Unfinished projects will greet Malverne students

(Page 2 of 3)
The athletic upgrades at the middle and high school are complete, Colaitis said. They include new artificial-turf fields, bleachers, a press box and three practice fields as well as refurbished locker rooms.

State test scores

In a second presentation, Deputy Superintendent Richard Banyon provided an analysis of the district’s grades on state exams. The passing rate on the English Language Arts exam increased by 11 percentage points among fourth- and fifth-graders from 2011 to 2012, Banyon said. Among eighth-graders, the passing rate on the state math exam jumped by 20 percentage points.

The districtwide passing rate on the math exam was 77 percent in 2012, 2 percentage points above the Long Island average. The district’s overall passing rate on the ELA assessment, however, stood at 62 percent, 5 percentage points below the average on Long Island.

Other statistics that Banyon highlighted included the increasing proportion of students who have graduated with Regents diplomas in recent years. In June 2009, 82 percent of seniors did so; this June, 96 percent earned Regents diplomas.

An area of concern that was brought to the school board’s attention was the assessment performances of special-education and English as a Second Language students. This June, 15.2 percent of all district students in these two categories passed the ELA exam, while 42.4 percent passed the math test. ESL students, meanwhile, had a passing rate of 20 percent on the ELA exam and 39.5 percent on the math test.

These grades, Superintendent James Hunderfund said, are cause for concern because they bring the district’s overall performance down. “We have to redesign a program,” he said, “and we are working on that.”

Making the grade

Page 2 / 3