More than 100 parents and students showed up at the West Windsor-Plainsboro Board of education meeting on November 22 to express concern — and in some cases outrage — at a resolution that they thought would eliminate parental ability to override teacher recommendations and enroll their children in honors and Advanced Placement courses.
Under the present system parents can unilaterally override teachers’ recommendations for high school students to enter AP, honors, or college prep classes and move students to the class of their choice, something that many parents view as a key benefit of living in the WW-P district. Sparks flew during public comments as nearly 40 parents and several students spoke about the right of students to challenge themselves by taking AP courses and about the impact advanced classes have on college admissions and future career prospects.
The stage for the November 22 drama was set on November 8, when board member and curriculum committee spokesman Richard Kaye first brought up the idea of changes to the course selection guide and new criteria for placing students in honors and AP courses. Kaye cited 1,802 parental overrides between both high schools as the driving factor, calling it a “staggering number” (WW-P News, November 18). Overrides also caused problems when students ended up in classes that proved to be too difficult, and then requested transfers that created scheduling challenges.
West Windsor-Plainsboro Director of Guidance and Anti-Bullying Coordinator Lee McDonald made a powerpoint presentation to open the meeting. McDonald stated the administration’s primary goal as creating “an objective system versus the currently used subjective system,” based initially on teacher recommendations.
“We’ve looked at thousands of pieces of data including 21,000 course requests in a given school year from both high schools. We looked at hundreds of changes throughout the schedule process, both during the initial scheduling phase and in the school year. We’ve looked at over 1,800 overrides between the two high schools, including over 1,500 overrides into honors and AP courses. All of this data plus course requests become the foundation for our master schedule,” McDonald stated.
In a subsequent telephone interview, McDonald outlined the problem. “We have students who were not recommended for honors or AP courses who overrode into those courses and then showed that they could do extremely well. Part of the misconception for parents is that we’re taking that override away and they’re automatically thinking that their son or daughter can’t access that course, which is not necessarily true,” he said.
McDonald said the school’s emphasis now is working on the criteria for placement. He confirmed that the district does not have any concrete criteria in place yet, including a numerical average of 80 or 85 percent students must meet, but it will be worked through over the next few months.
McDonald anticipates the process and subsequent changes to the program of studies will be a slow, ongoing process.
“Like with any change, you’re going to tweak things along the way as you see fit,” McDonald said.
Martin Smith, the newly appointed assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, will have a role in developing the initial criteria. McDonald outlined the timeline for building the district’s a master schedule until the students’ course selection process is complete, typically spanning all of February and March. Smith’s first day on the job was Monday, November 28, and he is likely to have discussions about the current situation at his first curriculum committee meeting, set for Monday, December 5, at 10 a.m. Robert Johnson, board vice president, said Smith and the district are prepared to take on the task.
“It’s a heck of a thing to be walking into a job in the middle of this. But I have full confidence that with his background and [Superintendent] Victoria Kniewel’s background in curriculum and instruction as well, we will do something that will please most people,” Johnson said.
Added McDonald: “We’re trying to establish clearer, transparent criteria in order for students to reach the goals they want to reach, so if students want to go to an AP course there’s going to be a clear path to that. It is premature to say what the criteria is for not excluding students, and for students who maybe don’t meet the criteria, what are the avenues and what is an appeal process that would allow those students to be placed appropriately.”
“Nobody in their right mind wants to put in criteria that might restrict students in their opportunities. We want to make sure that every student has the opportunity to reach whatever goals they might have,” McDonald said.
Any revision would not be left to a single-person decision by advisors within a school, he added. “There’s not necessarily going to be somebody who would say no to honors or AP and tell students ‘I think you should take this course instead’,” McDonald said.
McDonald pinpointed another main misconception about the formation of the district’s honors and AP courses, which are in fact based on student requests.
