Shamong Township School District superintendent says district ‘will get through’ PARCC
The Shamong Township Board of Education and school district will get through the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers while respecting the wishes of parents and children.
That was the message from Superintendent Christine Vespe at the latest Shamong BOE meeting on Feb. 24.
Vespe took some time at the last board meeting before PARCC testing started to comment on the district’s preparedness and approach to administering the tests.
The district also ran two information and questions sessions about PARCC earlier in the day that Vespe said were attended by about 75 parents.
This year, PARCC tests are replacing the former New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge test for grades three through eight as a result of the “common core” set of K-12 assessments in math and language arts originally developed by 20 states to prepare students for college or a career beyond high school.
Although several of those states have since decided not to administer the test, New Jersey has moved forward with the exams.
The PARCC test is unique in that students will be tested twice a year, once in March and once in late April or early May, and students will take the test entirely on a computer.
One of the controversies surrounding PARCC is what is to be done with the students whose parents refuse to let them take the test.
Vespe said some schools are simply having the students sit and stare, which means if they are not testing, they are still sitting and staring at their computer, but Shamong would instead allow students to read if not participating in the exams.
“As a school district and as a board, we did not buy into that as administrators,” Vespe said. “We are not punishing children. We are not making children pawns in this process of PARCC. Children are allowed to read.”
However, Vespe also said she was required to point out that if 95 percent or less of children in the district do not take the test, the district could lose federal and state funding, and the district already had enough parent refusals to put it below that threshold.
“I have to be honest with that,” Vespe said. “It is part of our budget and we budget it in there. If it were to in any way impact state funding, then we’re really in trouble because $4.2 million comes from state funding.”
Parent Carmella Vanhorn said she wanted to commend the board and all those in the district who were working on the PARCC testing, and said Shamong’s response to parents has been better than other districts she knows of.
“I was very upset when I first got my letter with the sit and read, and then the more research I did I found out it’s a step up,” Vanhorn said. “School districts aren’t allowing that. Some school districts are not even accepting a parent’s wishes, so I want to give you a lot of credit for supporting us.”
In other news:
• Parent Maria Gallagher, whose daughter is a special education student, raised concerns about recent turnover and retirements in the district’s child study team.
“I just wanted to express my concern and the hope is moving forward the students of Shamong shall continue to receive as fine an education as my daughter has received,” Gallagher said.
• Business administrator Marie Goodwin said the board should be able to vote on the tentative 2015–2016 school year budget at the board’s next meeting, which is scheduled for March 17.
