Ending Green Brook School 'Tracking' a Concern

Changes to curriculum and revenue generation have been proposed for the Green Brook Township Public Schools by Superintendent Richard R. Labbe for the 2012-13 school year, and some of the proposed changes have residents concerned about the direction of academics within the district.

The proposed changes were brought to the public’s attention—once again, in some cases—at Monday night’s Board of Education Workshop meeting at during Labbe’s Superintendent’s Report, which discussed possible changes to the aforementioned areas as well as to building and grounds, community relations and more.

“Since I began as superintendent on July 1, I’ve taken the opportunity to speak to many people, to survey the community, the staff and Board of Education members, to meet in committee meetings with Board of Education, with our staff and obviously made many presentations to the community at Board of Education functions,” Labbe said. “I emphasize (that the changes are) proposed, because some of them are in the proposal phase.”

These proposed changes include a possible policy change to the way the district handles advanced-level placement for students. Labbe has proposed that subjects such as language arts, social studies and science become “heterogeneous” in grades 4-8; in other words, children will not be separated into class groupings based on their academic skill levels in an attempt to differentiate education and, Labbe hopes, to give each student an equal opportunity to learn at an advanced pace by having them all learn together.

“One of the most profound findings for the research against is, once a child is placed in a track, the chances of that child getting out of that track are very slim,” Labbe said. “I feel it’s my job to ensure that every child has an opportunity, prior to leaving this school, to being in the most advanced track they can be prior to going to high school.”

Groupings, however, would still exist in mathematics, where more advanced students will still have the opportunity to take higher-level classes, including high school-level Geometry, at a younger age.

“We proposed that we have exceptional and highly qualified high school math teacher in this building, Ms. (Christine) Wetzel, who is extremely qualified and competent enough to teach that class,” Labbe said.

Some parents, however, are not convinced that eliminating these class groupings in other subjects, known within the district as the “Green” and “Non-Green” groups, would be advantageous to the development of every student’s skills.

“I firmly believe that you will be doing a disservice to the top 10 to 20 percent of highest-achieving children by getting rid of the homogenous classrooms for language arts, science and social studies,” said parent Jeanne Renzo. “You have no idea what it’s like to have a kid in third, fourth or fifth grade crying because they are so bored in class. You’re going to lose them. If they’re in a regular classroom with average students or below-average students, the desire to be there is not going to be there. It’s just not.”

Added Kim Grossman, “My concern is that we are in a unique situation, where we feed into the high school with four other districts, and I strongly believe in consistency with the other districts. If our other districts have a structure where there is an honors program, are our children going to be at a disadvantage?”

Another point of controversy was Labbe’s proposed change to allow non-district students to attend the township’s schools as early as next year, as long as they meet certain conditions, including the full payment of the district’s estimated tuition of $13,300.

“It’s a contingency plan, based upon fact that they’re one-year contracts (for students to attend); they begin in September and end in June,” Labbe said. “They are also contingent upon paying tuition, academic performance and the way you perform as a citizen of our schools.”

Labbe stated that revenue generation is a possibility under this plan, as drawing students from other districts could help the district stave off the loss of revenue as a result of declining enrollment numbers.

“If those seats are opening, it’s in our interests to fill those seats so we can save teachers and so we can promote all of the wonderful things we are doing in Green Brook,” Labbe said.

However, some residents are concerned that problems could occur down the road under this plan, as the , which serves Green Brook, has not proposed a similar plan to allow children outside of the district to attend.

“A kid can basically start kindergarten here, build friendships and camaraderie and then not get into the high school,” said resident Darlene Connors. “I’m just thinking of how tough that is on the kid.”