Schools taking advantage of technology Borough schools leading way in using computers to improve education

Schools taking advantage of technology
Borough schools leading way in using computers to improve education

CHRIS KELLY Students in Nina Helmer’s fourth-grade class at the Woodmere Elementary School, Eatontown, work on laptops, which are being used to help raise test scores in the school.

EATONTOWN — An all-out effort to raise scores on state-mandated fourth- and eighth-grade tests has been launched, with notable initial success, in the borough’s school system.

School Superintendent Robert J. Soprano said the drive will be bolstered this year by the availability of a computer profile on all the students’ work that their teachers can use in helping to gauge their progress.

Soprano noted that district scores in the Elementary School Proficiency Assessment test (ESPA) for fourth-graders and the Grade Eight Proficiency Assessment test (GEPA) for eighth-graders were above the state average in exams administered earlier this year for the first time since he came to the district seven years ago.

The goal now, he said, is to climb above the county average.

Soprano said the "outstanding staff really worked hard" to get the students to where they are today.

Going hand in hand with technological advances that are making it easier for teachers to see where a child needs improvement is a new character education and violence-prevention program being introduced districtwide this year.

Soprano said it was piloted in the second grade last year and proved so successful that it is being expanded to all grades in the K-8 system.

"We want to meet the needs of the kids educationally and emotionally," he said. The district has 1,352 students.

Soprano said that when he first came to the district after serving 14 years as school superintendent in Holland Township in Hunterdon County, he set about increasing the computer capacity, as he had when in Holland.

He said he’s "pretty pleased" now to have more than 200 computers in each of the district’s schools, and that those computers are wired so that 100 students in a school and 25 in a classroom can be on the Internet or can use the same software at the same time.

Soprano explained that the computers are equipped with NCS software that has a complete K-8 program with yearlong subject matter for each grade level in math, language arts and science, the three areas in which skills are assessed by the ESPA and GEPA.

Now, he said, all the work a student does on the computer is saved, and the teacher can access it any time to see how he or she is mastering the skills.

"It’s like an accelerated textbook on software," he said of the new program.

Soprano said part of the new program, devised by CEO Solutions in Red Bank and dubbed Technology Instructional Evaluation (TIE), stores a breakdown of test scores and can turn out an individual student’s profile for a teacher. The program helps the teacher tie in to resources and instructional activities that are available to best help the student.

This year, for the first time, he said, returning teachers were given profiles of all students who were going to be in their classes before school opened.

"We are probably one of the few districts in the state to embark on a program to have instant availability of student performance," he said.

"We are probably the only school in the county that has the entire curriculum online and can do individual profiles of students," he added.

Soprano said last year was the first year of a concerted effort to raise test scores. He said it began by targeting fourth-grade language arts, where students had their poorest showing the previous year.

The results were dramatic. Whereas only 59.8 percent of fourth-graders tested were found to be proficient in language arts in 2000, 90.5 percent passed and were found to be proficient in language arts in the 2001 test, he said.

"We wanted to concentrate on the fourth grade first," Soprano said.

"Our eighth grade seems to do well. Their scores equal the state average. Our fourth-grade scores were a little below the state average," he continued in explaining why the district started with the fourth-graders. "Our first goal was to be above the state average. Now we want to get above the county rate."

Soprano said the county averages are not out yet, so the district does not know how it fared by comparison with the others. Nevertheless, his goal was clear.

"Our goal was to improve test scores, and already we have succeeded immensely," he said.

Soprano said that this year the schools are emphasizing math in an effort to improve those scores.

He said the 2000 ESPA test found 80.5 percent of the fourth-graders to be proficient in math; in 2001, the figure was 86.2 percent. That was better than the eighth-grade scores. Soprano said 77.5 percent of the eighth-graders were proficient in math in 2000, and 78.3 percent were proficient in 2001.

Eighth-grade scores in language arts are on a par with the latest fourth-grade scores, although they dipped slightly last year. According to the superintendent, 91.8 percent of the eighth-graders were found to be proficient on the 2000 test, and 90.7 percent were proficient in 2001.

Both grades are doing well in science, and the fourth-grade students have little room to improve.

While 96.1 percent of fourth-graders were found to be proficient in science in 2000, the number increased to 99.1 percent in 2001.

The eighth-graders pulled their science scores up markedly between 2000 and 2001. In the 2000 GEPA test, 86 percent were found to be proficient in science, and in the 2001 test, 95 percent were found to be proficient.

Soprano said the district’s students have always done well in math and that he believes Walpack Valley Environmental Education Center in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in Sussex County is a major factor.

The Eatontown Schools established a residential environmental education program at Walpack, in cooperation with the National Park Service, in 1972, and fifth- through seventh-graders are bused up for overnight stays. Two teachers on the school district’s staff live in that area and conduct classes.

"We do great in science," Soprano said. "We think it’s because we have a hands-on program. That’s been a strong curriculum area."

Soprano said the biggest problem the district faces is the high mobility rate of its students.

He said that while the state average for the turnover of students in a school is 14.3 percent a year, the mobility rate at the Woodmere School is 40 percent; at the Meadowbrook School, it’s 26.6 percent; and at the Margaret L. Vetter, school it’s 26.5 percent. They are the district’s K-6 schools.

Soprano said the high rate of mobility arises from transfers of military families into and out of the district.

When a new student moves into the district, he said, the child is given a test to assess his or her strengths and weaknesses, and the results are given to the teacher to show what skills need to be worked on.

He said he figures it typically takes two years to get a new student up to the proficiency level of the other students if that student is behind.

If the test results of new students were excluded from the class scores for that two-year period, he said, he believes they would be higher for the district.

"We don’t use that as an excuse," he hastily added. "But to compare us, a student should be in school for two years before the test score counts."