header_fwtitle ) { $css_title .= 'font-weight:' . esc_attr( $pheader_fwtitle ) . ';'; } if ( $pheader_title_color ) { $css_title .= 'color:' . esc_attr( $pheader_title_color ) . ';'; } if ( $css_title ) { echo '.penci-page-header-wrap .penci-page-header-title {' . $css_title . '}'; } if ( $pheader_line_color ) { echo '.penci-page-header-wrap .penci-page-header-title:before{ border-color: ' . esc_attr( $pheader_line_color ) . '; opacity: 1; }'; } if ( $pheader_bread_fsize ) { echo '.penci-page-header-wrap .container.penci-breadcrumb span, .penci-page-header-wrap .container.penci-breadcrumb a, .penci-page-header-wrap .container.penci-breadcrumb i{ font-size:' . esc_attr( $pheader_bread_fsize ) . 'px; }'; } if ( $pheader_bread_color ) { echo '.penci-page-header-wrap .container.penci-breadcrumb span, .penci-page-header-wrap .container.penci-breadcrumb a,.penci-page-header-wrap .container.penci-breadcrumb i{ color:' . esc_attr( $pheader_bread_color ) . '; }'; } if ( $pheader_bread_hcolor ) { echo '.penci-page-header-wrap .container.penci-breadcrumb a:hover{ color:' . $pheader_bread_hcolor . '; }'; } if ( $pheader_bgimg ) { echo '.penci-page-header-wrap{ background-image: url(' . esc_attr( $pheader_bgimg ) . '); }'; } if ( $pheader_bgcolor ) { echo '.penci-page-header-wrap{ background-color:' . esc_attr( $pheader_bgcolor ) . '; }'; } } endif; Academic Placement Policy Archives - The Village Green https://villagegreennj.com/tag/academic-placement-policy/ of Maplewood and South Orange Thu, 03 Aug 2023 14:55:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 https://villagegreennj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/vg-fav-1.png Academic Placement Policy Archives - The Village Green https://villagegreennj.com/tag/academic-placement-policy/ 32 32 SEGREGATED: A Working History of South Orange-Maplewood School Integration, Access & Equity Efforts https://villagegreennj.com/schools-kids/segregated-a-working-history-of-south-orange-maplewood-school-integration-access-equity-efforts/ Thu, 13 Jul 2023 14:59:56 +0000 https://villagegreennj.com/?p=93061

After decades of failed attempts, the South Orange-Maplewood School District is finally balancing its elementary schools with its Intentional Integration Initiative. Local leaders agree it'll take more to erase years of inequity and prepare diverse students for bright futures. 

The post SEGREGATED: A Working History of South Orange-Maplewood School Integration, Access & Equity Efforts appeared first on The Village Green.

]]>

 

As the South Orange-Maplewood School District — or SOMSD — enters the third year of its Intentional Integration Initiative — a generational effort to balance the district’s elementary and middle schools and ultimately improve outcomes for Black students — a draft final report by an outside consultant again demonstrates that the intended results of the effort can’t come soon enough: SOMSD continues to fail its Black students at alarming rates and in multiple ways.

As part of the collaborative journalism project Segregated, involving news organizations across New Jersey examining segregation in the state’s schools, Village Green is providing a working history of SOMSD efforts in the last 30 years to integrate or balance the schools racially and socio-economically, close the achievement gap and pilot or attempt other educational improvements.

This story aims to offer a basic timeline with links to further reporting. Despite its length, the story here is not fully comprehensive. Village Green plans to follow up and provide deeper dives in the coming months. We welcome and appreciate any feedback on the story; contact us at villagegreennj@gmail.com.

1996-99: Seth Boyden Becomes a Demonstration School

After “a huge, bruising months-long fight over space and racial balance through most of 1996, with six alternate proposals to pair and/or cluster schools,” the designation of Seth Boyden as an “opt-in” demonstration school for multi-intelligence learning in 1999 did not meet with much opposition, says Steve Latz, a former South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education member who has remained active in local BOE politics and policy making since leaving the board after three terms.

But Latz stresses that the demonstration school opt-in model was never fully intended to solve the district’s integration problem: “The legal rationale of the Demonstration School was not racial integration but a combination of demonstrating the effectiveness locally of already proven educational methods, redistricting to eliminate overcrowding with an ongoing mechanism to balance enrollments, and socioeconomic integration.”

“The effort began in late 1998 when Dr. Peter Horoshak [the SOMSD superintendent at the time] reported to the Board that the assignment of Seth Boyden’s 4th grade to Jefferson [now Delia Bolden School], driven by overcrowding at Seth Boyden, wasn’t working and he was going to propose establishing Seth Boyden as a Demonstration School,” said Latz in an email response to questions from Village Green.

A slide from 2018 Community Coalition on Race presentation on SOMSD demographics.

