Academic Achievement at Harmony Elementary is Average, Says NJ Dept. of Ed.

Academic performance at Harmony Elementary School is about average when compared to other NJ schools, but its college readiness score and student growth rate lags behind, according to to a recent report by the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE).

The state's new performance reports, which replaces the school report cards issued in past years, were recently released. 

The report took a look at the progress of 499 students of the Harmony PreK-5th grade school in New Monmouth. The DOE compared the school to others in the state, and to others in its peer group that best mirrored their demographics, such as such as Strathmore Elementary in the Matawan-Aberdeen School District and Ocean Township Elementary. 

Academic Achievement

The DOE uses language arts literacy and math proficiency on the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) test as a benchmark.  

Overall, Harmony outperformed 52 percent of its peer group and 57 percent statewide in proficiency of those areas.

The school met 100 percent of its No Child Left Behind targets in this area. 

• Language arts proficiency schoolwide last year was 73 percent. This proficiency rate placed it in the 48th percentile compared to schools in its peer group, and 55th percentile compared to all schools statewide. 

• When it came to math, schoolwide proficiency was 88 percent. The proficiency rate placed Harmony Elementary in the 55th percentile in its peer group and 59th percentile statewide. 

College and Career Readiness

The New Monmouth elementary school did not meet its target goals in college and career readiness targets set by the state.

Harmony's college and career readiness is considered to be "lagging" when compared to schools across the state, outperforming 28 percent of the schools statewide; and "significantly lagging" when compared to schools in its peer group, at the 13% percentile.  This measurement uses school attendance to as an indicator of the kind of behavior that indicates future success in college or careers. 

At Harmony, 5 percent of the student body had perfect attendance, 37 percent of the school's population was absent 1-5 times, 32 percent were absent 6-10 times, 13 percent 11-15 times, and 12 percent missed 15 or more days of school.  

Student growth

Student growth is measured by the performance of students from one year to the next on the NJ ASK in Language Arts Literacy and Math sections. It compares students against other students with a similar history of performance on the test.

The median schoolwide growth rate was reported to be 44 and 53 percent for language arts and math, respectively, which was well above the statewide goal of 35 percent. 

Overall, Harmony School outperformed 37 percent of schools statewide for student growth, and 24 percent of its peer group. The state said it the school's student growth performance "lags" in comparison to schools across the state and also against its own peers for falling between the 20the - 39.9th percentile.

The following chart is where Harmony Elementary School ranked compared to schools in its peer group and statewide. For example, Harmony has a statewide percentile rank of 57 when it comes to academic achievement, which means that its students scored higher than 57 percent of all schools statewide in the ranking. 

Demographics

The school population of 499 students in 2011-12 at Harmony Elementary School was 89.8 percent white, 5.8 percent Hispanic, 2.0 percent Asian, 1.8 percent black, 0.4 percent two or more races, and 0.2 percent Pacific Islander. 

The spoken language at home was English (98.9 percent), and .2 percent each of the following: Gujarati, Korean, Polish Chinese and Spanish.

The school had 92 students with disabilities (18 percent of enrollment), 62 economically disadvantaged students (12.4 percent of the school) and 2 students with limited English proficiency. 

There were 248 males to 239 females enrolled in the school in 2011-12. 

"The academic success of our students is credited to students, teachers and parents working together as a cohesive group, said Harmony Elementary School Principal Erik Paulson in the school narrative, which was published along with the report.