School officials honored exemplary teachers and talked about the state PARCC test and the likelihood of a new tax increase at a Board of Education meeting on Tuesday.
New Jersey’s new standardized test, designed by the 14-state Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) in conjunction with Pearson Education, was administered statewide for the first time over the past two weeks in the subjects of math and English language arts.
The assessment embodies the federal Common Core standards instituted under President Obama, which are designed to be more rigorous.
A growing movement of parents and teachers across the country has sought to make PARCC the line in the sand on standardized testing, calling on students to opt out of the new assessment. In Hoboken, home to the new corporate headquarters of Pearson Education as of January, their message has fallen somewhat flat.
According to Hoboken Assistant Superintendent Dr. Miguel Hernandez, only 22 of the nearly 800 students scheduled to take the test in Hoboken over the past two weeks opted out. By comparison, news reports indicated at least 1,000 opt-outs in Livingston, and 30 percent of students opting out in some districts of Middlesex County.
Hoboken school officials emphasized that this year’s testing is essentially a dry run and won’t be used to assess schools, teachers, or individual students.
No alternate programming
The PARCC test consisted of three sessions for language arts and two for math, each lasting 60 to 75 minutes, stretched out over a week. An end-of-year assessment in the same subjects will follow in May.
Third, fourth, 10th and 11th graders took the PARCC two weeks ago, followed by fifth, eighth, and ninth graders last week. Sixth and seventh graders will take the test this coming week.
Students wishing to opt out of the PARCC in Hoboken were not provided with alternate educational programming during the testing periods. According to Hoboken Interim Superintendent Dr. Richard Brockel, opt-outs were brought to a separate classroom and sat without instruction while the tests were administered, although they were allowed to read a book or do homework if they brought it themselves.
“I think we should acknowledge that [the tax levy is] going to go up.”—Leon Gold
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Unlike past standardized tests in New Jersey, the PARCC was administered completely on the computer a la graduate school exams like the GRE and GMAT.
According to Assistant Superintendent Hernandez, the district had some technical difficulties with its wireless internet network during the first week of PARCC testing, but were able to address them when the district had a snow day on March 5 and have seen no major computer-related issues since.
More state aid, but taxes likely to rise
Hoboken Public Schools saw the largest one-year increase in aid of any district in New Jersey in Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed budget for the 2016 fiscal year, but the district business administrator said last week that the boost mostly makes up for cuts to the same funding stream imposed by the state last year.
According to documents released by the state Department of Education, Hoboken will see a $749,133 increase in funding under the Interdistrict Public School Choice Program, which allows Hoboken students to attend schools in neighboring districts and vice versa.
However, district business administrator William Moffitt emphasized that Hoboken saw a $669,000 cut in state aid under the same program last July after the Christie administration tweaked its funding formula.
“When you take that into consideration,” said Moffitt at the March 10 meeting of the Hoboken Board of Education, “it’s more like an $80,000 increase” in state aid for Hoboken this coming year.
Statewide, the school choice program will see a $3.3 million boost in funding for the
2015-16 school year.
This coming Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Demarest School auditorium, the Hoboken school board will host a short meeting to introduce and discuss the proposed district budget for the 2015-16 school year. After being reviewed and possibly adjusted by Hudson County, the budget will be voted on for full adoption in May.
Trustee Leon Gold, who chairs the school board’s Finance Committee, cautioned this past Tuesday that a minor boost in state aid would not free the district from the budgetary pressures that have forced tax increases and cuts to personnel in recent years.
“We have a serious budget problem,” said Gold, “and while the administration is in the process of making as many cuts as they can, we’re going to have to raise taxes.”
“I think we should acknowledge that [the tax levy is] going to go up,” he continued, “so we can seriously discuss why it’s going to go up and understand that we’re making huge sacrifices to keep it at the level that we’re going to.”
Hoboken’s school district faces a number of costs that tend to increase year over year, including salary and benefits for employees and energy costs. The most controversial of these expenses is the district’s state-mandated payout to Hoboken’s three charter schools, which is projected to increase by another $524,956 for the 2015-16 school year, according to Moffitt.
$407,938 of that increase will go to the Hoboken Dual Language Charter School (HoLa), which is expanding to seventh grade this coming year. In 2014, the school board filed a lawsuit aiming to block HoLa’s expansion to seventh and eighth grade, citing both the financial pressure it would create and alleged de facto segregation caused by the school.
The school board’s legal challenge is currently under review by state Education Commissioner David Hespe, but the spots in HoLa’s seventh grade class have already been awarded, creating questions about what will happen to those children if HoLa’s expansion is overturned.
Teachers of the year
Also on Tuesday, the school board honored the selections for 2014-15 Teacher of the Year and Educational Services Professional of the Year at all five district schools.
The honorees were as follows: at Brandt School, preschool teacher Andrea Mangione and Yesenia Flores, a psychologist and counselor in the Preschool Intervention and Referral Team; at Calabro School; elementary school teacher Jill Ann Littzi and school nurse Celeste Joyce; at Connors School, math and science teacher Michael Scott and response to intervention specialist Alison Szymanski; at Wallace School, second grade teacher Christina Arnone and school counselor Allison Lemberg; and at Hoboken Junior Senior High School, biology teacher Juliana Addi and school counselor and testing coordinator Damien Arnone.
Full biographies of the honorees can be found on the Hoboken Board of Education website at www.hoboken.k12.nj.us/hoboken/Recent%20News/Teachers%20and%20Educational%20Services%20Professionals%20of%20the%20Year/