“It should be clarified that how many courses we run are totally based on the course requests. We don’t make a schedule and then decide how many kids get in a class. We don’t say ‘there’s only going to be three sections of AP literature this year and we’re only taking 75 students.’ The question is how many students meet the criteria for AP lit and would like to take AP lit? If 90 kids met the criteria for AP and that was how many that wanted to take it, then you’d run more sections of it,” he says.
He also wanted to eliminate two false notions: that the district is not going to offer as many AP or honors high school courses hereafter or only offer “something outside the scope of what is currently available,” which McDonald called “a wide selection of AP courses.”
“There were some people that spoke to that and they made it seem that we were doing this as the convenient thing to do. That’s the furthest thing from the truth. Nobody in the district and certainly nobody on the board of education is looking to limit opportunities for students. We want to maximize the opportunities for students and ultimately we want to place students appropriately,” McDonald said.
But at the November 22 various misconceptions reigned as parents and students focused on the fear of losing the overrides. All evening long board members were left to clarify the district’s objectives — sometimes seeming to be a futile attempt against pre-conceived notions that the right to parental overrides would soon be stripped away.
Alok Sharma of 20 Davenport Drive in West Windsor was the first parent to speak, taking on a leadership role seated directly across from Marathe and Superintendent Kniewel. He insisted on having numerous data compiled and presented to parents before there is any action on this matter, most notably feedback and supporting data for the current system of parental overrides and the breakdown of individual and total overrides requests.
At the conclusion of about 90 minutes of public comments, Sharma stood and made sure the board knew that “out of 100 parents and students that were in attendance, all were against the resolution.”
The evening belonged to parents as well as a group of seven students from Grover Middle School. The young teens, taking notice of something that could hinder their high school course selections, had circulated a petition opposing the resolution on Monday and Tuesday of the short holiday week, and they stated that 95 percent of their classmates approached to sign the petition did so while the other five percent either were not opposed or more likely “did not have a pen on them.”
Nikhil Modi, the president of the student body at Grover Middle School, made two appearances at the podium, where he was barely able to see over the top.
“It’s an unfair advantage to have an easier teacher to get good grades rather than having a harder and stricter teacher who might give harder grades. Thus you might not make the cut. One setback could also change your entire academic career. You could get an F on one test and you might not be able to get into the high school courses and then the college courses that you want, ruining whatever chances you have of getting the job you want,” Modi said.
Kevin Dwyer, a 2011 graduate of High School South and current college freshman, compared the board of education to the college board in the movie “Accepted” which he quoted. “What makes an institution great? Rejection,” he said.
Dwyer felt the proposed resolution would be unfair. “In my junior year of high school I was not recommended for a single honors or AP course, especially as a special education student. But my parents overrode and I took four AP classes and I got a perfect score of 5 on all of them. The teachers I had then couldn’t have known what I could do, they could look at my academic record — a record so poor that I was accepted to American University in Washington, D.C. on a full, four-year scholarship,” Dwyer said sarcastically.
Jennifer Howard, a 14-year resident of West Windsor whose son is a senior at North, offered a more analytic approach.
“Over the years I have had concerns about students who have achieved outstanding grades in a prerequisite course and yet were not recommended for the subsequent honors or AP course. While I applaud the goal of making the course selection process more objective, I wonder if we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Too often doors are closed for students who want or need a challenge. A grade of C in a subject in a prior semester could be the result of a number of things, none of which defines the student’s abilities to succeed in that subject or another subject.
“This debate is not about simply about course selection deficiencies in West Windsor-Plainsboro, but also the future of these students. Colleges look at score reports and wonder why a student from West Windsor-Plainsboro had not taken some of the more challenging courses, leaving the students who have enrolled in honors or AP courses with an advantage over their peers,” she said.
Stacey Karp of West Windsor said she had not seen any statistics of kids who are in AP or honors classes weighing who was put in through teacher recommendations versus kids “who were waived in by their parents.”
“If you look at their grades do you see a distinct difference in the grades? And are you saying that going by grades is a better predictor than the parents? I haven’t seen any statistics on that,” she said.
