Trenton school district gets big fat ‘failure to report’ – The Times of Trenton
File photo of Trenton Central High School in September 22, 2011.
TRENTON — A software glitch has so far prevented the city school district from submitting complete demographic data to the state Department of Education for its annual School Report Card, district officials said.
The DOE released the report cards for the 2010-2011 school year for every district in the state — except Trenton — last Thursday. These data snapshots display everything from student achievement to per-pupil spending to student-teacher ratios.
“The district did not provide the required data during the report card submission time period and we are currently working to report the data we do have in a user-friendly format for families and the general public,” DOE spokeswoman Barbara Morgan said last week.
The district had already submitted some data to the state — including graduation rates and test scores for the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA) and New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK) tests. That information was posted online yesterday.
But other data — including average class size, languages spoken by students, high school Advanced Placement class participation, and attendance and dropout rates — are either missing or incomplete, DOE officials said.
“There’s basically achievement information, financial information and a bunch of other stuff — computers in the classroom, student-teacher ratio,” DOE spokesman Justin Barra said. “All that other information requires specific submission of data beyond the financial and achievement data. That information was not submitted in the report card collection that we collected throughout the course of the last year.”
Barra said the DOE tried several times to get the information but did not receive the information or an explanation.
Bocary Bandeh, the district’s test coordinator and supervisor of special projects, said he submitted the same testing data he does every year, but he said he isn’t responsible for collecting the demographic data submitted to the DOE. He said he didn’t know why it wasn’t submitted on time.
“People are always asking about the graduation rate and all that stuff,” he said. “The grant writer definitely depends on that data, we all depend on that data.”
According to school board president Toby Sanders, the omission can be chalked up to computer problems. The district is in the process of moving data from one system to another, and due to a software error, some of the data were transcribed incorrectly, or not at all, he said.
Sanders said the district’s 47.7 percent graduation rate, which the DOE last month called the worst in the state, is actually incorrect due to system errors.
“Because of the data migration this year, our numbers were wrong,” he said. “We’re double-checking them, the state is double-checking them and then they’ll be available pretty soon.”
The numbers that are available show per-pupil spending in the district fell slightly to $20,340, ahead of the state average of $17,469.
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Article source: http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/06/trenton_school_district_gets_b.html
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Bocary Bandeh, DOE, Justin Barra, Toby Sanders