Hawthorne presenters report gains on NJGPA and WIDA; district outlines classroom changes

Superintendent McNanelli opened the meeting’s instructional update with a summary of spring assessment results and summer instructional work, saying, “It’s my privilege to present my first superintendent’s report” and that he had been “met with warmth and positivity” in his first weeks in the role.

District presenters framed the NJGPA results as multi-year progress. Doctor Trebona (staff member) and Bonnie (staff member) described cohort tracking that shows 11th-grade English language arts (ELA) at 88.6% “graduation ready” and a notable rise in math: district presenters said the overall high-school math pass rate rose to the low- to mid-50s and, when excluding out-of-district students, reached about 56%. Bonnie said, “When you look at the students that we are teaching day in, day out in our classroom…we’re actually at 56% pass rate.”

The presenters emphasized that the district tracked the same students from freshmen NJSLA tests through the junior-year NJGPA and reported growth: 60% of students made raw-score gains between their freshman NJSLA and junior-year NJGPA, and 32% of students increased their scores by 50 points or more, which staff said often represents a jump in proficiency tier. Bonnie reported that 85 individual students improved their raw NJSLA-to-NJGPA score and that, among students who increased by more than 50 points, five of six were classified students or multilingual learners.

Presenters outlined classroom changes they say underlie the gains. For math: curriculum rewrites (Algebra 2 in progress; geometry next), a new “foundation to algebra 2” course launching in the fall, a freshman math lab to shore up weak pre-algebra skills, and a senior math lab to support students who did not pass as juniors. Bonnie said the math lab produced measurable results: of nine students who passed on a subsequent administration last year, four had been in the math lab.

For ELA: Mrs. Smith (staff member) described a multi-year focus on skills-based assessments, tighter vocabulary instruction tied to assessment language, and short-form timed writing practice to mirror NJGPA demands. Mrs. Smith said the district had “been consistently hovering 90” in ELA graduation readiness over three years and flagged subgroup gains: 86.8% of Hispanic/Latino students were reported as passing ELA and 69% of students with IEPs passed ELA this year, an increase from 56% the year before.

Multilingual learner (ML) instruction changes were described in detail. Staff said the high school piloted small-group ML ELA classes taught by a teacher with both English and ESL certification — “Mr. McKinley” — which presenters credited with accelerated growth and exit potential: staff reported 18 students scored a 4 or higher on WIDA access and four students met the WIDA exit threshold of 4.5, with an additional 14 students possibly eligible to exit based on fall scoring. Presenters noted the ML population is highly transient; the district reported 116 ML students last year, including 37 new entries.

Board members responded with praise and questions about next steps, requesting that staff continue to report subgroup-level details and the October NJSLA data when available. Several board members and administrators emphasized sustaining the in-house professional development model that presenters credited for much of the growth.

The district’s presenters and board did not propose any policy or binding action during the presentation; presenters said the items reported on were informational and operational.