“At [Horoschak’s] request, we hired Len Stevens as a consultant in late 1998 or early 1999,” says Latz. “Len spent three months conducting a series of meetings across the parent community to build buy-in for the idea. The Board voted in the spring of 1999 to establish the Demonstration School and changed school boundary lines, assigning parts of Seth Boyden’s enrollment zone to Tuscan, Clinton and Marshall-Jefferson, creating enough open seats to accommodate anticipated opt-in students. Marilyn Davenport, who had worked for Horoschak in Albuquerque (creating the legendary Governor Bent elementary school), was recruited to help lead the effort, bringing her version of the Multiple Intelligences approach to our district.”

The program was launched in the fall of 1999.

Latz is working on a series of blogs on the establishment of the demonstration school which he hopes to publish in the next few months.

Although Seth Boyden successfully delivered on implementing its curriculum, and Principal Mark Quiles enthusiastically marketed the school to the community throughout his 10-year tenure, the “opt-in” option didn’t move the needle on balancing the elementary schools. By 2016-2018, a demographer hired by the district as well as the Community Coalition on Race through its Schools Committee and demographic report noted that Seth Boyden was showing greater than 45% students qualifying for Free and Reduced Lunch (FRL), while the next closest elementary school was below 20% — and most other schools were below 10%.

BOE members also noted the unfairness of zoned Seth Boyden families being the only ones to lack an option and voted 8-1 to allow SB families an “opt out” option in 2017.

A micro-rezoning or redistricting in 2010 to deal with overcrowding at some of the elementary schools also met with vocal community opposition; although the rezoning was approved, it was modified somewhat with students in the rezoned areas and their siblings grandfathered into the old zoning.

2010-13: De-Leveling and IB at the Middle Schools

Beyond elementary school integration, academic achievement has been an issue that has left successive boards of education and superintendents befuddled and, at times, disheartened.

Current Maplewood resident and WNYC editor Nancy Solomon covered the achievement gap in her 2009 Peabody Award winning report “Mind the Gap: Why Good Schools Are Failing Black Students.” The report begins with a CHS history teacher taking Solomon into classrooms and demonstrating that one could gauge the course level by observing the racial makeup of the classes.

As the district moved into the 2010s, “de-leveling” or “leveling up” was the subject of much debate, with then Supt. of Schools Dr. Brian Osborne — and others — arguing that the district was denying students of color access to higher level courses and/or blocking that access starting at the middle school level.

The BOE did eventually vote to de-level courses at the middle school level in two rounds of measures (in 2010 and 2012), with Osborne mollifying critics of the move by coupling the de-leveling with a short-lived International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program — or IB MYP — that was poorly implemented and ultimately abandoned.

2015: Access & Equity/Academic Placement Policies

In 2015, the BOE voted to approve its “historic” Access & Equity Policy followed shortly thereafter by an Academic Placement policy meant to provide access to higher level courses at the high school to Black students.

Upon its passage, BOE President Wayne Eastman said the Access & Equity policy was a “seismic change” in the district, introducing choice and opening access to all classes and levels for all students throughout the district. BOE members who starkly disagreed on ideological and philosophic issues and approaches such as Beth Daugherty and Madhu Pai found common ground in lauding the policy. But Daugherty noted that the district needed to follow through on Kindergarten through 12th grade curricular alignment and creating supports for students. Elissa Malespina, who is the current BOE 1st Vice President and who was running (unsuccessfully) for a seat on the Board of Education at the time, said she felt the policy was “really good and I commend you for that” but said that it was “not something that is really new. You have something like it in place.” Malespina asked the Board, “How do you plan to implement this when the policy in place was not being followed?”

2018: More De-Leveling (middle school and high school)

By 2018, community members had largely accepted the need to de-level or combine levels. A proposal by then Interim Supt. of Schools Dr. Thomas Ficarra to realign the STEM program, reducing Math and Science by 15 levels combined in the middle school and high school curricula was met with applause and was adopted by a vote of 7-2 at the February 20, 2018 Board of Education meeting.

“This is an issue that goes beyond STEM alignment to … who we are and what kind of community this is,” said Ficarra.

“Like a body, we are not made of disconnected parts, we are made up of parts all connected.” Ficarra noted that particular parts of that body were suffering, impacting the whole. “The African American community is hurting, angry and frustrated to the point of outrage,” said Ficarra. “We have operated a system of invisible segregation.”

2018-2019: Facilities & Integration Plan

Finding that the district was dealing with a “segregation problem that most districts solved in the 70s,” Ficarra introduced what was first dubbed a Facilities & Integration Plan in May 2018, then took the plan on the road, holding town halls at schools throughout the district to get community feedback and build support.

The original $131 million proposal [the amount ultimately grew to $160M] aimed to fix the South Orange-Maplewood School District’s crumbling facilities and expand space in an effort to end overcrowding and segregation in the district.

The initial proposal also included a major reconfiguration, changing elementary schools from K-5 to K-4, placing all 5th and 6th graders at Maplewood Middle School, and placing all 7th and 8th graders at South Orange Middle School. A plan to redistrict the elementary schools would take place after the facilities plan was approved.

When parents questioned why the facilities plan needed to be combined with the integration plan, Ficarra replied: “I can’t conceive of spending $100 million and putting kids back into de facto segregated schools.”

