The Answer on How the Plainfield School District Got Into the List of "District In Need of Improvement"

This afternoon I received the answer to a question I had posted to the NJDOE on the newly discovered, by me, status of the Plainfield school district.  If you remember I wrote about how I came to know about the status HERE.  After doing a little bit of research I decided to try my luck and send a question to the NJDOE.  I got an answer this afternoon:

To be determined as a District In Need of Improvement (DINI) , the district must have missed AYP in any one sub group per subject area (Math or Language), in all grade spans , for two consecutive years. In order to get out of DINI status the district must make AYP for two consecutive years.



Plainfield was in DINI 3 status in 2006-07 for missing AYP in Language Arts at the elementary, middle and high school level. Plainfield School district did met AYP in 2007-08 and in 2008-09 , and therefore came out of status and starts over. In 2011-12, Plainfield is in status because of Math, the district has missed the AYP in all grade spans for 2 consecutive years in Math.

Thus, the school years on which Math's Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) are the 2010-11 and the 2009-10.  What happened here and how can it be fixed?

The 2009-10 school year was a total disaster.  The 2010-11 belongs to the current administration, maybe they want to tell us what happened?

But one thing that needs to be looked at is the fact that the district has not had a Math Supervisor, or Director, since at least 2007 or 2008 and while there have been "Content Teachers" and "Content Vice Principals" one would have to question if these people have had the proper certifications to be in charge of revising, improving and recommending all that there is to recommend when it comes to the proper curriculum and teaching of Math here in Plainfield.

As hope one could say that the district seems to be looking to hire a Math Supervisor as it is recommending to the school board to approve, as per THIS AGENDA(page 24), a 4-day, $12,000 Math Conference in Philadelphia for 8 staff members, among these 8 staff members 2 are said will be Math Supervisors (which I would imagine will be hired by the April date of this conference).

My questions are: 

Why have the district and school board waited so long to look into hiring Math Supervisors? 

And shouldn't there be an approved job description already for this position?

Anyway.  Now that we know that it is Math that has landed the district into its current "District In Need of Improvement"  I will try to start the "what next steps" a DINI must take, which it may not matter anymore as NJ might be heading into a different direction when it comes to failing districts and schools.  Great! Just when you think you know the answers.....

So many issues, so little time!