Princeton board backs new evaluation policy
By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
Parents will receive new progress reports about their children from Princeton Regional Schools in the future thanks to a new policy recently adopted by the Board of Education.
The board passed, on a first reading, a district-wide policy on student progress. Board members said that the frequent monitoring of student progress in all grades, as well as concentrating on the core subjects of reading, writing and mathematics in kindergarten through grade five, are critical to promoting the highest possible academic achievement by all students.
”It projects our desire to have a comprehensive assessment that can be relayed to parents,” said Walter Bliss, a Princeton Regional School board member. “It gathers comprehensive data on reading, writing and arithmetic for kindergarten through fifth grade.”
The board directed the district administration, in concert with faculty and staff, to develop and implement a comprehensive program of assessment for all subjects and all grade levels, which shall measure student progress at least twice during each school year.
”It also formalizes a benchmark program in the schools for the past 18 months,” said Timothy Quinn, a board member who heads the program committee. He pointed out that monitoring pupil success goes beyond standardized test scores. “It’s the board’s desire that each student be monitored and instruction tailored to each student.”
A portfolio of reports will be created and follow students through 12th grade.
”This monitors every last student and making sure they have the tools to succeed and reaching out to the parents,” added Mr. Bliss.
Increased assessment will help teachers customize instruction for the pupils.
”It prioritizes the purpose of our assessment program such that the results inform and foster individualized, dynamic instruction at the classroom level,” said Bonnie Lehet, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, Princeton Regional Schools.
”It also sets the expectation that our assessments will guide faculty to develop appropriate strategies and interventions for students. The board sees that reliable data is most critical in measuring the success of our programs, so the policy formalizes the need to develop a reliable system.”
Student progress has been monitored through report cards and district-wide assessments such as those in language arts, said Ms. Lehet. “We have been in the process of enhancing and formalizing the elementary assessments for a few years so teachers can use the data in a more systematic way to assist their students in their learning program,” she said.
Progress will be communicated to parents at conferences and report card times.
Report cards go out three times with two parent conferences annually at the elementary level; four times with one parent conference annually at the middle school level and report cards and progress reports go out four times annually at the high school level, said Ms. Lehet.
”The elementary report card will be under review later this year,” she added.
The district is implementing this change to keep up with pupils and not wait for state results, which are a year behind.
”We talk about leading versus lagging data. The statewide standardized assessments arrive too late to inform instruction during the year of the test administration, thus it is considered lagging,” explained Ms. Lehet. “For leading data, we currently provide district-wide assessments in mathematics and language arts to our elementary students at least three times a year. All K-5 teachers currently administer the same grade-level assessments in their classrooms with the purpose of seeing their students’ progress and identifying if students need additional support.”
Assessments are typically done by teachers in the fall, winter and spring.
”Putting something like this in place is huge,” said Amy Pearlmutter, a fourth-grade teacher who was at the Nov. 23 board meeting when the policy was discussed and voted on. “Teachers need to be completely involved in this process to be of benefit to the students.”
The more in-depth progress assessments will help the teachers adapt their instruction to help them more accurately meet the learning needs of their pupils.
”The purpose is not to ‘judge’ children, but rather to identify their needs in mathematics and language arts and to inform classroom instruction,” said Ms. Lehet. “As we develop a more reliable system to measure students’ progress, the scales may need to be revised.”
The district is using scales that have been proven for such assessments as the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI), the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA2) and the Developmental Writing Assessment (DWA).
”Consistent scoring by teachers requires continued training and review of the measures that we are using,” said Ms. Lehet. “In mathematics, the assessments and scales are very new, so we will continue to review them,” she said.
SRI, according to the Scholastic website, “is a reading assessment program which provides immediate, actionable data on students’ reading levels and growth over time. SRI helps educators differentiate instruction, make meaningful interventions, forecast growth toward grade-level state tests, and demonstrate accountability.”
Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA2), from Pearson, an educational publishing company, determines “each student’s independent (or instructional) level with an evaluation of three components of reading: reading engagement, oral reading fluency, and comprehension,” according to the company website. The Developmental Writing Assessment (DWA) comes from the same company and allows teachers to compare writing samples from students.
”We are exploring the use of an electronic portfolio system that will allow us to store samples of student work over time,” said Ms. Lehet. “For example, teachers at the elementary- and middle-school levels currently select writing samples to forward to the next year’s teacher. In the future, we would like to store the writing samples electronically to follow the students from grade to grade.”