Mountainside BOE Recap: Major Issues Discussed; Student Scores Rank High

Tuesday night’s Mountainside Board of Education was packed with curious residents, eager to learn more about the Board’s inner workings and plans for their children’s educational future. 

Many even stayed until the very end of the meeting which came unusually late at 10:50 p.m., hoping to voice their concerns in an evening where both public participation blocks were marked by passionate audience involvement.

Several members of the public had arrived at Beechwood School hoping to be interviewed for one of the two open slots vacated by Carolyn Williams and Marybeth Schaumberg earlier this year.   After a brief executive meeting, President of the Board, James Ruban made an announcement regarding the openings.

“I wanted to thank the community for the great response we had to the open Board seats,” Ruban stated. “We received seven responses. We will be interviewing candidates on October 4 beginning at 7 p.m. in 20 minute intervals. Interview times will be randomly assigned to each of the candidates,” Ruban said.  

The President also noted that these interviews will be open to the public but with no public comment. “As of now, we do not know if we will have to advertise for the second seat. We will be confirming that with the county Superintendent,” Ruban noted, saying that if the Board does need to advertise to fill the second seat, the remaining candidates will be interviewed at the next scheduled meeting which is on October 13.  

Additionally, if there are any other candidates who the Board could not interview on October 4, they will also be interviewed on October 13. The President concluded his report noting that “if we do not have to advertise, we will fill both seats by choosing from those we plan to interview on October 4. Any additional information concerning the open seats will be posted on the school district website,” Ruban stated.

The two portions of the meeting that were set aside for public participation were marked by heated debate between the Board and longtime Mountainside resident Mary Post, who had several intense responses and questions for the Board regarding the recent changes that have been made to the district’s transportation policies including the institution of subscription bussing. (Patch will have an upcoming story detailing the new transportation fees, plans and policies as well as the BOE's response to Post’s comment).

After the President’s report, the new Director of Special Education, Patrick Keenoy gave a presentation on the Special Education Monitoring report, which was recently conducted through self-assessment with information being sent back to the state department.

Seven areas were randomly monitored to ensure that Mountainside is compliant with New Jersey codes on special education practices.  Keenoy explained these seven areas were; transitioning to adult life, state assessment tests, students’ placement in the least restrictive environment available, parent involvement, disproportionality and representation of racial and ethnic groups, individual educational program or IEP, and program services.

Within the seven aforementioned areas, there are 46 requirements that need to be assessed.  Keenoy explained that the Mountainside school district is 81% compliant with said requirements and that out of 46 requirements, only three areas had citations, with a total of 10 citations.  Keenoy went on to detail the changes that Mountainside should make in order to be 100 percent compliant.

These changes revolve around making additional changes to forms for parents, making sure that general education teachers are involved in IEP meetings, and that student reports are given to parents prior to and after IEP meetings. “I’ve been doing this for 35 years,” Keenoy stated. “I’ve seen a lot of monitoring reports I think we are doing really well. I am certain all areas will be compliant.” Keenoy said.

Dr. Jeannette Baubles continued her Superintendent’s report by giving a detailed presentation on the results of the 2010 New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) for grades 3 through 8.  The power point presentation detailing the results will be available on the school district website on Friday. The report broke down the requirements and scores for each grade in Language Arts, Math, and Science while simultaneously comparing the scores of Mountainside students to students who were assessed in Berkeley Heights, New Providence, and Summit.

Students who take NJ ASK are given a score ranging from 100 to 300. Partially proficient students score between 100 and 199, proficient students score between 200 and 249, and students who score advanced proficient score between 250 and 300.  The subjects assessed come in clusters of topics.  For example, the language arts and literacy portion of the assessment, which measures the reading and writing skills of students, asks students to work with expository, persuasive, and speculative forms of writing based on grade level.  

While all students are required to take the math and language arts and literacy portions of the assessment, the science portion of the exam is only given to grades four and eight.

As Dr. Baubles displayed chart after chart displaying comparisons of scores for multiple towns, there was a clear pattern of excellence for the children of Mountainside. With the exception of fourth grade Language Arts Literacy scores, Mountainside scored higher than the average total proficiency for the four towns compared. Eager to help the public understand the progress that students have made, Dr. Baubles explained how students have grown over the past few years of their education.

“If we compare the results of students who were in third grade during the 2009/2010 school year, to the results those same students achieved as fourth graders during the 2010/2011 school year; we see an increase in Language Arts Literacy scores,” Dr. Baubles explained. "We see this same increase in each instance from grades three to four, four to five, five to six, six to seven, and seven to eight. When educators speak about value-added in the way of teacher and administrative involvement, this is the best result one can hope for,” Dr. Baubles said. 

Dr. Baubles noted that in order to keep improving scores, the district will focus on utilizing a cross curriculum approach, involving reading and writing exercises in as many subjects as possible including math and science.  The Superintendent noted that schools will also be holding department meetings to analyze how students who scored advanced proficient came to that result, and develop strategies to help other students find the same success.

While addressing the slightly lower than average fourth grade LAL scores, Dr. Baubles expressed, “please don’t be disappointed. I know I’m not; not in our students and not in our staff. They have done a beautiful job bringing in results. Even though we want to see LAL scores improve, we must celebrate this five out of five grades increase in scores. By taking the same group of students and following them from one grade to the next, we were able to see improvements in every group that we could measure. That is cause for celebration."