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Asbury Park School District Superintendent Denise Lowe held a town hall meeting last night to discuss goals for the district and what has been accomplished in the past year — although it appeared no one from the public attended.

With those in attendance mostly members of the school’s faculty and staff, Lowe went on with her PowerPoint presentation on the district’s progress and goals.

The district is coming up on the end of the first year in a three-year action plan, which was established following an audit by Phi Delta Kappa, an international audit organization.

“This audit looks at curriculum, policy and governance,” Lowe said. “It’s like getting a financial audit. They give you recommendations.”

The 138-page audit document can be found on the school’s website, she said.

The resulting action plan “talked about identifying responsibilities, creating objectives and setting timelines to get it done,” Lowe said.

The goals and objectives set forth in the action plan involve curriculum management, student assessment, professional development, policy guidance, budget management, educator evaluations and district reorganization, Lowe said. Of these seven areas, all but three were completed this year.

The district made progress this year in downsizing its administrative staff, Lowe said.

“When I came to the district, we had a total of 13 content supervisors,” she said. “District-wide, we were top-heavy administratively. I thought it was best to do a reorganization of the district.”

The district eliminated four vice president positions, then reinstated one. There are now five vice president positions in the school instead of the previous eight. The district also went from 13 content supervisors to seven, she said.

The district is also instituting a growth model for student assessment, testing students multiple times per year and measuring their progress in core subjects over the course of the year, rather than just once annually.

The district also “spends a lot of time on teacher analysis” of the test data, she said.

The district also has instituted an action plan “which was developed involving face-to-face interviews,” Lowe said. The action plan outlines what teachers should be doing and “helps to increase accountability to enhance performance and minimize duplication, because if it’s not in the plan, you really shouldn’t be doing it.”

Some district goals have not yet been completed, including the development of a curriculum matrix — a five-year cycle of curriculum writing and revision. Such a plan is will be up for approval in front of the board of education in June or July, Lowe said.

Another goal was increasing student achievement by 5 percent on NJASK standardized test scores in the areas of language arts literacy, math and science. Test results come out in August, Lowe said, so the district will learn in a few months whether it has achieved that goal.

Finally, curriculum evaluation was to be completed, but will be on the board agenda in June or July.

“We just got a new curriculum director so he needs some time, so that will take place in June or July,” Lowe said.

“As you can see, a good 70 percent of the goals have been completed,” Lowe said. “The curriculum matrix, program evaluation and district-wide curriculum assessment process will be complete as well by the end of the summer.”

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