Sickles School Makes Top Academic Grade on State Performance Report

Academically speaking, Fair Haven's Viola L. Sickles School has earned the highest mark it can compared to other schools of its grade level across the state on the new NJ School Performance Report.

The school, where students from pre-kindergarten to grade three are educated, outperformed 95 percent of elementary schools statewide in what has been dubbed the Academic Acheivement category, a "very high," the highest, rank.

Compared to schools in its peer group, or demographically similar, Sickles got a "high" grade, outpacing 78 percent. Some schools considered its peers are: Deane Porter in Rumson, Village School in Holmdel, Point Road in Little Silver and Nut Swamp in Middletown.

The academic rating is gauged by NJ ASK performance in math and language arts.

"Academic Achievement measures the content knowledge students have in language arts literacy and math," according to the report. For elementary and middle schools, this includes measures of the school's proficiency rate on both the Language Arts Literacy and Math sections of the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK). A proficiency rate is calculated by summing the count of students who scored either proficient or advanced proficient on the assessment and dividing by the count of valid test scores."

Schoolwide, Sickles students performed at a 95 percent proficiency rating in both language arts and math. Among peers, Sickles outperformed a very high 97 percent of peers and 100 percent, all, across the state, meeting 100 percen to of its targets.

In math, Sickles ranked in the lower 58th percentile and outperformed 90 percent statewide, also meeting 100 percent of its targets.

Proficiency trends in Language Arts Literacy showed Sickles at its lowest in advanced proficiency in four years, or 12 percent, with the range going from 19 to the 12 percent from 2008-09 until now.

The proficient level was at 82 percent in 2011-12, however, or the highest in four years, ranging from 66 to the 82 percent. Partial proficiency was only gauged at 5 percent in the past year.

Sickles, however, ranked average statewide in the report's College and Career Readiness category, outperforming 57 percent. It showed as "lagging" among peers, outpacing only 13 percent.

"For all elementary and middle schools, this includes a measurement of how many students are chronically absent," the report description said. "For schools with middle school grades, it also includes a measurement of how many students take Algebra I in either seventh or eighth grade."

The school only educates children up to the third grade level. Fair Haven school officials and board of education members had discussed at prior meetings, when the new report was unveiled that the meaning of chronically absent may have been skewed this year with respect to make-up days from Hurricane Sandy taking away vacation time.

Many already had vacation plans and kept their children out of school during the break that was cancelled to make up days. They noted that the factoring in and percentage of absences considered cronic was something new they'd have to monitor and track closely.

The report, however, notes that the school is meeting 100 percent of its performance targets in the readiness category.

For more detailed information on the Sickles report, click here and to see how other schools' performance fared, go to http://education.state.nj.us/pr/nav.php?c=25.