Superintendent highlights academic gains, curriculum adoption and expanded mental-health supports
Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts
Subscribe
Summary
Superintendent Dr. Foster reported on preschool, elementary and secondary academic data, recommended a K–5 ELA adoption (Arts and Letters), and outlined expanded mental-health supports including a Catholic Charities partnership funded by statewide student support services.
Superintendent Dr. Foster presented progress on the district’s strategic priorities and academic measures, and the board approved related consent items that include a new K–5 ELA program and a mental-health services partnership.
Dr. Foster reviewed outcomes for early childhood and elementary grades, citing assessments by Teaching Strategies GOLD for preschool and benchmark results from LinkIt and i-Ready for elementary math and literacy. She said district presenters reported positive trends from fall to winter assessments, noting that second-, third- and fifth-grade math benchmarks had met a 75 percent target and that i-Ready math and ELA showed growth in meeting and exceeding expectations. Officials said fourth-grade math had not yet met the target and that spring benchmarks would be administered the following month.
Dr. Foster also highlighted instructional changes: an expanded multisensory Orton-Gillingham approach (referred to at the meeting as MC) will move from K–3 to a K–5 model in fall 2025; the district recommended adopting the Arts and Letters ELA program for 2025–26, and that recommendation appeared on the evening’s board agenda and was included in the consent agenda the board approved.
On intervention programs, the superintendent described MathLab and English Lab supports at the middle school: presenters said 20 students recently qualified to exit MathLab and that a number of students have increased diagnostic scores; NJSLA statewide testing was scheduled for May with results available later in the summer. Dr. Foster said Saturday Academy has expanded to provide targeted help in math and ELA, and that Princeton University funding supports some before-school Tier 3 tutoring.
Dr. Foster and the Student Achievement committee also discussed mental-health supports. The board considered a partnership with Catholic Charities to provide student mental-health services funded through the New Jersey statewide student support services program; the committee noted Catholic Charities’ services are nonreligious in nature and available irrespective of students’ backgrounds. The consent agenda that included the Catholic Charities MOU passed during the meeting.
The board heard that all English-language learner students in the district’s English Plus program passed the Accuplacer graduation requirement on their first attempt, and that current ELA and math interventions have produced scaled-score increases at multiple grade levels. Dr. Foster thanked administrators, supervisors and instructional coaches for collaborative work on curriculum and instruction.
The board approved the consent agenda that included the Arts and Letters adoption and the Catholic Charities MOU; both items were listed for approval on the agenda and passed as part of the broader consent vote.