DINI is short for "District In Need of Improvement" and the Plainfield school district has been found to fall into the DINI catagory for the 2011-12 school year. This is far from being Plainfield's first time's DINI. The NJDOE says the following about DINI:
District in Need of Improvement (DINI)
A district that does not make AYP in all grade spans―elementary, middle, and high school―for
two consecutive years in either the language arts literacy or mathematics content area is designated a DINI.
I found the district's DINI information while looking into the district's website No Child Left Behind - Parents Resources page that is listed under the Parents window (Had I not been helping a friend locate some resources I would probably not have found the information).
If you have not read. or hear, about the district's DINI status from official sources before, please, ask your school board elected officials why is it that you have to find this kind information from a blog. Please do, asking elected officials makes them accountable which in turn gives them ownership of the issue. No more passing of the buck should be allowed.
Delivery of this news to parents seems to have followed no particular pattern as some parents I know from different schools report they received THIS LETTER through mail, some through their children's backpacks, and some have no idea what I was talking about. What is more, even some savvy and involved parents weren't too sure about what how DINI needs to be addressed. I, too, am learning.
The letter (link above) is just one of the steps a district labeled as DINI must take. There are more steps and in the following days I will try to bring information to this blog for those interested in seeing what is behind DINI and what the district must do.
I thought that perhaps the best way to start "this conversation" was by looking at the Plainfield school district's DINI history. I was surprised at what I found, but now I wonder how this information can be taken by the district, school board, parents and community to take an honest look into what has made the district fail its students for so many years and what is being done to address the issues. Below is the information, by year and DINI status, that was found at the NJDOE website. DINI Documents are HERE.
2011-12 DINI Year 1 Status
2010-11 No DINI Status
2009-10 No DINI Status
2008-09 No DINI Status
2007-08 DINI Year 3 Status -On Hold-
2006-07 DINI Year 3 Status
As you can see there was some improvement made for the 2008 school year. If we take into consideration that it takes two years of consistent failure to reach AYP on either content area, then you can say that on 2009-10 (Gallon Administration) and 2010 (Belin-Pyles Administration) the school district has failed to show improvement and that is why the district is back into DINI.
Those two years, 2009-10 and 2010-11, students had to endure a very rocky and shifting school district and it is no surprise that academics did suffer. What can we learn from this? Dare to jump in and tell? Talking about issues, in a public square such as social media, allows the opportunity for more people to see if there really is room for improvement or not. And improvement can come from knowing what the issues are to knowing what to ask of our elected and appointed officials. Your thoughts, good or not, are always welcome :-) via the comment box.
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