In December 2018, the South Orange and Maplewood Board of School Estimate voted unanimously to approve the school district moving forward with what had grown to a $140 million long range facilities and integration plan. (Another $20M for HVAC and sports fields was added before the Board of School Estimate approved the tax levy increase.)

In March 2019, the integration component was postponed until 2021 after the grades 5-6 and 7-8 reconfiguration was scrapped in October in favor of keeping the existing K-5, 6-8 configuration.

2021: SOMSD III

In January 2020, under new Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ronald Taylor’s direction, the district embarked on a series of community meetings to discuss the “growth mindset” — a concept Taylor touted since before he took the helm of SOMSD in July 2019 — necessary to evolve into an educational system that serves all its students. The district’s efforts to achieve this included the now-named SOMSD Intentional Integration Initiative. The series began with a “Equity in Integration Symposium” on January 8 where experts spoke about the research around integration, its benefits for students of all backgrounds, and how some other districts’ efforts have implemented it, along with historical and legal context. The event drew more than 600 local residents to the Columbia High School auditorium.

Dr. Ronald Taylor at Integration Symposium January 8, 2020 (Bruno Navarro)

At that symposium, Elise Boddie, a nationally recognized civil-rights expert, noted that New Jersey public schools are the sixth-most segregated in the union for black students and seventh-most segregated for Latino students, adding that “New Jersey’s is the only state constitution that explicitly bans segregation in public schools.”

Boddie warned that there was no “silver bullet” for a successful integration plan. “Race is a very dynamic system,” she said. “You think you’ve dealt with it, but you have to keep refreshing, keep attentive.”

Dr. Eddie Fergus, then an assistant professor of urban education at Temple University who moderated the event and who had worked previously with the district on its equity efforts, agreed that evaluation was essential. “Constantly auditing where we are is important,” he said.

On June 22, 2020, the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education voted 8-0 to implement the integration plan, beginning with the incoming 2021 kindergarten class, with the next phase involving rising sixth-graders the following year. The BOE voted to develop an algorithm, modeled on the Berkley Model, “that will equitably distribute students among schools, based on key facts such as parental income and education level, neighborhood proximity, sibling preference and race.”

Despite a 2019 article in The New York Times article titled, “A Suburb Believed in Liberal Ideals. Then Came a New Busing Plan”, and based on an unnamed thread in a local Facebook group, the III did not elicit significant pushback at BOE meetings during public comments or otherwise, and appeared to have widespread community support — including from all BOE candidates. (The headline of the NYT story was also incorrect, as no “busing plan” or detailed integration plan, for that matter, had yet been finalized or announced.) The article prompted discussions within the community, with some taking issue with the newspaper’s characterization that some Maplewood residents are opposed to busing (the article did not focus on South Orange). Others commended what they saw as a frank examination of the district’s longtime struggle to desegregate its school system.

The III appeared to move smoothly through its first year, produced success rebalancing kindergarten and then the 1st and 6th grades via socioeconomic status — or SES — in Years 1 and 2, and has been approved for further expansion in Year 3 which begins this September.

However, the implementation of the plan has run into some bumps in the road, including a delayed family survey, calls for transparency around the algorithm (which was posted to the district website in 2023), and, recently, 47 district preschool students were left out of the kindergarten lottery for the 2023-24 school year (story to come).

2022-23: Transportation

The largest misstep by the district and BOE happened when families found out just weeks before the start of the 2022-23 school year that so-called “courtesy busing” had been abolished. Although the move to change the transportation policy was announced at a BOE meeting in March 2021, the district did not perform outreach to families at that time or solicit their feedback. Affected families vocally protested the move online and at BOE meetings, stating that they supported the III but needed transportation. After a judge granted 45 students emergent relief based on hazardous routes, the BOE — after a contentious discussion — voted to accept a settlement with the families. In May 2023, the Board of School Estimate voted to expand the tax levy to restore courtesy busing at 1.25 miles for elementary students.

Discussion about the courtesy busing situation involved accusations of racism, with some community members saying complaints about the loss of courtesy busing were part of efforts to undermine the III. It became the central issue of the November 2022 BOE election, with candidates who were perceived as being allied with the BOE leadership losing their bids.

Meanwhile, affected families petitioning for the restoration of courtesy busing protested that they were not “rich”, “white” and “entitled”.

Board of Ed 2nd Vice President Nubia Wilson lauded the decision to restore courtesy busing: “It’s a gold standard,” said Wilson. “If you’re going to do integration, you do transportation.”

[Note: In 2021-22, SOMSD did create a Columbia High School-Seth Boyden shuttle which Taylor said was launched “in response to ongoing concerns from our Board of Education regarding Columbia High School’s traditionally most vulnerable population and the historic challenges they experienced in reaching school. This is in line with our systemic commitment to Access and Equity … i.e. Intentional Integration, Equal Opportunity Schools, Risk Ratio analysis etc.” The shuttle was among proposals made by Interim Head of Guidance Scott White in a scathing critique of the district that he penned upon his departure in 2020.]

2023: “Controlled Choice” or “No Exceptions”

With a change in BOE leadership in January 2023, BOE member Susan Bergin warned against the III being “chipped away” upon her resignation in February 2023.

