Mt. Laurel Schools hopes to give PARCC presentation at Dec. 15 BOE meeting

Parents of students in Mt. Laurel Schools could soon know how the school district and individual schools performed on the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exams administered to students last year.

At the Nov. 24 meeting of the Board of Education, Interim Superintendent Sharon Vitella said she hoped to give the board a PARCC presentation at its next regularly scheduled meeting on Dec. 15.

“The data looks very different than it ever has in the past, so I will be getting that to you on Dec. 15 and explaining to the best of my ability what we know it all means, which at this point we’re still working through that,” Vitella said.

For the 2014–2015 school year, PARCC testing replaced the previous standardized test administered by the state known as the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge, which measured students in the subjects of mathematics and English language arts.

PARCC testing was different from the NJASK test in various ways; most notably students took the PARCC test entirely on computers, as opposed to using pencils and papers as they did with NJASK, and PARCC testing was designed in such a way to measure students’ abilities beyond memorization.

Instead, the questions on the PARCC exam dealt with higher thinking concepts, problem solving and critically evaluating issues.

For those reasons, and because the upcoming release of scores will reflect the first year the test was given, many school districts throughout the state have been careful to note that scores are only a baseline and should not be compared to any previous standardized test scores.

Vitella said after the board’s next meeting, the district would then be mailing individual student scores to parents on Dec. 18.

Marie Reynolds, director of communications for Mt. Laurel Schools, said the district does not yet have individual student reports, as the state is sending the district hard-copy student reports sometime most likely in mid-December, and then the district will have to place those in envelopes and label them to be mailed.

In other news:

• Vitella and Harrington Middle School Principal Kathleen Haines gave a presentation at the recent New Jersey School Boards Convention regarding the topic of providing middle school classes with “relevance.”

Vitella and Haines went over the Mt. Laurel school district’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) courses and several other courses at Harrington Middle School, and outlined how the electives had been created to foster skills needed for new, 21st century careers.

As a result of that presentation, representatives of two school districts have reached out to the Mt. Laurel district and will be conducting site visits to learn more about the Mt. Laurel district’s programs.

“We impressed them, as well we should have,” Vitella said. “We impressed them because we have great things to report, not because we’re making up anything great, so I’m very happy they will be coming.”

• School Business Administrator Robert Wachter Jr. said it was possible the district could soon be approving another advertisement for school buses.

Wachter presented the advertisement to board members and said the deal was not yet “100 percent nailed down,” but believed the board could be in a position to grant its approval of the advertisement this month.

• The district’s search for a new superintendent is continuing, as the board is scheduled to meet and immediately enter executive session on Dec. 1, Dec. 2 and Dec. 8 to interview candidates. The district’s previous superintendent of 13 years, Antoinette Rath, left the district on Sept. 8 to take the position of chief executive officer at Collegium Charter School in Exton, Pa.