District: Rosetta Stone Implementation Flawed, Currently Working

After a rocky implementation and months of troubleshooting, Rosetta Stone is currently working and the Millburn elementary schools will continue to use the program, Superintendent Dr. James Crisfield announced at Monday's school board meeting. 

Rosetta Stone was piloted last year in the district and was implemented in 2012-13 school year as a recommendation for better instruction and for its cost, saving the district about $230,000 per year with a teacher. 

However, in its implementation the program, "was flawed almost from the get-go," Crisfield said in a presentation to the school board.

Despite numerous setbacks with Rosetta Stone this year — update flaws, unannounced system changes, massive turnover at corporate — Millburn will continue to use the program in the elementary schools for Spanish instruction.

"Moving forward with the rest of this year and unless more unforeseen circumstances hit us, this will be the plan for [next year]," Crisfield said. 

According to the presentation Rosetta Stone is currently working and will be used on desktops and iPads in the future, but not laptops because the district has not been able to get it to work. It can also be accessed from home. The district was reimbursed for headphones previously purchased that only worked with desktop or laptop computers so iPads can be utilized.

Board member Lise Chapman asked Crisfield what teachers were doing on the days the software was not working in the schools and questioned if Millburn schools were meeting state mandates. 

The superintendent explained when the curricula in place in the elementary schools didn't work, it was up to the individual teachers to replace that time with instruction in another academic. 

Chapman noted if the program was not working, there was no world language instruction in those classes.

Board member Michael Birnberg added the district is not in violation of state mandates because the world language guidelines are recommendations not mandated.

"The requirements in world language from the state are so significantly differently stated and presented to us as districts they are interpreting it about 600 different ways across the state," Crisfield said.  

The state guidelines for world language recommend 90 minutes per week in elementary schools and for the middle school 200 minutes. 

Board members then discussed how the district would fit in these recommended guidelines.

For example, elementary school students would need to add an additional 50 minutes of world language — currently 40 minutes is taught — per week to meet those requirements.

One suggestion was to lengthen the school day, which would most likely increase operating costs drastically for the district Crisfield said, or cut back from other instruction.

Crisfield added the district will continue discussing the issue moving forward in the strategic plan.

"Were going to work towards doing what we as a community want to do with world language at the K to 5 level," he said.