Ridgefield Public Schools New Jersey School Performance Report January 25, 2018

Assess Students’ Progress Toward Meeting Standards The 2016/17 school performance reports are designed to share school and district information collected by the New Jersey Department of Education directly with parents, educators, and communities. The report includes information about the school districts for performance indicators such as; standardized testing performance, student and staff attendance, graduation rates, demographics, and student to staff ratios. New Jersey has developed a school accountability system as required by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to identify schools in need of support. The full reports can be viewed on the NJDOE website at: http://www.state.nj.us/education/pr/ But also in 2008, the High School Redesign Taskforce courageously stated that New Jersey’s old high school assessment – the High School Proficiency Assessment or HSPA – wasn’t measuring college or career readiness. And that it was all but ignored by colleges.

Proficiency in Student Progress School district progress is measured through performance on standardized testing. The current measure of student progress is the PARCC assessment for English/Language Arts and math. Students are tested in grades 3 – 12 in the area of ELA and 3 – 8 in math, with content area tests at the secondary level in Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry. The following slides demonstrate student progress trends on the PARCC trends over the past three years. The graphs present the percentage of students who met or exceeded expectations over the past three years. The students are compared against their performance from the prior school year. This data is also presented each school year in the fall during the Annual Data Presentation.

Chronic Absenteeism Another measure of school data is chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is defined as being absent for 10% or more of the days enrolled during the school year. A student who is not present for any reason, excused, unexcused or for disciplinary action, is considered absent unless permitted by a state regulation.

This graph compares the chronic absenteeism by grade level within the school district to absenteeism across the state.

Chronic Absenteeism by School *Target not met.

Graduation Rates With this new graduation calculation in place, each incoming 9th Grader in New Jersey is assigned to a graduation cohort based on the expectation that each will graduate in 4-years. For example, if a student entered ninth grade in 2013, then she/he would be assigned to the 2017 Cohort. Once a student is assigned a cohort year, they remain in that same cohort regardless of when they actually graduate. In other words, cohorts are assigned once and are not changed if a student becomes “off-track.” While students are actively enrolled in high school, their status is tracked to determine whether they are on-track or off-track to achieving graduation in four years. Students’ grade levels determine their progress towards graduation. For example, if a student in Cohort 2017 is in eleventh grade during the Fall of 2015, they would be considered “on-track”. However, if a student from the 2017 cohort is enrolled in tenth grade during the Fall of 2015, then they would be considered “off-track” since she/he would be at risk of not graduating within four years. When a student exits or enters a district, it may affect the district’s cohort size, resulting in an adjusted cohort. For example, if a Cohort 2017 student transfers from District A to District B, then District B’s cohort count is increased by one student and District A’s cohort count is decreased by one student. However, if that student dropped out of District A before being successfully transferring to another district, then District A would be responsible for that student and their cohort count would not be adjusted. Rules determining “district ownership” of individual students have not changed and are clearly documented in NJ DOE regulations.

Three Year Graduation Rates School drop-out rates were less than 1% for all three years.

School District Staffing The overall attendance for staff is 96% throughout the school year. The following graph demonstrates student to staff ratios. Staff Type Ratio Teachers 11:1 Administrators 95:1 Media Specialists 1710:1 Nurses 427:1 Counselors 342:1 Child Study Team 244:1

Thank you! Questions?