North Hunterdon-Voorhees juniors post stronger NJGPA results; access scores show range among multilingual learners

District staff presented preliminary 2025 results for two statewide assessments — the New Jersey Graduation Proficiency Assessment (NJGPA) and the Access for ELLs exam — at the North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional High School District Board of Education meeting on July 21.

The NJGPA presentation, given by Richard Brode, described districtwide official scores showing 92.7% of juniors graduation-ready in English language arts (ELA), up 1.3 percentage points from 2024, and 77.4% graduation-ready in mathematics, up 5.7 points. Brode said those official percentages exclude academy and full-time polytech students; including those students raised the district rates slightly (to 93.5% ELA and 78.7% math). By comparison, Brode noted state averages of 80.7% ELA and 58% math.

Brode pointed to an improving gap between the district’s two high schools. Using the “unofficial” results that include academy students, he said North Hunterdon’s graduation-ready rate was 90.2% while Voorhees was 98.6%, narrowing a cohort gap that had been much larger in earlier years.

Brode described the NJGPA as a two-component exam (ELA based on grade 10 standards and math on Algebra 1/Geometry standards) and reviewed retake and alternative pathways: summer and fall administrations, substitute competency tests (PSAT/SAT/Accuplacer) and the state portfolio appeal process for students who do not meet the cut score (725 on each component).

He also reviewed subgroup and cohort patterns. For ELA, most disaggregated subgroups with ten or more students reached at least 90% graduation-ready, he said; students with disabilities showed lower rates near 60% and were highlighted as a focus for intervention. In math, Brode described larger historical differences between the two schools that have narrowed in the 2024–25 cycle. He said district supports for students who are not yet graduation-ready include workshop classes, research rooms staffed by content teachers, after-school help, and response-to-intervention teams.

On Access for ELLs (assessing English language proficiency for multilingual learners), Brode explained that 4.5 is the state cut score that makes a student eligible for exit consideration but that the exit decision also requires a teacher observation form. He said the district’s Access cohort was small enough that the report cannot be disaggregated into subgroups or grade bands (the state suppresses small counts). Scores across listening, speaking, reading and writing were spread widely; speaking and writing were the lower bands for many students while listening tended to be stronger. Brode said “a couple” of students already meet exit eligibility, and described planned supports: daily ESL-certified instruction, a new ML English class at North Hunterdon for 2025–26, regular articulation with sending districts, accommodations for statewide assessments (extended time and word-to-word dictionaries), monitoring after exit for two years, and portfolio assessment when appropriate.

Board members asked about the timing of further analyses (Brode said district-to-district comparisons would arrive in subsequent months), services for students with disabilities (Brode described individualized instruction and the portfolio pathway as an intensive route), and whether online remediation used in the summer is as effective as in-person (Brode: in-person is more effective but the online option is available to students who opt in).

Brode said summer NJGPA test administrations began the week of the meeting and emphasized staff plans to monitor cohorts and to report updated results next year.

District leaders did not propose any new binding policy in the presentation; the board received the results as information and directed staff to continue reporting cohort and subgroup analyses as the state releases comparative data.