Possible Wayne Schools District Goals for the 2024-2025 School Year

WAYNE, NJ – Every year, the Wayne Township Public School District sets annual goals as “good change management practice,” according to Superintendent of Wayne Schools, Dr. Mark Toback. “And that’s why each one is always achieved.”

For the 2024-2025 district goals, the school administration came up with six possible goals that the Board of Education will likely vote on in their January meeting.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE FREE TAPINTO.NET NEWSLETTER

TAPinto covered the first goal “Leveraging AI to Enhance Educational Outcomes and Employee Efficiency,” in an earlier article, while this article will cover the remaining five goals, presented during this past school board meeting.

RELATED STORY: Leveraging the Power of Artificial Intelligence to ‘Enhance Learning’ at the Wayne Township Public Schools

Goal 2: The Gathering Spot (Special Education Goal)

Narrative : “Research indicates that children with involved parents generally perform better academically and exhibit fewer behavioral problems. Parental involvement has been linked to higher grades, improved test scores, better attendance, and enhanced social skills. These improvements are particularly significant for children with special needs, as they often require more tailored and intensive support.”

DOWNLOAD THE FREE TAPINTO APP FOR MORE LOCAL NEWS. AVAILABLE IN THE APPLE STORE AND THE GOOGLE PLAY STORE .

“This [goal] is basically rooted in something that already exists at our Preakness Early Childhood Center, and just started this year,” said Toback in his goals presentation to the school board. “It was super beneficial and so the Department of Student Support Services is looking to expand the goal to other schools and to other grade levels.”

The Gathering Spot provides an inclusive outreach program for parents of students with special needs to “provide a safe and comfortable space for parents to come together with community peers and families in a fun, informative, and engaging manner.”

“The first thing is a needs survey to understand what parents would like to learn about,” said Toback. “And then setting up the structure, set up dates, schedule guests speakers, plan some activities and move ahead with the program.”

Goal 3: Evaluation Instrument Update

It’s been ten years since the Wayne Schools implemented their current teacher evaluation program and Dr. Toback feels it’s time for an update.

“Ten years have passed since the implementation of this model and education has changed in those ten years,” said the Superintendent. “Are there certain parts of the evaluation instrument…are there certain indicators that we should consider? Are there changes that make sense? The answer is yes. After 10 years it makes sense to look at just about everything because the world changes rapidly and this evaluation instrument has not.”

He talked about how the goal would be achieved, saying that it would begin with committees and enjoining principals, who would use the assessment tool, and teachers, who, “ultimately see their evaluations, so it’s obviously important to them.”

These committees would meet to review the current evaluation tool, discuss the various indicators on the tool and make recommendations for improving the evaluation process.

From the district goals presentation: “The final meeting will prepare a communication guide and short presentation that will be used at the start of the 2025-2026 school year to explain the changes and make the necessary adjustments to the refresher training to be consistent with any updated indicators.”

Goal 4: Profile of a Graduate (Year Two)

Last year, the administration set a goal for itself to develop a “profile” of a Wayne High School graduate. What would they need to be successful in life, and help them to become a productive, engaged member of the community and society as a whole.

RELATED STORY: The Profile of a Future Wayne Public Schools’ Graduate

Their goal was to create core competencies that students who graduate from elementary school, from middle school and from high school in Wayne should embody. Six were chosen:

• Adaptability
• Communication
• Critical Thinking
• Perseverance
• Empathy
• Accountability

“The whole point of having and developing a profile is to provide a clear and unified vision of skills and knowledge and attributes that you want students to possess upon graduation,” said Assistant Superintendent Donna Reichman.

Part two of this goal is focused on implementation.

“Next year we'll be piloting in the elementary and middle schools,” said Reichman. “There will be a smaller committee and we'll be able to involve our administration, teachers, media specialists and counselors, and we'll frame out the projects we'll launch them, and then we'll have a chance to evaluate them before we expand to more students at additional grade levels the following year.”

Goal 5: Foundation for Future Technology Growth

The Wayne Schools are looking to upgrade a lot of their older tech. The goal is to “come up with a very specific plan that will help us with our budgeting when it comes to the replenishment of devices, software licenses, access points - all the things that make our network work,” said Toback. And to make sure “that all the purchases that we will need to make are planned out in a very careful and thoughtful way.”

This involves a complete inventory of hardware and software, then identifying future technology needs, then figuring out how to meet those needs, “so that we can proactively build out our network and better plan for those needs within our budget. Whether it is the replenishment of devices, new software, or access points, we need to inventory what we have and budget for several substantial purchases.”

Goal 6: A New Direction for Intervention and Referral Services

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health issues have been on the rise and the school district has responded with various programs to help students with any issues they may be experiencing, including their Multi-Tiered System of Support. But their Intervention and Referral Services teams sometimes receive referrals “that go beyond their capacity to address,” according to Toback.

What is I&RS? “Intervention and Referral Services (I&RS) is an interdisciplinary team of professionals within the school environment who come together throughout the school year to formulate coordinated services and team delivery systems to address the full range of student learning, behavior, social, and health problems in the general education program as well as for students determined to need special education programs and services,” according to the PowerPoint narrative of this goal.

“[This is] ultimately a team of people at each school that come up with services and support for students who may be experiencing difficulties,” Toback explained. “And also making determinations about whether to refer the student for special education evaluation.”

The plan is to start with their MTSS and find out if there is a way to align this model with their I&RS.

“Are there ways that we can improve our efficiency? Asked Toback rhetorically. “Are there things that we could do to help our students in a more comprehensive way with data? Are there commonalities when it comes to students who are referred for special education services? These are the things that we need to know more about when we do our data analysis. So, that's the general idea behind this goal.”

To accomplish this, the schools will be reaching out to other school districts to learn best practices and “we would also like to bring in an external consultant to work with our teams to look at best practices and consider new models,” said the Superintendent. “Because there are people out there that have great expertise, and this particular goal can be supported greatly by having an external consultant but within a reasonable cost.”

Toback told the school board trustees that these “possible” district goals were “something for the board to consider,” and that they were open to suggestions.

During the July 11, 2024 Wayne Board of Education meeting, we will learn more about which goals will be pursued this following school year, and TAPinto will be there…so you don’t have to.

For more local news, visit TAPinto.net