It’s safe to say that Jorge Prado has a lot of pride in North Bergen’s Horace Mann School. Sure, it helps that Prado is the principal of the school, but he goes far and beyond to get positive recognition for his school, which, at 1,250 students, has the biggest enrollment of all the grade schools in the district.
“Everyone works so hard at our school,” Prado said. “It’s always such a team effort. We’re always proud of what we’re able to do.”
So when the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce, in conjunction with the State Department of Education, approached Prado and asked if his school would like to participate in a new website called “Just4TheKids,” which will enable schools to compare and get ideas from other schools throughout the state, Prado was more than happy to oblige.
“It’s a very nice thing and good recognition for the school,” Prado said.
Horace Mann School was selected as one of the 10 “benchmark” schools throughout the state that will provide information and data to other schools through the website. Horace Mann was one of only two Hudson County schools selected, with P.S. No. 3 in West New York being the other.
Other schools selected included two from Newark, as well as schools in Cranbury, Brooklawn, Demarest, Woodbridge, Princeton and Weymouth in Atlantic County.
The website, www.just4thekids.org, was established so that other schools and administrators can see how their school matches up with the “benchmark” schools in their Grade Eight Proficiency Assessment (GEPA) tests, as well as collecting other ideas as to what happens in the respective schools.
Prado and North Bergen Superintendent of Schools Peter Fischbach went to a special luncheon at Gov. Jim McGreevey’s office in Trenton last week to announce the launching of the website and each school’s active participation in the program.
“They identified the 10 schools that reached high standards in the tests,” Prado said. “It really is an honor.”
This site currently contains information about school performance on the State’s Grade Eight Proficiency Assessments (GEPA) in Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science. As the state deploys additional student assessments in various grade levels, more data will be available.
Just4TheKids-New Jersey organizes and analyzes student achievement data at the school level in the core academic subjects and presents the data in ways that are easy to understand. Once the data are studied, a school’s potential for improvement is identified by comparing its performance against other schools with similar or more challenging-to-educate student populations. Rather than traditional accountability systems that are based on geographic proximity or ranking and rating, Just for the Kids-New Jersey looks at those factors that might influence and sustain the success of educational outcomes.
Just4TheKids-New Jersey received major funding for the programs from Prudential Financial, the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, the Merck Institute for Science Education, Verizon, ETS, and Washington Mutual.
“Now, other schools can compare what they do and how they do on the tests with what we do,” Prado said. “It puts other schools in contact with us. I’ve already received a few calls from other schools asking for advice, asking what practices we put into place to reach the standards in the GEPA tests. It stimulates communication between the schools.”
Prado said that he was impressed with the website, because access is not limited to just teachers and administrators.
“Anyone can go to the website and get the information,” Prado said. “I like the fact that there are so many people learning about our school.”
The pride in the school has carried down to the students, who are beginning to prepare for the upcoming GEPA tests in March.
“I’m very impressed that we were selected,” said eighth grader Stephanie Ozuna. “I didn’t expect that. We do have a sense of pride that we were picked. We also take a lot of pride in the GEPA test. We’ve been working hard to get prepared, with sessions before school, plus after-school programs. We’ve been taking practice tests so we’re ready for the real thing. I know we’re going to be prepared.”
“Our school is a very good school and we should be recognized like this,” said fellow eighth grader Sandra Abusuleiman. “We’re all very proud and excited that we were picked. We were also picked over many other schools. It’s a good feeling to know that other people will be looking to us for help. I think there’s a little bit more pressure on us now to do well in the tests.”
If the students at Horace Mann need help now, they can turn to others throughout the state. That’s the benefit of being a “benchmark” school.