By Luke Feeney
The Manhasset Board of Education was shown a presentation and analysis of the strong test scores of students in the district during their Oct. 26 meeting.
The presentation was given by a team of administrators, led by Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Rebecca Chowske. The team began the presentation emphasizing their belief in the importance of data collection in a holistic approach towards educating students.
“Data provides us with our roadmap for our district goals and priorities, it helps us to create a strong instructional program for our students,” Jessica Zimmer, the principal of Shelter Rock Elementary, told the board. “All of this information, plus anecdotal information from teachers, has been informing our decisions on the students.” she added.
According to the most recent data, Manhasset students had scores well above the average Nassau County student across all grade levels in these examinations, with students averaging over 20% higher than the district average. “The data shows that we are outperforming Nassau County by a substantial margin for the past several years and continue to do well,” Brendan McGowan, district director of ELA, Reading, and Libraries said to the board.
After Gordon spoke Lauren Tallarine, the district’s director of Mathematics and Business, shared students’ scores over the past several years and similarly to English, Manhasset students were far above the Nassau County average for math as well. “Similarly to the ELA data, Manhasset students are performing well above the Nassau County proficiency rates,” Tallarine said.
She also pointed to some of the measuring concepts that the district uses on particular issues and questions. “It reminds us that when students get a question wrong, they are not all getting them wrong for the same reason.” she added.
After analyzing student scores, Ryan Aliperti, the district Administrator for Assessment and Data Analysis, highlighted the Student Data System. The system holds all the test scores of every single student enrolled in a Manhasset school, from kindergarten all the way to senior year. “Everything from kindergarten screening, all the way to AP exams, and everything in between is in this data system,” Aliperti said.
Chomske returned to the podium to deliver the next steps the group plans on taking.
“Our next step includes reviewing our current systems to see that we’re capturing the full picture of students.” Chomske said. She said the group was also reviewing its student intervention response as well as meeting with citizen advisory groups. “We are working to serve our students better,” Chomske added.
Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Gaurav Passi updated the board on district matters prior to the presentation. Passi updated the board on construction projects throughout the district as well as informed them about regionalization, which is a new initiative announced by the New York Education Department with the goal to have a “strategic approach to addressing educational disparities, fiscal constraints and operational inefficiencies across school districts in New York State,” according to department documents.
In addition, before the meeting, 16 teachers from the district received tenure. At a recognition event in the Black Box Theater in Manhasset Secondary School friends, family and colleagues shared stories about the tenure recipient. The next meeting of the Board of Education is Nov. 7.
