Bedminster Lagging in Academic Performance

Based on test scores recently released from the state, Bedminster Township School is lagging behind its peer group in academic performance, according to interim superintendent Ron Bolandi.

With changes in state testing, Bolandi said at Thursday's board of education meeting, districts are now grouped based on performance, rather than socioeconomic levels, as they had been in the past.

"Now they compare how you as a district compare to other districts with similar growth," he said.

Those peer schools, according to the report, are classified based on schools with similar grade levels and students with similar demographic characteristics, like qualifying for Free/Reduced Lunch and special education programs.

For kindergarten through eighth grades, Bolandi said, Bedminster is only higher in scores than 31 percent of the districts included in its peer group.

"The school should probably be in the 80s," he said. "In student growth, you're 42 percent higher than the peer group, and that should probably be in the 80s."

"That's probably where in the socioeconomic peer group you would be," he added.

Statewide, the school outperforms 68 percent of schools statewide, and 74 percent of schools statewide in student growth.

To determine the causes of these results, Bolandi said, districts have to look at schedules of how much contact time students have in literacy and mathematics.

In a scenario of best practices, Bolandi said, there would be 60 minutes of math a day, but Bedminster has 40 minutes. And, he said, there would be four hours a day of literacy in the lower grades, incorporating science and social studies.

Bedminster only has about two hours of literacy per grade a day.

The next step, Bolandi said, is for the administration to figure out how to increase those times. He said he has already spoken to some of the staff, and they are very willing to move forward in increasing focuses on literacy and mathematics.

"The first thing people do sometimes is blame the staff," he said. "I believe we need to have a dialogue to find out why we are lagging behind. This says to me we need to change our methodology, and the staff needs to have development to make the changes."

"I believe the staff gets it, and understands what they have to do to change the flow," he added.

In the lower grades, Bolandi said, they don't have to regurgitate facts in science and social studies, but can read nonfiction books that talk about historical events, or use reading and spelling to learn new techniques.

"If we sit back and do nothing, we will have these scores over and over again," he said.

According to the results from the state, Bolandi said, most of the students have been deemed proficient through state testing.

"But to get to higher levels, we have to get more students into advanced proficiency," he said. "We are doing a little better in mathematics than literacy."

A total of 66 percent of students were proficient in language arts literacy in the 2011-2012 school year and 41 percent were proficient in mathematics. But 41 percent were considered advanced proficient in mathematics, whereas only 11 percent achieved advanced proficiency in language arts literacy.

But, Bolandi said, they have to move forward to improve performance, and then the district may move into different peer groups based on the level of improvement.

"There's a plan in place, and now we have to refine it and move forward," he said.

Part of that plan, Bolandi said, was to include another reading specialist in the school budget to help with improving literacy.

"We have to put more reading emphasis in the lower grades," he said.

To read the full report on the scores, click here.