“The integration initiative is now at risk of being chipped away before it has even realized its full potential. Parental ‘choice’ inevitably leads to an erosion of integration, regardless of intentions and the format it takes, be it hardship exceptions, a transfer portal, or outright school choice,” wrote Bergin in her resignation message.

New BOE President Kaitlin Wittleder countered, “Susan should rest assured that the Board’s commitment to the Intentional Integration Initiative is steadfast, and will not weaken in her absence. In her departure statement, Susan expressed a concern that “deep pockets are determined to undo our work”. Here, I feel she badly underestimates our community. We are incredibly fortunate to live in two very special communities whose commitment to the values of equity and justice are deep and unwavering. Making our schools stronger, fairer and more just has been a multi-decade effort. That effort will continue.” Taylor and Wittleder also explicitly rejected controlled choice in a message to the community in April.

However, Bergin and others have stated that implicit, rather than explicit, choice is really the concern.

Parents have expressed frustration with the fact that the district is not accepting any transfer requests, even when alleged mistakes have been made in the application of the algorithm. For example, in his response to parents of the 47 preschoolers left out of the 2023/24 lottery, Taylor wrote, “In an effort to maintain the integrity of the algorithm and the District’s Intentional Integration Initiative, placement decisions are final.” Transfer requests were denied, with the explanation: “We of course want our parents to be happy with their children’s placement, however, exceptions to our III are a significant threat to this work and our commitment to access and equity. Please be aware that other parents have made similar requests and have also been denied, it would be inequitable to grant these requests for some and not others.”

Nonetheless, Taylor indicated that he and the BOE were open to some kind of transfer portal in comments made at the June 2023 BOE meeting.

During public comments, former BOE member Jeff Bennett advocated for wait list transfer process similar to one in Montclair: “All the other districts I look at that have integration plans have transfer processes. … I feel that there is this opposition to a transfer process because it would … be a thousand cuts to the integration plan.” But Bennett said he also felt that there would be a minimal amount of transfer requests now that courtesy busing had been restored.

“I don’t see support for the integration plan as fragile,” said Bennett.

“There are discussions in the board … that there is consideration around an socioeconomic status transfer mechanism,” replied Taylor, “and we’ll keep everyone posted if that policy is adjusted and make sure everyone knows.”

“It’s not just a matter of placing kids in spaces that are on hold for special needs students,” said Taylor. “That is exactly what we would not do. Those spaces are held for a reason for ELL or special needs students. But for other spaces that may come available having a socioeconomic status waitlist could be a mechanism that is used for those that are looking for a different school.”

Watch Taylor’s full comments at 2:57:07 in the video.

2014-Present: Lawsuits & Settlements

Meanwhile, the district has been subject to two lawsuits and settlements around Black student access and equity.

In 2014, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of New Jersey, and the Center for Civil Rights Remedies of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA filed a complaint against the South Orange-Maplewood School District with the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) asking for an investigation into the district’s disciplinary policies and academic tracking standards vis-a-vis race, and charged that “the school district’s tracking and discipline practices disproportionately confine students of color to lower-level classes and punish students of color and students with disabilities to a greater degree,” violating the Department of Education’s regulations interpreting Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Later that year, the district entered into a settlement with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights over the complaint. The district is required to file an annual report with the OCR; Village Green filed an OPRA for the 2022 report last August and posted it here.

In 2020, the district reached a settlement with the Black Parents Workshop, founded by local parent and activist Walter Fields. The BPW had sued the district on similar grounds to the OCR (and Fields had been involved in aiding the earlier suit as well). The BPW settlement, however, had more rigorous and tangible deliverables. In 2022, BPW held a virtual town hall noting that, while the district had met several parameters of the agreement, others were outstanding. BPW, now led by local parent James Davis, ultimately decided not to take further legal action in 2022 after the the district contacted the settlement monitor and the district rehired Dr. Eddie Fergus of the Rutgers University Equity Lab to finish a report on K-12 disparities in the district.

After Fergus delivered a draft final report to BPW in June, showing continued “stark” achievement disparities and cataloguing students’ criticisms regarding supports, BPW is now threatening further legal action.

2017-Present: Ongoing Negative Data

Throughout the years, the community has anxiously awaited improvements in outcomes, but data points have been hard to move and anecdotal reports have shown that students feel they are not yet receiving the necessary supports.

Some examples:

October 2017 — Supt. Ficarra, Asst. Superintendent for Administration Kevin Walston and Dir. of Planning and Assessment Dr. Kalisha Morgan presented a report to the BOE stating, “Two years after the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education passed a sweeping Access & Equity policy designed to end years of institutionalized racism and address complaints that children of color are disproportionately steered into lower level classes, little meaningful progress has been made.” Board of Education members called the results “terrible,” “mind-boggling,” “appalling” and “unconscionable,” the members expressed deep anger, frustration and sadness. Some were visibly emotional. “We cannot continue to live like this,” said First VP Chris Sabin. “We have to do better by everybody. This is just…terrible,” he said.

