School Performance Reports

The Hillsdale School District recognizes the value of using assessments to drive instruction. Assessments provide students with opportunities to practice skills and demonstrate understanding of content, and provide teachers with valuable information regarding student progress that can be used to raise student achievement.

Some assessments are formal, such as tests, quizzes, projects, and standardized assessments, while some are informal, such as class participation, discussion, and student surveys. Moreover, there is an important distinction between formative assessments, which enable teachers to closely monitor student progress, and summative assessments, which enable students to demonstrate their learning of a particular subject matter.

School Performance Reports

The 2019-2020 New Jersey School Performance Reports were recently released and are available on the NJ School Performance Reports webpage at www.njschooldata.org.

The School Performance Reports reflect the New Jersey Department of Education’s (NJDOE) commitment to providing parents, students and school communities with a large variety of information about each school and district. These reports can be used as a tool to help evaluate whether all students have equitable access to high quality education. We encourage you to use these reports to:

• Learn more about your school and district
• Start conversations with school community members and ask questions
• Engage with school communities to identify what schools are doing well and where they can improve

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the way the NJDOE was able to measure school performance and student achievement in the 2019-2020 School Performance Reports. Some data is not available at all and other data, while available, may not look the same as it did in prior years. The NJDOE also recognizes that our existing data can’t begin to measure the hard work and perseverance of the students, families, educators, and community members during this difficult year.

While this past year has been unlike any other, the NJDOE believes that it is critical to use the available data in the reports, along with other information collected directly within districts and communities, to start conversations, identify gaps in information, and continue to find ways to address the impacts of COVID-19 and ensure all students receive the support and resources that they need. Also, the School Performance Reports can and should be used in conjunction with available school and district data to identify priorities for summer and school year programming and the use of state and federal dollars.

Notes are included throughout the School Performance Reports to explain where data is missing or impacted by COVID-19 and a new Impact of COVID-19 on Data Availability resource is available to summarize this information. 

The 2019-2020 reports include changes that respond to stakeholder feedback collected over the last several years and during the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes include:

• New report design with improved visuals and new navigational tools
• Additional data about graduation cohorts to provide more information about students who do not graduate
• New resources to help explain the impact of COVID-19 on the availability of data in the reports
• A new narrative field, “Learning During COVID-19”, to give districts an opportunity to share information on how they responded to the COVID-19 pandemic

To view School Performance Reports for Ann Blanche Smith Elementary School, George G White Middle School, and Meadowbrook Elementary School, please click here.

The NJDOE continues to seek public input on ways to improve future reports. Please email reportcard@doe.nj.gov with feedback and suggestions.