Karp gave an example in the disparity of some classes, saying that her daughter and a friend are in different sections of the same course but one kid’s class (and teacher) is a month behind the other’s. “That’s a considerable difference considering we’re only three months into the school year. At the end of the year you’re going to compare grades for those kids and decide whether they will move to AP Physics. For a child that is struggling a little bit, maybe going slower is better. Or maybe another kid in the same class would say they’re not prepared for AP. It just seems ridiculous,” Karp said.
Anu Ray of West Windsor said a possible criteria of a grade of 85 percent or higher to enter honors or AP courses is “ridiculous.” Ray advocated for AP recommendations as her daughter went through the A and E (accelerated and enriched) program in eighth grade was then recommended for AP in high school. She is currently studying computer science at Carnegie Mellon University.
“What if a child gets 84 percent? Are you guys saying that a child who gets an 84 is less prepared to handle the challenges of a course than a child who gets an 85?” she said.
Ray contended that parental input is a critical part of the education system, and although parents send their kids to school for most of the week they do not abandon them. “We value the teacher’s opinion but we ask that you value ours. Something I’d like to know is how many students filed for a reversal of their override, and how many of them actually came to the principal or the school administration and said ‘it’s all your fault — you should have stopped me in the first process itself and stopped me from filing the override,” she said.
Harlen Greenman of 29 Hartford Drive in Princeton Junction is the father of an eighth grader at Grover Middle School and a daughter who graduated with AP courses and is a college senior. He is an active alumnus of an Ivy League university and he says in that admissions process students who present with honors and/or AP courses stand a much greater chance for admission than one who does not.
“Students come to these buildings 35 hours a week and there’s about 168 hours a week,” Greenman said. “The parents probably know their kids better than anybody in the school district.”
Board of Education President Hemant Marathe told attendees at the November 22 meeting that the board has been planning to address this subject for some time, referencing the district’s website and newspaper coverage in the WW-P News (front page) on November 18.
The board also presented a revision of the original resolution, which it acknowledged may have caused some of the parents’ concern. The first version of the resolution, which first appeared on the district’s website on Monday, November 21, said the board would agree to come up with those criteria and approve them in time for next school year (2012-’13). That phrasing gave some residents the impression that the board was set to approve something it had not even seen or reviewed.
At the board’s meeting Tuesday, November 22, Johnson announced the last-minute modification to the resolution, which was not distributed to the public but read aloud three times at the meeting:
“Resolved that the administration be directed to develop criteria qualifications and appeal process to replace the current selection process for honors and accelerated placement (AP) courses. Be it further resolved that such criteria qualifications and appeal process be subject to board review and approval and a public meeting prior to implementation.”
The notable change instantly drew a round of applause from half of the people in attendance while many others remained highly skeptical.
In an interview this week Johnson said the resolution was amended to clearly state the two-step process ahead. “We want to see what those criteria are going to be and apply them on a trial basis to see, for example, of those students who overrode a recommendation, how many of them would have been in the course had we applied the new criteria for placement? The preliminary review that I’ve seen suggests that of the students who overrode last year most of them would have been recommended for honors or AP using new criteria. Some of them would not have been recommended and many of them are the ones who either dropped the AP or honors course or are failing in those courses,” Johnson said.
Johnson believes the district must come up with a way of providing “screening” for students to be placed in honors and in AP. He said that there should be standards outlining a reasonable prerequisite, criteria, or qualification to allow students to be able to take advanced courses.
While acknowledging the discontent of the residents, Johnson also said that some of the comments he heard — including the call to table the resolution — shocked him.
“There was a perception that there wasn’t adequate notice that we were trying to do something about the course overrides. As I sat that night it was astounding for me to hear people say that we shouldn’t change a process when virtually every parent that spoke up and every student that spoke up said they weren’t satisfied with the way students are recommended for honors and AP,” Johnson said.
“It seems to me that is proof of what the resolution said, which is we don’t have a very good process for identifying students for honors and AP overrides. That seemed to be lost and what parents seemed to react to, and rightfully, was if we’re going to go back to the recommendation system and not allow parents to override the recommendations, we would have serious issues because there are a whole lot of people that believe that the recommendations are inaccurate, so that’s the starting point,” he said.