August 2022 – A presentation to the Board of Education by CHS Principal Frank Sanchez, newly appointed Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum & Instruction Ann Bodnar, and K-12 English Language Arts Supervisor Dr. Jane Bean-Folkes showed that more Black students failed fourth marking period classes at Columbia High School than did students from any other ethnic group, and it was not clear from data provided by school officials that interventions in place are providing enough support to reverse that direction. (Note: The district adjusted its marking period grading system in 2021 to help students at risk of failing.)

January 2023 — Bodnar presented New Jersey Student Learning Assessment (NJSLA) results from Spring 2022 to the BOE, showing that —while more students overall in the South Orange-Maplewood School District meet or exceed state standards for proficiency in English language arts (ELA), math, and science than do students statewide — far more Black and Hispanic students than white students in the district are not meeting those standards.

June 2023 — The Fergus report found stark disparity patterns particularly in special education data — from 2018 through 2022, “Black students were consistently 80 to 90% more likely compared to all others to be identified with a disability. White students were between 40 to 50% less likely compared to all others to be identified with a disability” — as well as honors and AP placement. Regarding curriculum, the report finds “less rigorous curriculum experienced by middle school students in lower track courses,” that “Math course selection policy enacts a bounded system that reinforces inequalities in opportunity; and Math course selection criteria of assessment data, parent choice, and teacher recommendation deepen disparities.”

The Fergus report also takes the district’s I&RS — or Intervention & Referral Services — program to task, saying that it is “inconsistent across elementary schools” and a disproportionate rate of students referred are Black. (The district discussed changes to I&RS at the May Board of Education meeting, focusing on high school; it’s unclear if the student achievement goal will be adjusted based on feedback from Fergus at this time.)

A Pending Decision for New Jersey

As South Orange-Maplewood schools wend their way toward greater elementary and middle school socio-economic and racial parity through the Intentional Integration Initiative, schools districts throughout New Jersey — including SOMSD — could be facing new, broader integration goals depending on the outcome of a case being decided by a New Jersey superior court of Mercer County brought by the NAACP and the Latino Action Network.

A ruling could come later this month — or not. But pundits have been working to predict what the impact could be.

In response to a question from Village Green, Supt. Dr. Taylor said that he did think the III “could be an answer to be considered further. It allows for a thoughtful process, without bias or preference (census data etc), and was developed with input from parents, staff, and other stakeholders. It is a way to modify demographics in schools year over year without the time-consuming shifting of school assignment zones that could require modifications multiple times over the years.”

Other districts have already expressed interest in the III model, says Taylor. He has presented it to the School Integration Joint Committee for the NJ Assembly and Senate. “I also presented at the MSAN Institute at the University of Wisconsin -Madison, GOMO Equity Leadership Network and a recent Essex County Executive Superintendent Monthly meeting.”

Taylor also said that the III isn’t just about rebalancing schools but will address unequal student treatment and achievement issues, and pointed to work the district is doing on academic achievement, culture and interventions: “This is not just a placement exercise. It also includes a significant investment in professional development for our staff in topics of cultural competency, restorative justice/practices, academic intervention etc. We believe these topics are essential as we continue to work towards the social economic integration of our schools to reflect the rich diversity of our community for the benefit of all students.”

With reporting by Carolyn Parisi, Lela Moore and Bruno J. Navarro.

________________

In study after study, New Jersey — despite its diverse overall population — has been found to have one of the most segregated public school systems in the country. More than a dozen newsrooms covering New Jersey have come together to explain how it came to this, what might be done about it and how segregation affects the student experience. The series, Segregated, includes reporting from Village Green, Gothamist/WNYC, NJ Spotlight News and others. The continuing reporting can be found here.

________________

A Recent Timeline Through Links:

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

The post SEGREGATED: A Working History of South Orange-Maplewood School Integration, Access & Equity Efforts appeared first on The Village Green.

]]> South Orange-Maplewood District Approves Special Counsel to Handle Civil Rights Litigation https://villagegreennj.com/towns/maplewood/south-orange-maplewood-district-approves-special-counsel-handle-civil-rights-litigation/ Fri, 05 Jan 2018 02:56:18 +0000 https://villagegreennj.com/?p=48756

Want to know what is happening in your community? WE MAKE IT EASY! Try…

The post South Orange-Maplewood District Approves Special Counsel to Handle Civil Rights Litigation appeared first on The Village Green.

]]>

Want to know what is happening in your community?
WE MAKE IT EASY!

Try a subscription today, and you’ll get full access to The Village Green and experience the best local news coverage around.

If you are a current subscriber Please login to continue reading.

Choose Your Plan:

The post South Orange-Maplewood District Approves Special Counsel to Handle Civil Rights Litigation appeared first on The Village Green.

]]> In Response to Letter, District Says Requests by African-American Students for Honors Placement Are Being Met https://villagegreennj.com/schools-kids/response-letter-district-says-requests-african-american-students-honors-placement-met/ Mon, 02 Oct 2017 16:11:03 +0000 https://villagegreennj.com/?p=45631

Want to know what is happening in your community? WE MAKE IT EASY! Try…

The post In Response to Letter, District Says Requests by African-American Students for Honors Placement Are Being Met appeared first on The Village Green.

