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North Brunswick Middle School leaders highlight academic gains, new curriculum pilots and supports in school presentation
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Summary
School leaders at North Brunswick Township Middle School presented academic and program updates to the Board of Education, citing gains on several tests, a full-year roll-out of Desmos in math, a Savvas ELA pilot supported by a $200,000 Impact Grant, and expanded social-emotional and special-education supports.
School staff presented a broad “state of the school” update to the North Brunswick Township Board of Education on April 29, emphasizing curriculum pilots, interventions and extracurricular engagement at North Brunswick Township Middle School.
Mr. Silover, the host at the middle school, opened the presentation by describing the school’s guiding philosophy as “safe, comfortable, highly productive, and enjoyable,” and then reviewed academic priorities and supports. He said the district has adopted the Desmos math curriculum districtwide and piloted Savvas in ELA classrooms; he added the district is rebooting professional learning communities (PLCs) and refining lesson planning to raise student achievement.
“Without a safe school, we’ve got nothing,” Mr. Silover told the board, adding that the building-level schedule was redesigned to allow sustained interventions in both math and ELA so students can receive multiple layers of support.
Dre Elomager, math and science supervisor, described the first full year of the Desmos program at the middle school, reporting “we’ve completed over 66,000 touch points” of data collection that staff are using to identify growth and tailor interventions. Elomager also highlighted recent math competitions (AMC, NJML and an Algebra I contest) and said many classroom activities are showing results with some tasks exceeding an 85% success rate when work is submitted for review.
For ELA, Miss Dwyer told the board the district won an Impact Grant that will provide “about $200,000” to support adoption of high-quality instructional materials. She said a representative from the New Jersey Department of Education praised the district’s preparation; the ELA task force has piloted Savvas (MyView/My Perspectives) and will reconvene with final feedback ahead of a formal recommendation to the superintendent and board.
Dr. Alexis Rich, supervisor of special services, described the school’s focus on the whole child: multisensory reading instruction, flexible programming, IEP development and mental-health screening data used to drive interventions. “We focus on the whole child,” Dr. Rich said, noting collaboration across teachers, counselors and external partners to build independence and life skills.
Staff also highlighted nonacademic supports and engagement: an expanded AVID program for college readiness, a robust PBIS program (reported at roughly 78% teacher participation in daily point awards and more than 180,000 points recorded from October through March), 15 middle-school sports teams with high participation, and a growing roster of clubs including STEM, TV production and arts offerings.
Board members thanked staff for the presentation and recognized student performances and videos shared during the event. Superintendent Zikowski and multiple board members praised the school’s focus on social-emotional learning and the mix of academic and extracurricular initiatives intended to increase student engagement and recovery from pandemic-related learning loss.
The board did not take further action on school programs at the meeting; the presentations concluded and the board moved on to regular agenda business.
