This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Schools

High School Principal Pleased With State Report Card Results

Paul Sears says report card shows Summit High has maintained level of excellence expected.

Summit High School Principal Paul Sears said he feels that "Summit has maintained its history of being an excellent school" following the release of the annual New Jersey School Report Cards last month.

"We're surrounded by excellent school districts.  One of the things we do is we look at other high-performing districts like Westfield and Millburn," Sears said.  "One of the differences is we're not only much more diverse in population, but in terms of the background and economic diversity of students."

Sears said that Summit has again been recognized as a "benchmark school" by the national Just for the Kids program.

Find out what's happening in Summitwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"By being designated a benchmark school, in that particular category of schools, it means we are the top-performing school and therefore the benchmark of comparison," he said.

Sears said that the program compares school districts "apples to apples" in terms of demographics and Summit High School has won the award five years in a row.

Find out what's happening in Summitwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"I think we have great success with our students. They perform very well on any type of standardized testing," he said.

"There was recently an article in the New York Times where they talked about the expanding number of students taking AP tests and the overall scores declining," he said.  "Over the past number of years, we've had an explosion of kids taking the AP's, but the number of kids getting three or higher is still very high."

Out of 567 juniors and seniors at Summit Senior High School who took an Advanced Placement (AP) test, 467 scored a three or higher, according to the report card.

AP tests are scored on a five-point scale with a score of three meaning that a student is qualified to receive college credit or advanced placement, according to CollegeBoard.com.

44.1 percent of all 11th- and 12th-graders took at least one AP test.  The state average is 19 percent.

There were 23 different subject tests listed on the high school's report card, the most popular being "English literature and composition," with 102 students who took the test, followed by "English language and composition" at 82 test-takers.

Following English subject tests, 54 students took the AP biology test and 41 took environmental science.

In terms of standardized testing, Sears said that scores have remained consistent with years past.

For the math portion of the High School Proficiency Assessment, the percentage of advanced proficient students rose from 43.6 last year to 45.1.

Students who were qualified as proficient fell from 47.9 to 41.3 percent; and partial proficiency rose from 8.6 to 13.7 percent.

The state proficiency averages this year for the Math HSPA were 23.4 (advanced), 50.3 (proficient), and 26.4 percent (partial).

In the Language Arts Literacy HSPA, advanced proficiency fell from 26.5 to 24.5 percent; proficiency rose from 68.1 to 70.4; and partial proficiency declined from 5.4 to 5.1.

The 2008-09 state proficiency averages for the Language Arts Literacy HSPA were 13.6, 70.9, and 15.5 percent, respectively.

The average Math SAT score was 594; Verbal, 568; and Essay, 573.  Last year's scores in the corresponding areas were 583, 570, and 572.

The 2008-09 state averages were 515, 494, and 494, respectively.

"Our SAT scores have remained pretty consistent.  One of the things I'm proud of is that our averages are well above the state and national means," Sears said.

While 99.2 percent of the class of 2009 graduated, 82.8 percent of which went on to a four-year college or university. 10.5 percent went on to a two-year college; 2.4 percent pursued another post-secondary school.

"The types of schools students are going to has remained about the same: Over 75 percent who attend four-year colleges are attending some of the most competitive schools, and that's a Barron's assessment," Sears said.

1.6 percent of graduates went straight to employment; 1.4 percent were undecided; 0.2 percent sought an apprenticeship program. 1.5 percent were categorized as having "other" pursuits.

"We talk about our graduation rates," Sears said of areas that would be targeted in the coming year for improvement.

"We're looking to eliminate the achievement gaps between groups," he continued.  "There's a difference between our overall population and our minority population and the overall population and our economically-disadvantaged students.  We're looking to eliminate that gap; that's where we're putting a lot of focus."

With regards to the general school environment, Summit High School students have a seven-hour and four-minute school day, six hours and 10 minutes of which is instructional time.

The state average is a six-hour and 51-minute school day with five hours and 54 minutes of instructional time.

Other analysis in the report:

  • Shared-time students have three hours and five minutes of instructional time as opposed to the average one hour and 50 minutes.
  • There are 1,034.5 students enrolled in the high school this year, down from 1,042 last year.  There are 259 freshmen, 235 sophomores, 289.5 juniors, and 248 seniors.
  • 12.9 percent of the student population are in an Individualized Education Program, and three students are enrolled in specialized classes.
  • 1.8 percent of students are classified as having limited proficiency in English.
  • 82.7 percent of students speak English at home; 13 percent speak Spanish.  Other noted languages are Urdu (one percent), Korean (0.5), Mandarin (0.4), Dutch (0.3), and assorted languages (2.1).
  • Summit averages 21.6 students per class in each grade, above the state average of 18.4.
  • The student-to-computer ratio is 4.9 students per instructional, multi-media-capable computer.  Last year's ratio was 3.2 students per computer, and this year's state average ratio is 3.1.
  • All 213 of the high school's computers are connected to the Internet.
  • The high school's total dropout rate remained at 0.8 percent from last year, as did the state average of 1.7 percent.
  • The percentage of black or African-American students who dropped out rose from 2.6 percent last year to three percent in 2008-2009.  The percentage of Hispanic students who dropped out rose from 1.8 to 3.7 percent.  The corresponding state averages for this year are 3.5 and 2.9 percent.
  • Asian students' drop-out percentage decreased from 1.4 percent in 2007-08 to zero.  The state average is 0.3 percent.
  • The percentage of drops out for students categorized as being limited in English proficiency rose from 6.5 percent to 31.6.  The state average is 2.7 percent.
  • The percentage of Summit students who are noted as being economically disadvantaged increased from zero to 0.8 percent.  The state average is 1.9 percent.
  • Three percent of students were suspended in the 2008-09 school year, exceeding the district average of two percent, but significantly below the state average of 14 percent.
  • The high school's suspension percentage was four percent last year.
  • There were zero reported expulsions for both the high school as well as the district.  The state total was 35.
  • The total cost per pupil rose from $14,624 in 2007-08 to $15,003, but still remained below this year's state average of $15,168.

But Sears says the effect these report cards have on the school is minimal.

"Only if we didn't make our progress indicators–and we have done that year after year—would there be an effect in state funding," Sears said.  "We already receive a small amount of state funding, less than five percent out of whole budget."

The true value lies in the reading it provides parents of how the district is doing.

"For parents, it (the report card) gives them a confidence that the district and the high school are doing a good job.  All of the information is backed up with much more specific information on our Web site with the profiles of classes that have gone before," Sears said.  "What it does is allow them confidence to know their kids are being well served."

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?