]]>

Want to know what is happening in your community?
WE MAKE IT EASY!

Try a subscription today, and you’ll get full access to The Village Green and experience the best local news coverage around.

If you are a current subscriber Please login to continue reading.

Choose Your Plan:

The post In Response to Letter, District Says Requests by African-American Students for Honors Placement Are Being Met appeared first on The Village Green.

]]> Supt. Ramos Clarifies Access & Equity Policy as Students Begin to Plan Schedules https://villagegreennj.com/schools-kids/supt-ramos-clarifies-access-equity-policy-students-begin-plan-schedules/ Thu, 10 Mar 2016 17:26:50 +0000 http://villagegreennj.com/?p=24444

The following email was sent by Supt. Dr. John Ramos to the SOMSD community…

The post Supt. Ramos Clarifies Access & Equity Policy as Students Begin to Plan Schedules appeared first on The Village Green.

]]>

The following email was sent by Supt. Dr. John Ramos to the SOMSD community on Thursday:

Dear SOMSD Community:

Last fall the Board of Education passed a new Access and Equity Policy and revised the Academic Placement Policy in order to increase participation in advanced level courses and to provide students and families with more choice. This is very significant because policy advises all the work we do. When you presume, as this policy allows us to do, that students have access to whatever the district offers, then there are no artificial gates. Our challenge is to ensure that students are so positioned that they can succeed in whatever academic courses they choose to take.

The Access & Equity Policy states that all students “shall have access to, and the ability to choose between, current and future educational programs in all academic subjects, and at all academic levels.”

The revised Academic Placement Policy states that “The primary purpose of academic placement recommendations is to provide meaningful, nonbinding guidance to ensure that all students receive an academic program that will encourage and guide academic success and insure college readiness.”

We are still in the process of revising Academic Placement regulations so that they align with the new policies. In the meantime, placement decisions need to be made and schedules created.

As we begin scheduling for the 2016-2017 school year, we want to make sure everyone knows about these policies, and how they affect placement determinations in the secondary schools.

Students will receive placement recommendations for next year based on their progress and mastery of content this year. We encourage families to consult together about these recommendations, look at the other opportunities for that grade and/or course, consider the description and requirements of each opportunity, and make an informed decision to accept the recommendation, or request another placement.

One thing we want to be clear about in this entire process is that quality and excellence are not separate from the idea of equity – they are inextricably tied. There are some who would suggest that if you’re trying to create equity and give more access you are going to sacrifice quality. We are committed to always holding quality high, while simultaneously encouraging students to try something more challenging rather than closing doors before students even have a chance to look through them.

Our mindset is that if you hold the bar high, students can and will rise to it.

Sincerely,

John J. Ramos, Sr., Ed.D.

The post Supt. Ramos Clarifies Access & Equity Policy as Students Begin to Plan Schedules appeared first on The Village Green.

]]> SOMA Black Parents Group ‘Will Not Hesitate’ to Take Legal Action to End Leveling https://villagegreennj.com/schools-kids/soma-black-parents-group-will-not-hesitate-take-legal-action-end-leveling/ Thu, 24 Dec 2015 00:42:28 +0000 http://villagegreennj.com/?p=21979

  While the South Orange Maplewood Black Parents Workshop, an advocacy group, has strong…

The post SOMA Black Parents Group ‘Will Not Hesitate’ to Take Legal Action to End Leveling appeared first on The Village Green.

]]>

 

Walter Fields moderates the Access & Equity session at the Education Summit on Nov. 10, 2015.

Walter Fields moderates the Access & Equity session at the Education Summit on Nov. 10, 2015.

While the South Orange Maplewood Black Parents Workshop, an advocacy group, has strong praise for the school district’s passage of a new Academic Placement policy that directs Superintendent Dr. John Ramos to develop placement regulations and realign the K-12 curriculum, the group has put the administration on notice that it will closely monitor the policy’s implementation — and will consider legal action if the district does not move to abolish all academic levels.

Calling the revised Academic Placement policy (see full policy here) the board passed Monday “historic and significant,” Black Parents Workshop’s Walter Fields commended the district for “taking this courageous but overdue step.” The district has said it is one tool toward implementation of the Access & Equity policy adopted earlier this fall, which provides students with open access and choice in all classes.

Fields said in a press release the BPW was “particularly pleased” by the Academic Placement policy’s six month timetable, as well as a commitment to have enrollment in advanced courses proportionately reflect the demographic profile of each school.

See the BPW’s press release attached here as a PDF.

Download (PDF, 71KB)

However, Fields told The Village Green his organization, which worked with the US Dept. of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) on its complaint against the district’s disciplinary policies, will “seek federal and state judicial relief if leveling is maintained…upon the curriculum restructuring.”

“We believe levels are maintained in violation of the civil rights of African-American students and [the state] Constitution,” said Fields, and BPW will provide “nationally recognized scholars” to serve as expert witnesses, as well as current and former district students who will attest to the “discriminatory nature” of leveling.