McDonald, meanwhile, wants to bring another side of the equation to light.
“Yes, you have 1,800 overrides and you have a strong showing at the board of education meeting, but there’s a large percentage of students that we’re not even considering in this conversation, but the district is looking at our responsibility to think about the students who were not recommended for a particular course and ultimately chose not to override into an honors or AP course. That’s a little bit harder to grasp but on the flip side of the issue let’s say you put a criteria in place and a year ago that student was not recommended because their teacher did not think they had what it took for AP or honors course work. This year or next year or whenever it is in place, that student meets the criteria. Now all of a student who may not have thought about honors or AP in the past is not thinking hey, I can do this, I’m going to go for it. Looking at the issue from another perspective is a big piece of this.”
McDonald concludes that not every student has someone at home to push or encourage them towards AP or honors courses. He says not every family is going to sign overrides either, but “if a student is proving themselves along the way and backing up classroom performance and common assessments, you’re going to open up the doors for even more students.”
Despite the angry reactions at the November 22 meeting Johnson said he maintains his appreciation for the public session and did not take any of the comments personally. He stayed for 20 minutes after the meeting ended, past 10:40 p.m., to continue informal conversations.
Johnson admitted the board caused itself harm by not engaging parents in dialogue in a better way. “The focus on parental overrides was probably the board’s own fault. We didn’t present the issue very well and in retrospect we could have framed the issue better. We didn’t communicate it well enough, and there was an overreaction to the second step in the process.
“But let’s all acknowledge from the outset that we really don’t like the current system, but if we were to go back to recommendations and not allow parental overrides that would be a horrible thing for us to do — but that’s not what we were proposing. That perception is a failure of communication. As an elected body we are responsible to do a better job of communicating and if we get beat up on something that we could have presented then shame on us,” Johnson said.
“I’ll be darned if I know of any other district in this country — highest performing even — that uses a system that says we don’t know what to do, so let’s just let the students and parents select themselves. I think that’s absurd to think that. Where we are at this point is acknowledging, along with all of you, that we don’t have a good system for determining who is recommended for honors and accelerated. The board is proposing to take the first step and say let’s do a better job of that,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the community must acknowledge that the current system of teacher recommendations is “highly irregular and so inconsistent that you could arguably say it’s arbitrary.” In Johnson’s view the parents’ reaction to WW-P’s current system is similar to the board’s.
“They don’t like the system of recommendations and they need to override the recommendations because they don’t believe it’s a really good process,” Johnson said.
McDonald agreed, calling West Windsor-Plainsboro a very unique district. “As I sat there and listened that night, the irony to me that was as parents were voicing their stories many of the people were more or less identifying what part of the problem is. Having 1,800 overrides between two high schools, you’d be pretty stretched to find another district anywhere with that percentage based on the number of students that we have,” he said.
McDonald has studied the problem closely enough to compare WW-P to districts in the immediate area. He said he’s “pretty sure” Princeton has overrides and that Montgomery has course requirements and prerequisites for courses, but ultimately if a student does not agree with that their parents could override them into a course.
Robbinsville was the example he gave of one district that has actual criteria like what WW-P wants to implement.
“You have to have an A or better in a course if you want to go from college prep to honors. They do have a waiver system where the parent waives into that class, which pretty much says no matter what grade the student gets they’re going to get into that course,” McDonald said.
Johnson added that the criteria initially is set forth will not convince 100 percent of residents of its merits because at every level of government, from town councils to schools boards, there will always be naysayers who are never going to be satisfied.
“I can’t do anything about those people and there’s nothing the board can do to satisfy absolutely everyone, but we are only taking into consideration what is best for the students of the district. Most people, when they have a full and open communication and an explanation of why we’re doing this, they will understand it. Even if they don’t agree they’ll at least respect the fact that we’re considering changes,” Johnson said.
