School Budget Details, End of Midterms & Finals, on Monday Agenda

The Bernards Township is scheduled on Monday to examine the issue of whether midterms and finals at should be replaced with tests at the end of each marking period.

School officials also are set to give a detailed presentation on the proposed 2012-13 school budget at Monday night's meeting, to be held at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria.

A draft of next year's school budget, in late February. In agreeing to a recent state option to the Board of Education now can vote to approve school budgets that do not exceed a 2-percent cap without placing the school tax spending plan on a public ballot.

The board's final vote to adopt a school budget for next year is set for March 26, said Susan Carlsson, school board president. But Monday night's presentation will provide more detailed information than at the budget introduction, she said.

"It should be a really thorough review," Carlsson said on Monday afternoon.

"If given final approval by the Board of Education, the proposed budget would raise taxes during 2012 by about $182 on an average township home assessed at about $577,000, according to figures from last month's budget presentation.

Also, last month — and during previous board discussions — school officials said there will be a proposal made to end the longstanding practice of midterms and final exams at Ridge High School in favor of exams at the end of each marking period.

Carlsson said a report on the topic will be made during Monday's curriculum committee report. She said no proposal for a vote has been placed on the agenda.

Carlsson said she herself would wait for the report before offering an opinion. "I have some questions," she said.

Schools Superintendent Valerie Goger on Monday morning said the school administration supports the change.

Sarah Bonnefoi, co-president of the Ridge High School Parent-Teacher Organization, said the PTO as well as the parent representatives to the Parent Advisory Council at Ridge are all in favor of eliminating the larger tests.

Goger said there are a number of motivations for eliminating midterm and final exams, including the anticipated gain of as much as ten instructional days or almost six additional hours of instructional time per class. Special midterm and final exam schedules now replace regular classes in the middle and at the end of the year.

The superintendent said other reasons for the proposed change are to reduce student stressors and discourage cramming for unrealistic assessments; to give relief from an already over-burdened testing schedule, especially in anticipation of expanded state testing in courses; and to reduce the often detrimental impact midterms and finals have on a student’s grades. Midterms and finals now count as a separate grade.

She said other advantages of shifting to a more frequent testing schedule would be the development of end-of-marking period assessments that would more accurately reflect whether students had retained the learning of material, rather than just rote memorization.

The more frequent testing system would align with a "21st century skill initiative which focuses on more frequent assessment opportunities for students," the superindent said.

Goger said the change would more recognize varied student learning styles and move away from a "one size fits all" testing model. She said the more frequent testing schedule aligns with more recent assessment models for testing at the high school level.

Creating the new tests also would discourage the which do not accurately reflect a students’ grade, according to Goger.