UF school district planning curriculum changes

Vice principal and five new classroom teachers among proposals.

By: Cynthia Koons
   UPPER FREEHOLD — For Upper Freehold Regional School District officials, their students’ statewide report cards spelled out the need for more teachers and prompted curriculum improvements across the board.
   In drafting this year’s school budget, the school board took into account the district’s high student-teacher and student-administrator ratio and proposed a vice principal at the elementary school and five new classroom teachers.
   This is possible now, Superintendent Robert Connelly said, because the new construction at the school will create 15 new elementary and high school classrooms.
   "In some ways, (the report cards) were good for me to see," Dr. Connelly said. "It reflects the realities that we see here, that the class sizes are growing. It pointed to the need to have a vice principal in the elementary school, based on the numbers and state averages."
   The school budget, which is up for preliminary adoption this week, proposes a 14-cent tax rate increase for Allentown residents (from $2.12 per $100 of assessed valuation to $2.26) and a 13-cent increase for Upper Freehold residents (from $1.93 per $100 of assessed valuation to $2.06).
   If passed, a resident with a home assessed at the Allentown average of $150,000 would pay $210 more in the borough and a resident with a home assessed at the Upper Freehold average of $240,000 would pay $312 more for school taxes there.
   Residents are still paying a $1,039,947 debt from the construction to the elementary and high school which began this summer.
   As for students’ scores, Dr. Connelly and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum Maybeth Conway said the numbers are used diagnostically, and only in comparison with other schools in their District Factor Group. The DFG rates school districts in their socio-economic context, the Upper Freehold schools are in the F/G ranking on an A, being the lowest, to J scale.
   The test scores from the Elementary School Proficiency Assessment of fourth- graders and the Grade Eight Proficiency Assessment, are then quantified and listed in comparison with to state and DFG averages.
   "It’s a high performing district, but we’re using (the scores) honestly and diagnostically to keep moving forward," Ms. Conway said. "In almost every area we’re above our DFG scores.
   "We’re talking about passing rates that are at B+, A- to A levels," she said, "and trying to move it to the next step along."
   To do this, she is working with the elementary school teachers in piloting two different reading and language arts programs to strengthen the writing curriculum in the first through third grades.
   "Up until this point in time, teachers took a lot of the responsibility on their own in reading, spelling and written language," she said. "An awful lot of people were spending a lot of work recreating the same thing."
   In comparison with the state, 91.5 percent of Allentown Elementary School fourth-graders scored in the proficient and advanced proficient bracket while state averages showed 79.1 percent of students were scoring at that level.
   For math, she said fifth- through seventh-grade teachers were developing ways to prepare students for the eighth-grade test.
   "Teachers agreed to examine how our students did on each of the math subsections of the GEPA and then to make some curriculum adjustments in these areas where they felt students needed more instruction," Ms. Conway said.
   This year, 83 percent of Upper Freehold eighth-grade students demonstrated proficiency and advanced proficiency in math testing compared to the DFG average of 75 percent at those levels and the state average of 66.6 percent.
   In the high school, Ms. Conway said, the district plans to increase the number of advanced placement courses available as well as improving upon current college preparatory initiatives.
   "It’s time to focus even more attention on students who are capable and should have the option of going to highly selective schools," she said.