Eatontown’s School Report Card Shows Strong Improvement

Eatontown schools showed testing scores above the state averages for many grades, and some schools had almost double-digit increases over the state averages, according to the New Jersey Department of Education (DOE) School Report Card.

Every year, the DOE releases the annual report cards, which contain statistical profiles for every school in the following areas: school environment, student information, student performance indicators, staff information and district and charter financial information. The report cards are issued for all elementary and secondary schools, vocational schools, special education schools, and charter schools.

Eatontown’s schools did remarkably well overall, and in some cases scores surged when compared to the previous year's scores. A marked improvement was reported in students'  test scores. Each school’s highlights are below:

Memorial Middle School:  NJASK math scores were almost 10 percent higher than the state in the proficiency area. The school had 49.1 percent of its students in the proficient category, compared to the state, which had 39.7 percent. The eighth-graders also had a strong showing in language arts, with 70.2 percent proficient, compared to 64.4 percent in the state showing proficiency. Students in the advanced language arts proficiency category surged, from 6.4 percent for 2008-09 to 21.9 percent for 2009-10.

Meadowbrook:  showed a strong proficiency in math, at 67.9 percent for 2009-10, compared to the state average of 48.5 percent. But that number should be viewed against the advanced proficiency figure for both the school and the state, which showed the state’s higher, at 23.6 percent, while the school’s stood at 17 percent. A huge improvement was shown year-over-year for the fifth-grade math scores. Advanced proficiency for 2009-10 was 39 percent, proficient was 58.5 percent, and partial proficient stood at 2.4 percent. For 2008-09, those numbers were 37.5 percent in advanced proficiency, 42.9 percent proficient, and 19.6 percent in partial proficiency.

Margaret L. Vetter School: s in the NJASK language arts were 68.8 percent proficient, a jump of over 16 percent over last year’s number of 52.6 percent in the proficient category. That number is well over the state’s average of 54.5 percent. In math proficiency, the school was higher than the state average by 6.8 percentage points. Sixth-graders also did better than the state average in math and language arts. For example, the school had 56.8 percent of the students proficient in math, compared to the state average of 48.5 percent. The school’s math percentage was a few percentage points over the 2008-09 year.

Woodmere Elementary School:  showed strong advanced math skills—over 25 percent higher than the state average. Their NJASK math scores were remarkable: 48.6 percent scored advanced proficient, compared to the state’s average of 23.6 percent. The state average  showed that 27.9 percent were partially proficient in sixth grade math, while Woodmere showed only 8.1 percent of its students were partially proficient.

Monmouth Regional High School: SAT scores showed both increases and decreases. While Math scores improved from the previous year, they remain below the state average, and the SAT verbal scores dropped from the previous year. Here’s the breakdown: The school averaged 504 in math in the 2009-10 year, compared to the state average of 520. That average was still up from the Monmouth Regional’s average score of 499 reported in 2008-09. The school’s SAT verbal scores dropped, however, and are still below that of the state average. For 2009-10, the school’s average verbal score was 469, while the state average was 497. Just comparing the school’s verbal score from 2008-09, which stood at 481, shows that the school saw a decrease in SAT score in that subject.

Some good news to report for was in its dropout rate. It decreased to 0.2 percent for 2009-10 from 0.4 percent for 2008-09—always a welcome sign when more children stay in high school. That ties into its graduation numbers, as the state’s data reveals a slight increase in the number of students who will graduate. The class of 2010 is expected to have a 98.1 percent graduation rate, compared to 97.9 percent reported for 2009.

Post-graduation plans show 49.2 percent of Monmouth Regional students plan to attend a four-year college, while 41 percent plan on attending a two-year one.