Galloway BOE Discusses ASK Test Scores

Galloway Township Superintendent of Schools Annette Giaquinto presented scores for the Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (ASK) testing for the township schools to the Board of Education Monday night. The board’s reaction matched that of Giaquinto’s when the results were first released last month.

Students in Galloway fared worse in eight of the 14 categories of testing than last year, which include language arts and math for grades 3-8, and science for fourth and eighth grades. The state average was identical, with a decline occurring in eight of the 14 categories.

Students generally did well on the math portion, exceeding the average, but language arts was a different story, with the sub-categories for Asians and whites exceeding the average and most other sub-categories falling short.

When the results were first released, Giaquinto stated the school system wasn’t happy with what it saw, and on Monday night, she presented the next steps in the process, which will include deeper data and analysis, more work related to language arts and math district goals, a review of materials and recommended purchases, and professional learning in many forms.

Currently, monthly math assessments are being done in the school system, and they will continue.

“Some of the work is already in progress and it will continue,” she told the board. “ … We will be making material purchases through the eighth grade.”

Purchases for math will take place later, however, to match the later changes by the state for that curriculum.

“Major training for staff will take place this year,” Giaquinto said. “We’re going to take a look at how staff members and members of the administration use their time.”

Teachers sharing strategy with each other was discussed.

“If I’m a teacher, and my student is doing well in reading and your student is doing better in reading, maybe we can share (strategies),” Giaquinto said.

More common planning periods for teachers are being planned, according to Giaquinto. She also said the students’ poor performance in language arts is especially frustrating.

“It’s across the state, but we’ve done extensive work. We’ve seen teachers in action, we see how the kids work and we hear them talking about reading,” Giaquinto. “And then to see the results is frustrating, but it is the reality.”

Board member Kathy Styles-Langraf said she didn’t see an emphasis on reading and writing in her children’s homework at night and believes more of an emphasis needs to be put on this area across the board.

“If they’re working on another subject like social studies, they don’t capitalize and punctuate correctly because they don’t think they need to,” Styles-Langraf said. “But whenever they don’t do that, they need to be penalized. It needs to be emphasized across the board.”

This was the first part of the presentation by Giaquinto. The second will be held at the next board meeting, on Feb. 28.