Pine Brook Named Focus School by DOE, Needs Improvement

, a Manalapan-Englishtown School that consists of sixth grade students, has officially been designated a Focus school by the Christie Administration, according to a report released by the governor's office, as a part of its new statewide accountability system which has been developed from the No Child Left Behind Act.

The 183 schools in the state that received the Focus classification are schools that have been determined to need improvement in specific areas. 

Pine Brook School's main reason for being identified as a Focus school is due to its large gap within the proficiency of the school. This means that Pine Brook has one of the largest gaps within the state between the highest performing subgroup and the combined proficiency of the two lowest performing subgroups. Schools within this category have a proficiency gap between these subgroups of 43.5 percentage points or higher, according to the report.

"I do not see this as positive or negative but more as informative," Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District Superintendent John G. Marciante said. "Because our regular education population did so well, some poor scores in the special education population (which as a smaller number of students is more impacted but individual scores) contributed to this gap. We were already aware of this issue and last year implemented 'Project Achievement' to address this gap."

Marciante said that classified students are given the opportunity to receive extra instruction after school, as long as parents are able to provide transportation home. This year, the district has extended the number of weeks this service will be offered, according to Marciante. "We believe that this contributed to an improvement in performance last year and over time will decrease the achievement gap between these two groups," the superintendent said.

Other reasons for schools to be designated a Focus school include low graduation rates and having two of the lowest performing subgroups, according to the Department of Education.

Besides the Focus designation, other schools in the state have been labeled Priority or Reward. A Priority school is one that is among the lowest performing five percent of Title I schools, and Reward schools are schools that have achieved a high level of performance within the past three years. The designations are part of New Jersey’s waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind law.

for it's high performing scores.