As with last year, Mt. Laurel Schools once again scored in the 94th percentile with a district-wide score of 73 out of 78.
Mt. Laurel Schools once again scored in the 94th percentile for the district’s latest self-assessment for determining grades under the state’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act.
At this week’s Board of Education meeting, Superintendent George Rafferty presented the results of the district’s latest self-assessment. State anti-bullying legislation mandates school districts review their implementation of the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act each year for a review period of July 1 through June 30.
Districts use a self-assessment rubric to judge 26 indicators across eight core elements in the act that address how districts are dealing with their Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying programs and initiatives.
Core elements include districts annually establishing HIB programs, approaches or other initiatives, training on BOE-approved HIB policy and procedures, staff instruction and training programs, curriculum and instruction on HIB and related information and skills, HIB personnel, school-level HIB incident reporting procedure, HIB investigation procedure and general HIB reporting.
Districts can receive a maximum score of three on each of the 26 indicators if a district is exceeding expectations, a score of two if a district is meeting expectations, a score of one if a district is partially meeting expectations and a score of zero if a district is not meeting expectations.
When totaled, the maximum possible score a district or school can receive is 78.
According to Rafferty, this year Mt. Laurel’s K-8 district achieved an overall score of 73, once again placing the district in the 94th percentile, which was where the district placed last year as well.
“We have just over 4,200 students, and if you look at the number of (HIB) incidents that are reported on a monthly basis, it’s quite small in proportion to our number of students and discipline incidents that we have,” Rafferty said. “And of those reports, even a smaller number are actually found to be incidents of harassment, intimidation or bullying.”
Rafferty said a district-wide anti-bullying coordinator is also responsible for helping each school perform its own self-assessment with a school-climate team consisting of various personnel.
When broken down by individual scores, Countryside Elementary received a 71 and placed in the 91st percentile; Fleetwood, Springville and Hillside elementary schools received a 73 and placed in the 94th percentile; Larchmont and Parkway elementary schools and Harrington Middle School received a 75 and placed in the 96th percentile; and Hartford School received a score of 70 and placed in the 90th percentile.
Rafferty said the schools retain backup documentation so they can verify how they score themselves, which is auditable and reviewable by officials at a district level.
“Our district score this year was exactly the same last year, even though our school scores varied a little bit, all were 70 or above, which is very good. We very happy with that,” Rafferty said. “We have a lot of programs in place, and we take a lot of steps throughout the year to make sure we’re working on promoting good inter-social relationships with our students.”
As required by law, Rafferty said now that he as a district official had presented the results at a public board meeting and to the board of education, and the board approved the self-assessment, the results would be sent to the Department of Education.
“The Department of Education will verify the scores with us and make sure we have documentation and backup documentation to support our ratings on all these indicators. It is checked,” Rafferty said.
