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Showing posts from September, 2017

Hoboken School District Fails QSAC DPR in INSTRUCTION AND PROGRAM for 2015-2016 - 5th Consecutive Year

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Halloween- Hoboken NJ On July 6, 2016, the Hoboken School District was notified by the New Jersey Department of Education that the district had failed the 2015-16 QSAC DPR in INSTRUCTION AND PROGRAM . This was the fifth consecutive year the district has failed QSAC (receiving a score below 80) in INSTRUCTION AND PROGRAM. The QSAC scores were eventually reported 4 months later at the November 15,  2016 Hoboken Board of Education meeting ( CLICK HERE ) which coincidentally were a few days after the November 8, 2016 Hoboken Board of Education elections. Other than the safety and well being of children, there is no other priority more important to a school district than curriculum, instruction and subsequent student learning. Athletics, clubs, facilities, governance, benefits, salaries, budgets while all important take a back seat to safety and well being of the children and of learning, instruction, and curriculum.   When we view the entire detailed report (see below) we read some inte

Hoboken School District Ranked 65th out of 77 Peer NJ School Districts on Most Recently Published PARCC Scores

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Hoboken High School, Hoboken NJ Compared to similar school districts in the State of New Jersey, the Hoboken School District is ranked 65th out of 77 on the most recent PARCC scores. An earlier post reported on PARCC scores of all  high schools in New Jersey . Some regular readers contacted me about wanting information about district data on PARCC measures. This appeared to be a reasonable request. I used composite PARCC scores (all tested grades, in Math and Language) as is common practice when using district wide data. The data was not difficult to obtain but took a little time to compile. There are a number of ways to compare this data. You can compare districts within a county (i.e. Hudson County). You can compare districts based on population or even region. One useful way to look at this data is to compare the PARCC scores to similar districts --districts with similar socio-economic characteristics of the families who use the public schools. Fortunately, the New Jersey Departme

Hoboken Board of Education- Tuesday, September 12, 2017 Full Agenda

Tuesday, September 12, 2017 AGENDA HOBOKEN BOARD OF EDUCATION 158 FOURTH STREET, HOBOKEN, NJ 07030 (MEETING HELD IN DEMAREST AUDITORIUM, 158 FOURTH STREET, HOBOKEN, NJ 07030) 7:00 P.M. One item of particular interest resonated...If administrators are willing to accept bonuses for students doing well on state testing, are they willing to take salary deductions for under-performing state testing performance as well? Item 9.16 is the Approval of Performance Based Bonuses in Accordance with Administrators and Supervisors Contracts for raising PARCC scores. Recommended Action RESOLVED, that the Board of Education, upon recommendation of the Superintendent and in accordance with Article 18 of the Agreement between the Hoboken Board of Education and the Hoboken Administrators Association, approves a payment to the following administrators for the attainment of the following goals: Administrator 1 (identified on Agenda) By June 2017, Hoboken Middle School will increase the number of regular e

Petrosino, A. J. and Mann, M. J. (2017). The challenges of understanding fluid in fluid density

T he following is some research that has been conducted over the past few semesters with preservice STEM teachers' understanding of fluid density. Density is a concept taught in almost all elementary, middle, and secondary schools across the nation and is a central concept in the physical sciences. It is also historically a difficult concept to understand since it involved mass as well as volume and is multidimensional. Even more difficult in many respects is fluid density (fluids in fluids). The fluid density of a liquid is determined by its consistency with respect to its state in temperature and pressure. The temperature and pressure play an important role individually in determining the density of a fluid. Therefore, oil based drilling fluids and water based drilling fluids have different densities. In this paper a colleague and myself explore some of the especially difficult ideas embedded within fluid density and some efforts we have made to address this concept

HOPES Dedication Ceremonies for the new Frank Raia Annex

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Mr. Frank Raia Addressing the Audience On Wednesday, September 6, 2017 Mr. Frank Raia was recognized for his decades of leadership, philanthropy, and volunteerism to the people of Hoboken in general and the friends and families of HOPES in particular with the naming of the beautiful new HOPES Annex in his honor ( for a thoughtful and in depth profile of Mr. Raia, please click here ).  HOPES was established in 1964 under Lyndon B. Johnson' administration because of the Economic Opportunity Act . As a CAP ( Community Action Program ), HOPES helps people to help themsleves in achieving self sufficiency. From the beginning, HOPES (Hoboken Organization against Poverty and Economic Stress) was charged with the responsibility of combating poverty in Hudson County, NJ by providing a variety of social service for the community.   The Frank Raia Annex Mr. Frank Raia is the current Board Chairman and has served on the HOPES Board of Directors since 1984. Raia has had the responsibili