After 2014 fail on NJ test, Belleville School District improves
Matt KadoshBELLEVILLE – Following the Belleville School District failing a state test in 2014, officials have reported positive trends in a district-wide performance review, even as student test scores lag.
The improved scores come for personnel, operations, governance and fiscal management on the state test, the Quality Single Accountability Continuum, or QSAC.
The results were presented to the public on Monday.
“The district had hundreds of areas we needed to improve in, and we did that piece by piece,” said Schools Superintendent Richard Tomko, who started with the district in 2015.
The QSAC scores rate districts out of 100 percent. To pass, a district must score at least 80 percent.
In the 2017 review, as noted in a DOE letter, the Belleville District scored:
- 100 percent on operations
- 98 percent on governance
- 80 percent on fiscal management
- 68 percent on instruction and program
The scores mark an increase from the 95 percent on operations, 60 percent on governance, 44 percent on fiscal management, and 29 percent on instruction and programs reported for operations in 2014.
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School officials attributed the low score on instruction and management to lagging scores under the state-mandated test, the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers, or PARCC.
Russell Pagano, the district’s director of planning, research and evaluation, described scores when compared to the prior year, but noted the figures still fall behind districts statewide.
“On a whole, the state is doing better than the district of Belleville,” Pagano said. “However, we have a lot to work with.”
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When compared to district nationwide that administer PARCC, he said, Belleville students are doing slightly better than the national average.
“With the state, it’s not that they’re blowing us away or the nation is blowing us away,” observed Pagano.
What do the numbers show?
The presentation presented on Monday indicates that last spring, 20.48 percent of students in grades 3-11 met or exceeded expectations in the administration of the English language arts and literacy tests.
It marks an increase of about 2 percent from the 19.2 percent of students who met or exceeded expectations when taking the test during the prior year, the figures show.
In mathematics, 9.9 percent of Belleville students met or exceeded expectations in the PARCC exams in the 2017 administration. It marks an improvement of less than half a percent over the prior year, according to the presentation.
A candidate for the school board, Michael Sheldon, expressed concern: “Something seems to be critically wrong with the way math instruction is conducted in our school district beyond grade four.”
District officials said they are analyzing the scores in an effort to improve instruction and pointed parents to the district website for school-by-school scores supplementing the individual student scores sent home to parents.
In 2018, the district intends to administer PARCC between April 16 and May 25, officials said.
Tomko said that since in the past two years, the schools have adopted a new textbook series. “We’re on the right track,” said Tomko, referring to the QSAC figures. “Our scores are progressing, although they’re not near to where they’re supposed to be.”
Lingering fiscal issues
The test scores come for a district that in the 2014-15 academic year reported a $4.2 million deficit, according to the district website. The fiscal issues linger.
Resident George Anne Polite, who administers the Belleville Stakeholders Facebook group, asked the board about a group of retired paraprofessionals who contacted her with complaints that when they attempt to withdraw monies from their pension accounts they had paid into, those monies are unavailable.
State monitor Thomas Egan said he is looking to the missing pension funds, but he did not have a specific solution.
“The issue that we have here … just recently came to our attention, and we are addressing it immediately,” Egan said.
Egan promised that auditors will present the district’s annual financial audit next month.
Email: kadosh@northjersey.com