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North Brunswick reports small gains on state tests but must file improvement plan after NJQSAC review
Summary
District assessment leaders reported modest increases in 2023'24 NJSLA scale scores but proficiency largely remains below state averages and subgroup gaps persist; NJQSAC flagged instruction/program at 78%, triggering a District Improvement Plan due Nov. 19, 2024.
North Brunswick Township School District officials told the board on Tuesday that the district saw modest upticks in 2023'24 state test scale scores but remains below statewide proficiency levels, and must now produce a District Improvement Plan after a NJQSAC monitoring review.
Mercedes Chang, who presented the district's NJSLA results, said the district administered 6,736 tests and met participation requirements. "We did, as always, meet our participation rate," Chang said, and noted small year-over-year increases in average scale scores: the district's ELA scale average across grades 3—29 was 739 (up two points) and the mathematics scale average was 733 (also up two points). Chang cautioned that those averages remain in the state's "three" proficiency band, short of the district's goal to shift more students into levels 4 and 5.
The presentation highlighted wide subgroup differences. Chang said the Asian student cohort had the highest combined pass rate when levels four and five are combined (about 70 percent in some grades), while Hispanic students and other subgroups lagged: "our Hispanic population continues to struggle," Chang said, citing roughly a quarter of Hispanic students clustered in lower proficiency levels in multiple grades.
Superintendent Choka framed the results in programmatic context and the district's next steps. The Middlesex County review team rated the district 78 percent in the instruction and program domain of NJQSAC, below the 80 percent threshold that requires a formal District Improvement Plan. Choka said the district will prepare that plan for board approval and submit it by the Nov. 19, 2024 deadline.
Administrators emphasized interventions already underway. Chang and other leaders described expanded high-impact tutoring (including a grant-funded program for 11th graders), curriculum and staffing changes such as hiring a math coach for grades 5—1, broader AVID and academy supports at the high school, dual-language and newcomer programming, and a districtwide schedule of classroom walkthroughs and MTSS data-team meetings to identify instructional needs.
Board members pressed for more granular evidence of program impact. One member asked for tutoring outcome data to be shared with the board; Chang said the state provided more funding for high-impact tutoring this year and that the district is compiling analyses to better measure which interventions move students between proficiency bands. The superintendent and presenters also noted that transient enrollment (about 400 student transfers cited) and interrupted schooling among newcomer students complicate year-to-year comparisons.
The board did not take any immediate policy votes tied to the assessment presentation; the district will return with a draft District Improvement Plan and additional data on tutoring and intervention outcomes.
