Additional Teachers, State Test Scores Topics at Rye School Board’s First Meeting of the School Year

The Rye Board of Education held its first meeting of the school year Tuesday, recapping the first day of school and hearing from a handful of parents who applauded the hiring of additional elementary school teachers.

Superintendent Edward Shine said 1543 elementary students reported to school on Tuesday, 67 more students than the district projected earlier this year.

Because of the increase, Shine said, the board approved the hiring of four additional teachers. The district has hired a total of 32 new teachers for this school year.

Both Osborn and Milton elementary schools will benefit from the teaching additions. Osborn will get a fifth teacher for its kindergarten, 2nd and 4th classes, while Milton will get another 2nd grade teacher. The additions will help to keep class sizes small, with each class section having around 20 students.

The district's business manager, Kathleen Ryan, said the additional teachers would be paid for through a budget transfer, a figure that will likely amount to about $90,000 per teacher. In April, voters approved a $70 million school budget, which did not include these teaching positions. However, Ryan said the hires would not increase the budget because the district also had six teachers retire this year.

Parents who spoke at Tuesday's board meeting said the additions were necessary to maintain the same quality of education, even though enrollment had increased substantially.

"I and other parents were very pleased with the sections that were added," said Lauren Rosen, co-president of the Osborn PTO.

Vicki Edmonds, who has second grader at Osborn, said enrollment at the school, which has about 600 students, had increased more than other elementary schools in the district so additional teachers are a necessity, she said.

Edmonds added that the recent results for the English Language Arts and Math Assessments show that more teachers are needed at Osborn.

"We failed as parents, the teachers failed and the district failed to adequately educate a third of our students," Edmonds said, referring to the assessment results for 3rd graders at Osborn.

The state ELA and Math Assessments test students in grades 3-8 for their proficiency in those subjects. Slightly less than 32 percent of students at Osborn tested into Level 1 and 2 for math, meaning their proficiency was at or below standard. However, more than 74 percent of 3rd grade students met or exceeded standards in English Language Arts.

Students at Midland and Milton elementary schools fared better. At Midland, 7.5 percent and 14.1 percent of students had a Level 1 or 2 proficiency in math and English, respectively. At Milton, those figures were 12.3 percent for math and 10.3 percent for English.

However, the scores for the Rye City School District follow an overall trend for this year's state testing results. The state's Department of Education measured test scores based on new proficiency standards aligned with college-readiness. According to the department, test results for grades 3-8 are indicative of how well these students will do on other tests as they progress throughout school, and in turn, how well they will do their first year of college.

Because the department changed the testing benchmarks, fewer students met proficiency standards in English and math than in previous years, so the results for the Rye City School District are not an anomaly.

"Across Grades 3-8 statewide, the majority of students, 53 percent in English and 61 percent in Math, met or exceeded the new Proficiency standards this year," the department said. "By contrast, in 2009, 77 percent of students met or exceeded standards in English and 86 percent of students did so in math."

Neither the district's administrators nor the school board addressed the test scores at Tuesday's meeting, but school board president Josh Nathan said the district would eventually discuss the matter publicly.

"The board is aware of the different test results and we'll let the administration address it first before we comment," he said.