Somerville officials outline district goals, new data schedule and expanded tiered instruction plan

Somerville Public School District administrators used an Aug. 26 board retreat to present district goals and a plan to expand data-driven instruction across the district, including a goal to raise student proficiency by 3 percent and an updated schedule for reporting state and local assessment results to the board.

The presentation, led by Superintendent JR with curriculum director Mary Kane and curriculum supervisor Gina, framed the work as an implementation of recommendations from last year’s curriculum audit. JR told the board that “the board should receive reports on academic progress and growth towards goals at least 2 times annually.” The administration proposed a reporting cadence that will include an initial September report on NJGPA and access, NJSLA (state assessment) reports when they are released in October/November, and a January midyear and June end-of-year local-data review.

Why it matters: Board members said they plan to use the self-evaluation and this data schedule to set board goals and oversight priorities. The administration said the new measures and regular reporting are intended to give the board and the public clear, comparable milestones to judge academic progress and to hold the district accountable.

What the district will track and how - District goals presented: increase student proficiency (meeting or exceeding standards) by 3 percent by the end of the school year; and increase staff capacity to implement a high-quality Tier 1 instructional framework tied to a third-party assessment. - State testing: Mary Kane described the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment (NJSLA) and the New Jersey Graduation Proficiency Assessment (NJGPA). Kane said the state has moved to a computer-adaptive format for math and ELA this year; the adaptive format gives students questions tailored to prior answers and should place students’ scores closer to their current instructional level. - Local benchmarks: The district will continue I‑Ready (grades K–8 math and ELA) administered three times per year and expanded use of LINQit as a district data warehouse and diagnostic tool at the high school. Kane said local benchmarks are given beginning, middle and end of year to measure both growth and growth-toward-grade-level (stretch targets).

Tiered supports and classroom change Curriculum supervisor Gina described the district’s alignment around a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS/NJTSS). She said MTSS is “built on a public health model” and emphasized that Tier 1 is prevention: high‑quality core instruction intended to meet the needs of the majority of students. Gina said the district aims for at least 80 percent of students’ needs to be met through strong Tier 1 instruction so that fewer students require resource-intensive Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports.

The administration described school-specific steps already in place or expanding this year: additional instructional coaches at VanderMeer, expanded before- and during-day interventions at Somerville Middle School (SMS) to double the students receiving Tier 2/3 help, and a high-school lab period paired with core ELA and math classes for students multiple grade levels behind.

Audit recommendations and accountability JR pointed to two audit recommendations the presentation seeks to address: providing the board academic-progress reports at least twice a year, and training the board to understand the metrics tied to district goals. He said the goal of the information schedule is to create “metrics that can be understood” by trustees and the public and to use those metrics as the basis for accountability.

What the board will see next The administration said it will report access and NJGPA results in September, NJSLA results (when released) in October/November, and then detailed local-database reports in January and June. The curriculum team said those presentations will include NJGPA, NJSLA, local benchmark results (I‑Ready, LINQit), and disaggregated data used by building- and district-level data teams.

Ending note: The curriculum team framed the shift as a systems change that will take multiple years to embed with fidelity; they asked the board to treat the reporting schedule and capacity-building work as multi-year reforms rather than one-time fixes.