---

The state-run Regional Achievement Center [RAC] recently created school improvement plants for Asbury Park Middle School and High School.

Region Five RAC executive director Mario Barbiere delivered a presentation to the board of education at its Feb. 11 meeting to keep board members up to date on RAC activity.

New Jersey is one of the first states in the nation to have formed Regional Achievement Centers [RACs]. RACs take the principles of No Child Left Behind one step further, shifting the NJ Department of Education’s [DOE] role from oversight to support, according to the statewide RAC website.

RACs are intended to work intensively with low-performing schools to ensure a turnaround, Barbiere said. The Region Five RAC which Barbiere oversees includes Middlesex, Ocean and Monmouth counties. He oversees 33 schools, and will work with these schools for three years.

The RAC places schools in categories according to test scores. Asbury Park High School is a Focus School, meaning there is a gap between the highest-performing group of students and the lowest-performing groups. Asbury Park Middle School is categorized as a Priority School because test scores are low on average.

RAC operations begin with a QSR, or quality school review. Each school assesses itself, and then the district and the RAC collaborate on a school improvement plan. The plan lays out major goals, and areas where the RAC can intervene, Barbiere said.

Last week, the RAC finished that first cycle of developing the school improvement plan. Next, Barbiere and others will “look at various ways to triangulate our data to see how well we’re doing,” he said.

RAC officials will look at attendance, discipline and survey responses to make changes, as well, Barbiere said.

The RAC is also tasked with implementing the new NJ Model Curriculum, which is “very stringent” compared to current core standards, Barbiere said. The new curriculum moves past knowledge of facts and into conceptual thinking.

The RAC has completed a second evaluation of all teachers in the middle school at this point, Barbiere said. Officials will meet with the school’s principal to see if any support is needed.

Members of Barbiere’s RAC team have visited the Middle School approximately 85 time since last September, he said. Some of those team members specialize in math, school climate and culture, instruction, language, special education and English as a learned language.

The duty of evaluating teachers lies with the building’s administrator — or the principal — and the RAC’s job is to use that data constructively, Barbiere said. RAC officials will sometimes take an eight-to-10-minute tour of a classroom to gather their own data, he added.

The RAC also offers workshops for the teachers, and RAC officials make comparisons every month to see if there are improvements.

Barbiere predicts the school will see growth at the end of the year, “because the team has been very well-received at the middle school and the high school,” he said. “The district has been very supportive.”

Barbiere will return to address the board again after the next cycle of the RAC process is complete, he said.

Board member Barbara Lesinski asked if there was a process for bringing the schools’ curriculum up to date.

RAC staff members have been providing workshops and copies of assessments to show teachers what new curriculum will look like, Barbiere said. When teachers see assessments, they understand how to frame lessons, he said.

“Teachers see how stringent it is,” he said.

Barbiere also emphasized the importance of allowing students to learn through speaking about topics under the state’s more rigorous new curriculum standards.

“It develops the process of meta-cognition — thinking about their own thinking,” he said. “We want our students to regulate and monitor their own learning.”

---