BY CHRIS GAETANO
Staff Writer
“You do the arithmetic. That’s a lot of accomplishments.” – Gary McCartney Superintendent of Schools SOUTH BRUNSWICK – According to a report on academic progress in the district, South Brunswick students are doing just fine.
During Monday’s Board of Education meeting, the annual Quality Annual Assurance Report (QAAR) was presented to the board and parents. The report, compiled this year by Assistant Superintendent Joanne Kerekes, is an extensive audit of district activities and performance, written every year as mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
Signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002, NCLB links federal funding to 40 different standards on student achievement, school safety, and a host of other elements. The state, until recently, has mandated a certain degree of improvements in order to meet the requirements of NCLB, called Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards. The goal for NCLB is to have 100 percent proficiency, as defined by multiple rounds of standardized testing, in all students in the U.S. in literacy and math by the year 2014. The state assists in this goal by setting increasingly high standards for improvements, called Annual Yearly Progress.
According to the report, South Brunswick has not only met but exceeded all mandated requirements in all 40 benchmarks for the 2005-06 school year.
“I’m pleased and proud to be able to say that,” Superintendent of Schools Gary McCartney said, pointing out that meeting 40 benchmarks at so many different grade levels is no small task. “You do the arithmetic. That’s a lot of accomplishments.”
Academic performance is measured through standardized testing throughout students’ academic careers, with tests in grades three to seven, grade eight, and grade 11. During the presentation, it was noted that South Brunswick’s performance has been so high that the district is currently working to meet 2008’s benchmarks, as opposed to 2007’s.
In the third grade, 89 percent of students were at least proficient in literacy and 94 percent in math. Both scores are higher than last year’s scores of 87 and 91 percent, respectively.
In the fourth grade, 86 percent of students were at least proficient in literacy. While this number is the second year in a row that score has gone down (from 91 in 2004 and 88 in 2005), McCartney made note that the current standards mandated by the state are 75 percent, meaning that South Brunswick still scored above and beyond what was necessary. He also made note that different classes always have different strengths, and that one year’s fourth grade is not the next year’s fourth grade, and so on.
“If you ask me why those percents have varied … each group of youngsters in the aggregate has an academic personality to it,” said McCartney.
Meanwhile, math for fourth-graders has held steady, with 89 percent of students being at least proficient in math. McCartney noted that over the past three years, the math curriculum had been under intense scrutiny and revisions to improve scores.
Eighth-grade scores improved as well, with 90 percent of students proficient in literacy and 81 percent proficient in math. Last year’s literacy score was 88 and last year’s math score was 75. Both scores are, again, well above the state-mandated standards of literacy at 66 percent and math at 49 percent.
Finally, 11th-grade scores also showed marked improvement. A reported 95 percent of students were proficient in literacy and 90 percent were proficient in math.
SAT scores were also discussed, and it was revealed that the district’s mean scores were higher than both the state and national means in verbal, writing and math, with 84 percent of students taking the test in 2006.
McCartney also went over the school violence and vandalism report, which noted that the number of incidents reached a five-year low last year, with only 26 reported out of a population of 8,611. Each year since 2001, violence incidents have always been the highest, with vandalism being a distant second. Violence covers things such as fighting, assaults, and weapons possession, where items such as knives and nunchucks were mentioned.
“We’re pleased the trend is downward, but we’re not pleased at the numbers. … But while I wish those numbers would disappear, I’m a realist,” said McCartney.
Still, overall, members of the board, staff and parents were pleased at the academic progress being made in the district. It was noted that it reflects efforts not just on the part of the school district but the whole community, and the board thanked everyone for their support.
“I’m pleased to see that my husband and I chose the right district to move to,” said parent Lisa Rogers, of Monmouth Junction.
There were also many accolades heaped upon Kerekes, who wrote the report.
“This report is the best report I’ve read since I’ve been on the board. … It flows really well and reads really well,” said board member Barry Nathanson.

