Assistant Superintendent Dr. Karen Benton presented the Moorestown Township Public School District's spring 2025 New Jersey Student Learning Assessment (NJSLA) results and related academic updates at a regular meeting of the Moorestown Township Board of Education. Superintendent Dr. McNeely told the board the district is moving into the next phase of referendum implementation and will begin the bond sale process.

The presentation reviewed four-year trends across grades 3'9, showing higher percentages of students meeting or exceeding grade-level expectations in reading compared with state averages, particularly in elementary grades. Benton said the district is in its fourth year using the Into Reading program in K'5 and is seeing growth among younger students. "We are now in our fourth year using our Into Reading as our primary curricular resource programs in K through 5, and we continue to see growth in the performance of our youngest students," Benton told the board.

Benton described targeted supports for subgroups, including students who are economically disadvantaged, multilingual learners and students with disabilities. The district has expanded structured literacy supports and said it now has Wilson Reading System tier-3 trained staff and a Wilson reading therapist in each elementary building to support intensive literacy intervention.

On math, Benton said the district is in the first year of a new K'5 math curriculum (Into Math) with professional development that began earlier in 2025 and full implementation at the start of the school year. She said middle school teachers are in year two of an Envision implementation and the program emphasizes daily math routines to build number sense. "This new program focuses on building daily math routines to grow student number sense," Benton said.

Benton noted some year-to-year fluctuation in high-school math results and said part of that is cohort composition, including transfer students who arrive with varying credit needs. She also described efforts to expand students' access to advanced coursework: 422 high school students took AP exams in the year reviewed, collectively taking 948 exams, and 91% of those students scored a 3 or better. The district reported seven National Merit scholarship semifinalists or scholars and 17 students who earned the New Jersey State Seal of Biliteracy across seven languages.

Superintendent Dr. McNeely framed the presentation within recently passed referendum work. He told the board the district has begun the administrative steps required after voter approval, including preparation for a bond sale to fund referendum projects, and that he will share implementation updates with the community through a short video update posted to the district's referendum tab on the website.

Board members asked for follow-up information. One board member asked how widely the "building thinking classrooms" instructional approach has been adopted; Benton said it has been incorporated in professional development across grades 6'12 and that teachers select elements of the framework to use in their classrooms. Another board member asked whether the district has examined how the building-thinking-classrooms approach is working for students with Individualized Education Programs in inclusive settings; Benton said that specific disaggregated data are not available at the moment but she would bring that information back to the curriculum committee.

Benton closed by highlighting other measures of student success, including high AP participation and college-board outcomes, participation in the district's summer ESSA programs and extracurricular achievements in athletics and the arts. She thanked staff and families for the support that she said underpins the gains the district reported.

The board did not take any formal action on the assessment presentation itself but directed staff to return with more detailed data to the curriculum committee on inclusion outcomes and implementation progress for the new math program.

Next steps: the board will receive follow-up curriculum-committee briefings, and district staff will proceed with referendum implementation tasks discussed later in the meeting, including preparations for bond issuance.