Board committee to review district’s math curriculum

By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
   ROBBINSVILLE — The district’s Math Review Committee has officially been formed.
   The Board of Education unanimously voted to approve the creation of the 10-member committee at its April 29 meeting. The committee will review the math curriculum for kindergarten through eighth grade. It was formed in response to parental concerns, mostly about the district’s Everyday Math program, now in its fourth year.
   Some parents have concerns that the program is actually limiting students, and that it relies too heavily on calculators while cutting out basic math skills such as addition, subtraction and multiplication.
   Lainie Potter, chairwoman of the school board’s Education, Development and Policy Committee, said the committee discussed the Math Review Committee at its last meeting, deciding on its structure and the number of people to be involved.
   ”(Former board member) Nagesh (Kuppuraju) brought forward some applications that parents had turned in,” she said, “and we just did some brainstorming surrounding that so that we can hit the ground running with it next month.”
   Mr. Kuppuraju, who suggested the formation of the committee, was slated to introduce it at the meeting. When the meeting ran late, he left before it came to a vote. He was, however, among several former board members who spoke at the beginning of the meeting, thanking the current board and saying goodbye.
   ”I may have disagreed with many people on the methods that we use to educate,” he said in his farewell address, “but I know that everybody’s goal is the same—the best for our children.”
   The committee consists of five parents/guardians and five teachers. The parent members are Nancy Brunner, Jeff Gavlick, Biagio Manierei, Karen Perna and Doreen Rosica; the teachers are Kathy Diefes (grade 1), Shelly King (grade 3), Karen Bukowski (grade 7), Sharon Moffat (grade 8) and Laura Goodrow (RHS math).
   Acacia Avenue resident Michael Caputo asked about the math program during the second public comments session.
   ”Isn’t the math program a canned curriculum that we bought from someone? They give us the books and they give us everything we need to use, so why would you need to write anything for a math curriculum?” he asked.
   ”None of the curriculums are canned,” Ms. Foster explained. “When you purchase a textbook, that’s really considered a resource for the curriculum… (Everyday Math is) a program for our math curriculum, and that’s an essential piece of our math curriculum right now, but that is not the written curriculum.”
   This echoed Ms. Foster’s previous response to critiques of the district’s math program. She said previously that basic math is taught through games and other materials, and that teachers can and do supplement the program with their own material, such as work sheets.
   The program is currently used in classes from kindergarten through fifth grade. Everyday Math is planned to expand to sixth grade next year, and the school expects to implement pre-algebra and algebra in seventh and eighth grades.