District looks to rebound in No Child Left Behind
Four South Brunswick schools fell below federal standards last year
BY CHRIS GAETANO
Staff Writer

Four South Brunswick schools are entering into, according to the terminology of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), an “early warning year.”

The schools are South Brunswick High School, Crossroads South Middle School, Crossroads North Middle School and Indian Fields Elementary.

The No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002, links federal funding to 40 different standards on student achievement and school safety, called Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements. If a school ends a year not meeting all 40 of these standards, it is considered to be under an “early warning year” the following fall.

An early warning year is meant to call attention to an area or group that needs extra attention. The school will incur no sanctions unless it manages not to meet AYP requirements for a second year in a row.

According to the NCLB results:

• South Brunswick High School passed 36 out of 40 standards, with two standards missed due to attendance issues (92 percent of students taking the test as opposed to the 95 percent required) and math and literacy for students with disabilities.

• Crossroads South passed 37 out of 40 standards, but missed standards for math and literacy for students with disabilities and math skills for African American students.

• Crossroads North passed 38 out of 40 standards, missing math skills in African American students and students in low socioeconomic backgrounds.

• Indian Fields also passed 38 out of 40 standards, missing math and literacy for students with disabilities.

“What [these scores] mean is that each of those schools, when they develop the school plans for the year, will be giving additional thoughts to the kinds of interventions and services for those subgroups that did not make AYP this year,” said Joanne Kerekes, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

While no schools have ever been deemed “in need of improvement,” which is what NCLB calls schools which fail to meet AYP requirements two years in a row, this is not the first time schools in South Brunswick have had a warning year. For example, last year, Crossroads North was in early warning for math and literacy skills for students with disabilities, but worked its way out. While schools may have gone into warning, no schools so far have failed to improve along the required vectors afterward.

One problem that many school districts, including South Brunswick, have encountered with NCLB is funding. Education professionals have contended that the program, while ambitious, has tended to be poorly funded.

“The expectations are set higher and higher, the sanctions are stricter and stricter, but the money you need has dropped considerably. ... [The funding] has been in a steep and steady decline, and I don’t see any correction in the future,” said Kerekes.

When the program began in 2002, South Brunswick received $302,626 in Title I (the primary grant linked to performance) funding. Since then, that number has steadily declined. Now, three years later, South Brunswick finds itself with $218,923.

Still, Kerekes is optimistic about the NCLB program itself.

“I think it helps us as a district, but it’s taken us a step further and made us look not just at total population, but the subgroups within, and that’s really the spirit of NCLB.”