“We will continue to work with the district to achieve equity but will not hesitate seeking legal recourse,” said Fields.

In a letter to the Board of Education in November regarding the policy in its first iteration, before it was revised, Fields wrote, “The district would lead the public to believe that access and equity are one [and] the same [but they] are not…choice alone is insufficient to address the systemic discrimination evident in the [district]. Without a wholesale reform of the system, choice is “just another layer of deception used to avoid responsibility for the patterns of discrimination…”

The district refuses to acknowledge that “implicit bias” has created a culture that limits the success of black students, and should “automatically [assign] all students to a solid core of academic classes” to prepare them for college and careers. Fields decried the district’s “hyper leveled” curriculum and “racial profiling” of black students, and called the guidance department “complicit” in tracking of black students.

It is the responsibility of the Board of Education, and not African-American parents, to fix the school district, said Fields.

Regarding the group’s position on Advanced Placement (AP) courses, Fields said while such courses are not required by state law or necessary for high school graduation, if provided, they must be open to all students.

The November letter called for the district to create the timetable, de-level Columbia High School within two years, and convene a curriculum review task force consisting of teachers, parents, community members and national experts.

The policy passed Monday did not directly address deleveling, other than to state that the “creation or elimination of any academic or enrichment programs in which students are placed…shall require Board approval and shall include a plan for measuring the success of the changes proposed.”

See the BPW’s November letter attached here as a PDF.

Download (PDF, 174KB)

Asked to respond to Fields’ comments, district spokeswoman Suzanne Turner said the newly-passed policy will involve a great deal of work, done in collaboration with the community, to craft the specifics of how the process will work. The district will keep the community informed as it develops the regulations and curricular alignment.

As for levels, “Dr. Ramos has stated that the district currently plans to maintain levels,” said Turner. However, per the policy, “if the district were to decide to make a systemic change such as eliminating levels, this would need to go through the established procedures for approval by the Board including being discussed first with the relevant Board of Education committees, then at full Board meetings with ample opportunity for public comment.”

Black Parents Workshop has also said it will be issuing the district an “Equity Report Card” at the end of each academic year.

 

 

 

The post SOMA Black Parents Group ‘Will Not Hesitate’ to Take Legal Action to End Leveling appeared first on The Village Green.

]]> S. Orange-Maplewood BOE Sets 6-Month Goal to Transform Academic Placement https://villagegreennj.com/schools-kids/s-orange-maplewood-boe-sets-6-month-goal-transform-academic-placement/ Wed, 23 Dec 2015 12:30:30 +0000 http://villagegreennj.com/?p=21951

  The South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education unanimously approved an Academic Placement policy revision…

The post S. Orange-Maplewood BOE Sets 6-Month Goal to Transform Academic Placement appeared first on The Village Green.

]]>

 

The South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education unanimously approved an Academic Placement policy revision last night that has been described as “one tool” toward implementation of the Access & Equity policy adopted by the Board earlier this fall — a policy adopted to close the district’s longstanding achievement gap between black and white students.

The Access & Equity policy states that students will have the choice and guidance to decide their own academic levels and will be provided supports to do so.

The new Academic Placement policy directs Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Ramos to develop and implement placement regulations, and to realign the K-12 curriculum to ensure that all district students are prepared to succeed in higher level classes by “providing the highest levels of academic rigor in all Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle and High School courses” — within six months.

See the revised policy here.

At the November Board of Education meeting, Ramos explained that the new Academic Placement policy (Policy 2314) would respect the guidance of the Access & Equity policy and “make plain” that while the district would maintain levels “there would always with the possibility of reforming them,” first via pilot, but that nothing permanent regarding levels would be done without the approval of the Board.

At the second reading of the Academic Placement policy revisions on Monday night, District Counsel Phil Stern explained that the policy had been been “amended to make sure it conformed with our Access & Equity policy, putting a high priority on transparency of all academic offerings whether they are requiring formal board action or not.”

“For example,” explained Stern, “you’ll note in the policy it discusses any pilot programs that don’t require Board action [will] nevertheless require board and parental notification.” In addition, said Stern, “The policy has been changed to make sure that it is clear that the recommendations for any curricular offering are non-binding subject to the wishes of the student and his or her family.”

Stern noted that the only other “highlight” of the revision was a six-month timeline “in which to make sure that we get the how-to of this policy, the regulations to make sure that everything that needs to get done is done in a timely manner.”

Stern was referring to a portion of the policy that reads: “The Superintendent shall also develop and implement regulations within six months of passage of this Policy for the development of academic placement recommendations for students, including an appeals process for students and parents/guardians to exercise their right of access and choice, in accordance with this policy.”

Board members returned again to the question of the timetable, but first Board Student Alternate Representative Filip Saulean asked about language in the policy that stated that the Board “shall make every effort” to make sure that enrollment in classes in the advanced level “proportionately reflects the demographic profile of the individual school.” Said Saulean, “Can I ask about what are those efforts?”

Stern replied, “I believe that is what is going to be developed and that’s where the six months come in.” Ramos added that he would be providing monthly updates on the creation of the regulations.

