High School Curriculum Adhering to NJ Standards

The West Morris Regional Board of Education looks to continue the evolution of its curriculum in the years to come, according to a presentation made by Dr. Alyce Hunter at the board’s most recent meeting.

Hunter, who serves as the district’s Director of Curriculum, focused her presentation on what the district has done with its curriculum in the past, as well as what it is currently doing, in order to continue to make advances that will ensure district-wide academic excellence in the future for all involved.

Dr. Hunter revealed that the district is currently adopting and adapting to newly-imposed state curriculum requirements, which is causing a revision and update of the district curriculum. This includes the beginning of revisions for English and advanced pre-calculus curriculum within the district, as well as the offering of more options for financial planning and entrepreneurship classes.

In the near future, the district looks to further adjust to the common national core standards for the aforementioned subjects, with the development of students’ writing skills seeing special attention.

“(Writing is) becoming more of a challenge to them. Particularly with language arts, students have to do more expository types of writing at a younger age,” said Hunter. “This is going to impact us along the way, because hopefully we’ll have students become better and better writers.”

Another important point from Monday night’s presentation was the improved implementation of data collected from standardized test scores throughout the district, something Dr. Hunter stated is being approached with a “sense of urgency” in order to maximize each student’s experience.

The district is currently having its AP and IB teachers review standardized test results in order to plan for the continuous improvement to all academic programs in the district. In the future, Dr. Hunter expects that scores on standardized tests, such as the NJASK, will be connected by assigned numbers to teachers as well as students. This measure projects to judge the performance of each individual teacher from classroom to classroom, which will give the district a clearer picture of each classroom’s learning environment, Hunter said.

“Once this tracking system is in, the state can look in and say that ‘this is the student’s experience,’” said Hunter. “That’s the concern, I think, asking, ‘what is this child’s experience?’ We need to ask, ‘are we being successful with what we’re doing in school for kids?’”

Community input will also be important to the future success of the district. As Dr. Hunter acknowledged, additional members have been added to the district’s Curriculum Advisory Board (CAB)—a board comprised of students, teachers, administrators, and community members—in order to “ensure excellence in teaching, learning, and student achievement.”

All of these ideas will be sure to figure in to the district’s long-term plans of continuing to evolve curriculum at both district high schools, which is an ever-changing process.

“We know that we are in the process of continuous improvement, and sometimes that causes people to be upset because things are constantly changing,” said Hunter.