River Dell School District Sees Improved Test Scores

During the Sept. 23 meeting of the River Dell Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools, Patrick Fletcher, reported that 85 percent of the students taking Advanced Placement exams scored a 3 or higher in 2013, a 15 percent increase over the 70 percent who achieved those results in 2007 to 2008, according to a report on northjersey.com.

"Three is the one that actually gets you to even be accepted for credits by colleges," Fletcher told northjersey.com. "It's difficult to be accepted for credits, but it's in the ballpark."

Fletcher credited this achievement to the teaching staff, the curriculum and the Math supervisor, Jennifer Ali, the report noted. 

Although Fletcher said that there were no significant increase in the SAT scores, he did report that the district is focusing on narrowing the gap between partially proficient students and advanced proficient students. According to the report, the district moved 10 percent of the partially proficient population into the proficient or advanced proficiency while also increasing advanced proficiency by 10 percent. 

One of the Board's goals set out last year was to increase the proficiency of seventh and eighth grade math.

"We hit all the benchmarks, reducing the partially proficient and increasing the advanced proficiency," Fletcher said in the report. "One of the district goals that the board approved last year was that we would go from partially proficient to students that were advanced proficient by 10 percent for both seventh and eighth grade mathematics. That's what we were trying to do."

In the report, Fletcher credited the teaching staff with working with the students to "change what they were doing in order to get the kids to move forward."