Board member Johanna Wright questioned the six month timetable: “Six months is a short amount of time. You’ve got to look at new curriculum, schedules. It seems pretty aggressive to me.”

Ramos noted that the six months was for the delivery of a timeline and the creation of regulations to address the inequities — not eradicate them.

Board member Stephanie Lawson-Muhammad said she was also “struck by the six months but I’ll say I appreciate it because it says, ‘Yes, we want you to do something and in a timely fashion.'”

Ramos explained that he “typically” did not endorse the idea of timeframes in policies “but I’m comfortable with this based on the historical context, and I’ve had people in the community say to me that they’ve seen language similar in the past but nothing’s ever happened. So we want to be clear that there is clear intent here.”

Board member Elizabeth Baker that the six-month benchmark was significant for two reasons: “We need to have a serious commitment, an action plan that’s measurable for the Board and the community,” and secondly: “It’s not just we are passing a policy and it’s going to happen magically with a sprinkle of fairy dust. We’re actually going to have regulations that everybody in the community can look at that we can make sure are being followed consistently from one school to the other … and if we are not doing it, it can be identified and rectified.”

Added Baker, “I think the policy revision is very clear that the racial disparities that we have tolerated in the district from one year to the next are unacceptable. [It] will not be a successful implementation of the policy if those continue.”

Saulean asked Ramos how the District would “factor in student and staff input during the six months.”

Ramos responded, “We can’t get this done without the staff. The staff has to be involved in how we go about the implementation if in fact we want them to carry it out.” He added, “I’m most curious to hear what students have to say … about what they think should or shouldn’t happen. I think students are going to have to help us figure out how to make an impression upon their peers about the importance of stretching, of challenging themselves, of not necessarily taking the safe route…. We’re going to have to have a student voice from the strategic direction on through.”

Board member Johanna Wright asked where Sage Consultants — the group hired to help the District address complaints from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) — figured into the process.

Ramos said he was not clear on Sage’s role “at this point…. Sage obviously did its initial job.”

He said that Sage could “work with our supervisors to make sure there are course descriptions that are clear, and leveling descriptors that are clear so students know what they are selecting. I’m in the midst of having conversations with Sage…. They just sent us a report on a crosswalk between what OCR is looking for and the work they have done.” However, Ramos said he needed to determine an “appropriate role for Sage” going forward. “I’ve got to analyze that in view of these policies and then come back to the Board with recommendations. [It has] less to do with Sage than with District taking direct responsibility for what has to be done.” Ramos also said he didn’t “want principals, for example, to feel that they have directions coming from multiple places.”

Ramos noted that, although the Sage contract is a three-year contract, it “is one year at a time, so again we need to evaluate.”

Ramos also mentioned that the OCR “has indicated that it is pleased with the Access policy … it’s what they were hoping to see along the way.” Ramos called the passage of the Access & Equity policy “a major touchstone for OCR,” and said that, “coupled with this [Academic Placement] policy, I think OCR will now be interested in how we implement.”

[Editor’s Note: Walter Fields of SOMA Black Parents Workshop, a party to one of the complaints filed against the District, issued a release commending the District on the adoption of the policies and asking all members of the district to embrace the new “direction,” but noted, “As the curricular alignment takes shape we intend to use all legal means to eliminate the vestiges of tracking and ‘levels’ that created the inequities in this district.” The release also stated that Black Parents Workshop would be issuing an annual Equity Report Card, at the end of each academic year. Read the full release below.]

Baker noted that the District had made the commitment “to go into the elementary schools and to identify the causation going back to kindergarten or prior to kindergarten to identify why we have these unacceptable disparities in access and opportunity.” Baker added that while “obviously we still have to get more feedback from more stakeholders and do more of the work … we finally as a district are owning [that] we can’t outsource it to a consultant…. We’re moving in a positive direction.”

Board member Jeff Bennett prompted a sharp reply from Lawson-Muhammad when he noted that, despite the District’s commitment to closing the gap and “ending disproportionalities” in high-level class enrollment, the District “doesn’t have complete influence on how kids do…. This is very complex issue. The district owns its own work but not the complete work. There are a lot of entities responsible for how a child is educated.”

Muhammad responded, “It’s complicated, no one disagrees, but the school district has a direct responsibility that they are not compounding those issues and concerns and creating an environment that is destined for failure for certain classes of people. I’m pleased we’ve moved beyond that … and that we are taking the appropriate action thoughtfully and in this complicated space to find solutions and be the model that we need to be.”

Board Vice President Madhu Pai added “one last point,” saying that the Board had clearly defined “what access is going to look like in this district — and it’s going to look great … but one of the things we haven’t done is define equity.” Pai said that some felt equity was providing the “same thing for all kids” while others saw it as “giving every kid what they need.”

Pai concluded, “I think we need to do that or we will not be able to move the work forward in the way we need to.”

Download (PDF, 71KB)

 

The post S. Orange-Maplewood BOE Sets 6-Month Goal to Transform Academic Placement appeared first on The Village Green.

]]>