District Reveals Results of Self-Assessment

The SP-F school district scored itself highly on the state’s required self-assessment this year, but is still waiting on some information before deeming it complete, superintendent Margaret Hayes announced Thursday night.

This is the first time that Scotch Plains-Fanwood schools have completed the district performance review entitled NJQSAC. It replaces the former system of monitoring, the Quality Assurance Annual Report (QAAR).

“NJQSAC is designed to be a single, comprehensive accountability system that consolidates and incorporates the monitoring requirements of applicable state and federal programs,” Hayes said.

The district underwent five performance reviews as part of NJQSAC: Instruction and Program; Fiscal Management; Operations Management: Personnel; and Governance.

In the instruction portion, the district scored itself high for its work in curriculum, instruction, mandated programs, early childhood programs, and high school graduation, but gave a significantly low score for student performance. The district’s score was 15 out of 59 points, which Hayes said is due to the fact that they have yet to receive the necessary student assessment data, worth up to another 44 points.

“It’s incomplete at this time because we’ve yet to receive data from the district on student performance,” Hayes said. “The state’s in the process of changing it’s benchmarks of annual yearly progress, and they either haven’t gotten approval or haven’t passed it along to us. Normally a complete DPR would have information on student performance.”

In fiscal management, the district gave itself 92 of the possible 100 points,  subtracting two of the possible points for efficiency, five for restricted revenues, and one for financial and budgetary control.

In the operations assessment, which reviewed facilities, student conduct, safety and security, student health, support services, and whether it meets NJ SMART Deadlines and data quality requirement, the district gave itself 110 of the possible 120 points, subtracting 10 points for not releasing its data file via the NJ SMART portal to the Department of Education by the posted deadlines in the prior year.

In personnel, the district scored all possible points for personnel policies and professional development, but lost 10 points due to the fact that some job descriptions for the Board of Education need updating.

Points were similarly lost under governance, since the district could not score itself for having the appropriate policies, procedures and bylaws since that section is currently being updated.

“We’ve been working on it over the past year, and it’s a huge task to do,” Hayes said. “That’s why we’re not giving points in that area. It doesn’t mean that we haven’t been working on this. It’s just that the policies have changed.”

The performance review was worked on by a number of people. State code determines who’s on the committee, Hayes said.

Members included Board President Trip Whitehouse; SPFEA President Dominick Giordano; School One Principal Jeffrey Grysko; SPFHS Teacher John Veninger; Evergreen Teacher Nicola Crisp; Director of Special Services Thomas Beese; Business Administrator Anthony Del Sordi; Director of Human Resources Veronica Geyer; Supervisor of Instruction and Technology Joan Mast; and the superintendent.

The district will officially submit its assessment for approval next Thursday, Nov. 19.

The state Department of Education will then visit the district in December to do on-site monitoring, which includes reviewing receipts, interviewing teachers and administration and visiting classrooms. The DOE previously visited in September to do a facilities review, during which “they found everything in good order,” Hayes said.

After the presentation Thursday night, Board Member Betty Anne Woerner questioned how likely it is that the state’s review will line up with the district’s assessment of itself.

“There is no way for us to predict each year,” Hayes said. “From time to time they may a different interpretation of evidence, so they may say, ‘yes, you’re progressing, but you’re not perfect yet.’”

Hayes noted that certain sections of the assessment, such as the policies review, only allows the district to give itself all the points or none of them, no matter where it stands. Thus, just one indicator could throw off their score and put them below 80 points overall, which is considered the marking of a high-performing district.

“This is meant to be a self-assessment that moves the district forward,” Hayes said. “It’s not meant to be a gotcha or black mark. We’ve given evidence we think is appropriate, but it’s not our role to make that final decision.”

For a complete look at the district performance review, go here.