers.
“The (middle school) social studies and English language arts teachers got together and developed standards-based daily practices that are being used for every ELA class and every social studies class. They are based on the released items from the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment so they are actual items that the students were tested on that the state releases,” Saraceno said.
“We created short exercises for students to practice. The teachers got together with me and we created a model block. The teachers looked at a K-2 block, grade 3 block and grade 4-5 block to see where the students are coming from as they’re entering the middle school and how we can better refine what we’re doing during that literacy block,” Saraceno said.
Looking at the high school level, Supervisor Maureen Moore said they are basically following the same process with the assessment committee and will be sharing information to the staff.
Moore said data conferences were held with teachers to discuss student performance and the curriculum. Among the new programs at the high school is the AIM Program, which targets 8th and 9th grade students having difficulties in ELA and mathematics with a summer program. Moore said that additional remedial semester courses would be added to support students not attending the AIM summer program.
“Professional development at the high school is supporting our initiatives and what our findings are saying. Our ELA professional development includes support for implementation of the new 9th grade textbook that was purchased last year, “Moore said.
Articulation with Lakehurst, whose students go to Manchester High School, is ongoing, including implementing the AIM program there.
“For mathematics, we are looking at the textbooks and trying to find a book that really supports the NJ student learning standards and practices and really flipping how were giving that instruction,” Moore said.
Superintendent David Trethaway said the district has much more access to data than it did in the past. “There’s only one thing worse than not using the data, and that’s making the wrong conclusions from the data and it’s very simple to do that. In the old days we looked at the raw score and said okay this is good, this is bad, an 87 is better than an 85. It’s a lot more complex than that.”
“A raw score really doesn’t tell us anything. You have to look at comparisons. You have to look at the whole picture. Where are we compared with the state? Where are we compared with the county? Where do we compare to similar districts? And not only do you have to compare that, but the other important thing is where our growth is – looking at how a particular student scored in 4th grade and where he scored in 5th grade,” Trethaway said.
“We are given these results after those students have now moved on. It’s like trying to fix the airplane while we’re flying it. The district is also doing a lot more formative assessment throughout the year. You can’t just wait until the end of the year and say, well I guess we need to work on this,” he said.
