SCHOOLS

Bellmore's school officials mull over state test data

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School officials in the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District and the Bellmore and North Bellmore elementary school districts say they are now sifting through and trying to make sense of recently released state English and math exam data for grades three to eight.

Students posted mixed test results this year, so, officials said, there remains much work to be done to help young people achieve on the exams, which are aligned to the new Common Core State Standards.

In the Central High School District

David Seinfeld, the Central District’s new assistant superintendent for instruction, said, “The data is really difficult to analyze for a variety of reasons.”

For starters, Seinfeld said, hundreds of Bellmore-Merrick seventh- and eighth-graders “opted out” of the exams, so, he said, the district has no results for a large number of students. The assistant superintendent said he would provide exact opt-out numbers at the Sept. 3 Board of Education meeting. He did, however, say that the greatest number of opt-outs appears to have been at Grand Avenue Middle School, noting that the statewide opt-out movement began with a Facebook page moderated by a North Bellmore parent.

Seinfeld also said that interpreting the eighth-grade math data would be especially difficult. Thirty-three percent of eighth-graders sitting for the exam at Grand Avenue and 16 percent at Merrick Avenue Middle School passed the test. Seinfeld said, though, that roughly one-third of the eighth-grade classes at each school did not take the exam, in addition to the opt-outs. That’s because accelerated math students, who comprise about 30 percent of the eighth-grade classes, were not required to sit for the test.

Eighth-grade accelerated math students take Regents-level algebra, which in the past was called Integrated Algebra. In 2013-14, the New York State Department of Education rolled out its first algebra Regents based on the Common Core. All students who took the exam, including ninth-graders, were also given the Integrated Algebra exam in June.

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