Administrators take steps to boost pupil achievement
Schools must comply with federal standards
BY MARK ROSMAN
Staff Writer

Administrators in the Freehold Borough School District are taking steps to implement a corrective action plan aimed at bringing the Park Avenue Elementary School into compliance with the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

A state Department of Edu-cation report on adequate yearly progress being made in compliance with the federal law indicates that some students failed to meet certain aspects of the law's achievement criteria for at least four consecutive years, according to Rich Vespucci, a spokesman for the department.

A failure by students to achieve adequate yearly pro-gress can bring about sanctions under the terms of the federal law. The Park Avenue Elemen-tary School reached the point at which a corrective action plan was required to be developed and implemented.

Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth O'Connell told the News Transcript on Aug. 24 that administrators have taken steps to improve pupil performance.

Pupils in so-called disaggregate groups - which include children in special education classes and youngsters who are Spanish-speaking - have not been making adequate yearly progress on standardized tests, progress that state officials say they should have made.

The implementation of a corrective action plan follows recommendations made by a team of representatives from the state Department of Education Collaborative Assessment for Planning for Achievement (CAPA) school review process. The CAPA representatives visited the Park Avenue Elementary School in January.

Under the guidelines of the No Child Left Behind Act, a

corrective action plan can include replacing or restructuring school staff, however, O'Connell said no administrative or instructional staff restructuring has been recommended for the Park Avenue Elementary School.

Instead, she said administrators have made the following decisions:

+ The school district has hired an English as a Second Language/bilingual instruction supervisor and a mathematics supervisor. These are district-wide positions and the new supervisors will provide support in those instructional areas.

+ The school district will be piloting a mathematics text in fifth grade and piloting a literacy series in fifth grade.

+ An inclusion program for special education pupils is now in place.

+ The school district has increased professional development opportunities for teachers.

+ An IDEAL grant will allow administrators to purchase 300 titles for classroom libraries.

+ Administrators are creating a new scope and sequence plan for mathematics. This step is described as a change in the pattern of curriculum instruction (i.e. not necessarily following a textbook as it is written chapter by chapter, but developing an alternative format in which to instruct the pupils).

+ There is now a standardized lesson plan for all three schools in the district.

+ A grant will provide funding for more parental involvement in the schools

+ A quarterly assessment schedule for language arts and mathematics will be implemented.

In addition, O'Connell said administrators submitted goals for all three schools to the Monmouth County superintendent of schools, which is the local representative of the state Department of Education, and all of the goals were accepted with no recommended changes.

The borough school district operates the Park Avenue Elementary School, the Freehold Learning Center elementary school and the Freehold Intermediate School. There is a total enrollment of about 1,400 children in the pre-kindergarten through eighth grade district.