East Windsor Regional School District looks to utilize new testing methods that will better gauge a student’s progress.
By: Marisa Maldonado
HIGHTSTOWN Testing techniques that will better gauge a student’s progress are on the way for the East Windsor Regional School District, officials told a crowd of about 55 parents, teachers and residents Wednesday at the first of two "vision forums."
The forum, hosted by Superintendent Ronald Bolandi and Michael Dzwonar, director of curriculum, technology and grants, discussed how the district could improve student performance in a year where test scores on state-mandated examinations have been down. The second such forum will take place April 16 at 10 a.m. at the auditorium at Hightstown High School, 25 Leshin Lane.
Starting this year, students will take tests every April from second grade to junior year of high school. They will be scored using the same rubric as the standard tests. Teachers will receive the scores in June for both the children they taught last year and for their incoming students. The aim is to help develop an individual plan of improvement for each student, Mr. Dzwonar said.
Students now take tests only in third, fourth, eighth and 11th grades, as mandated by the state.
Currently teachers do not receive the test results until summer vacation, meaning they can’t use them to gauge student progress, Mr. Dzwonar said.
"It’s equivalent to a doctor waiting for the patient to be dead before they prescribe," Mr. Dzwonar said.
Teachers can use this information to individualize instruction for students, such as modifying classroom activities to all levels with different materials.
"If we know a student is reading at the ninth-grade level and they’re in the fifth grade," Mr. Dzwonar said, "the teacher can give them something from the New York Times to read (for social studies)."
The changes in the presentation were the result of meetings with administrators, faculty members, students and parent groups since Mr. Bolandi started with the district almost one year ago. But Mr. Bolandi said he used some of his old methods in combination with community input.
"This plan is a method that has a proven track history, and it works," Mr. Bolandi said. He said he used this method to improve student performance at the Tewksbury School District, an affluent district where he formerly served as superintendent and the Winslow School district, an urban district.
Individualizing education, including making sure a variety of classes are offered for all levels at the high school, might help lower the rate of students dropping out of school, he said.
"We can’t fit all sizes with one approach," Mr. Bolandi said. "We need to have the courses in our high school that will allow them to do better and not doom (them) to failure."
Still many audience members had questions about the presentation. Despite calling the presentation "magnificent," Hightstown resident Gene Sarafin asked how the district would accomplish its goals with limited resources.
"How do you manage this with one principal and 50 teachers?" Mr. Sarafin said.
Mr. Bolandi said he would like more resources but thought the district could handle the plan, pointing out that his plan has worked in both urban and affluent districts.
"We’re going to do this," he said.
Kelley Carney, a Hightstown resident who is an instructional sports specialist in a Manhattan school district, said the same method helped improve test scores among her students.
The plan is designed for every student in the district, Mr. Bolandi said, fighting the numbers that show that black and Latino students score lower on standardized tests.
"It’s not only the Latino kids in our school district that bring our scores down," Mr. Bolandi said. "All our groups need to do better."

