Board of ED. Meeting 6/18/13

The Mullica Township Board of Education is scheduled to meet Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 7:00 at the Mullica Township School District Library at 500 Elwood Road, Elwood, N.J. 08217.

The Gadfly was forwarded an email written by a concerned parent that ended with the statement
"Feel free to pass this email to anyone you believe would be interested"

Since the writer of the email did not send it in to the Gadfly but wanted the information to get out to the public, The Gadfly is removing identifying statements and posting excerpts of the email.

"Apparently in an effort to avoid stigmatizing children,  the Mullica School will no longer be separating children by ability when they enter 5th grade.  Additionally, the 5th and 6th grade advanced math program will be eliminated.  The school is still planning on offering 7th grade pre-algebra and 8th grade algebra, but I wonder where the children will learn the skills to be successful in these math classes without the strong background that has been historically provided in 5th and 6th grade?"

"There is also a plan to provide additional math classes twice per week during SIP period for students doing well in the basic math courses.
The plan is to divide the students in half:  top 50% and bottom 50% .
The kids would be differentiated by skills WITHIN the classroom.  Therefore, a teacher would be teaching children of different abilities in the same class. "

"To eliminate an advanced math program that was very successful in preparing the students for advanced studies in high school makes absolutely no sense.  Attempting to homogenize classrooms and ignoring a child's ability when determining placement does everyone a disservice."


To paraphrase other parts of the email
This successful advanced math program is enabling students to participate in the Cedar Creek engineering magnet program and to "double up" in math in freshman year.  According to the principal at Cedar Creek, the magnet programs are very competitive and almost all the children selected are those who have taken advanced math classes in middle school and those who will be taking both algebra II and geometry in freshman year.
The next Board meeting is June 18th at 7:00pm. Please find time to attend and express your opposition to these changes.
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If all the above statements are correct, it seems that the Mullica Board of Education's plan will place the children of Mullica at a severe disadvantage when competing against the children of the other Sending Districts for the Cedar Creek Magnet Programs.  Our best and brightest will be left behind and bored while teachers have the confusing job of trying to educate slower learners in the same class.  This is so unfair to the kids who have exceptional abilities, work hard and dream of getting into advanced programs in high school.