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TRENTON - Atlantic City and Middle Township school districts have been removed from the state Department of Education's list of "districts in need of improvement" or DINI after showing improved test scores across all grades for two years in a row in 2007 and 2008.

Pleasantville, Hamilton Township, Greater Egg Harbor Regional, and Oceanside Charter School in Atlantic County and Cumberland Regional in Cumberland County remain on the list released Wednesday as part of the state's reporting under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Hamilton Township and Oceanside are on "hold" status. Both did show improvement in 2008, but must reach state standards or show improvement for two years in a row to be removed from the list.

Districts must fail to meet state standards or make adequate progress toward those standards in all tested grade spans for two consecutive years to be considered a district in need of improvement under No Child Left Behind. Individual schools within a district may fail to make state standards without affecting the entire district's ranking.

Regional high schools such as Greater Egg Harbor and Cumberland are hit especially hard by the listing because they generally have only one school and test only one grade. Greater Egg has two high schools. Statewide, 21 of the 39 districts that are DINI for 2008-09 are either regional or vocational high schools.

Greater Egg Harbor Regional Superintendent Adam Pfeffer said they are very close to meeting the state standards. He said the test results of as few as three or four students keep the district on the DINI list.

Test scores are broken down into subgroups by gender, race, socioeconomic and special education placements. If just one subgroup fails to make state standards, the entire school fails. For regional high schools, the failure of a handful of students can sink the entire district's ranking. States have complained about the process and hope to have changes included in the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law.

"It's a hard hump to get over," Pfeffer said. "One year one group misses language arts in one school and the next year another group might miss math in the other school. But we've been doing a whole lot of stuff to help students improve, and we're almost there."

School officials in Atlantic City and Middle Township said new curricula in math and language arts, plus continued teacher training are generating better test results.

Atlantic City has been working with professors at Richard Stockton College on math improvement and teacher training.

Middle Township switched to Everyday Math and Connected Math programs several years ago, started a new balanced literacy program and has two literacy coaches to work with staff and students. Assistant Superintendent David Salvo said professional development has focused on helping teachers reach all students in different ways.

"We've had all this in place for several years now, and are seeing the results," Salvo said. "It's a sustained effort staring from pre-K through 12."

E-mail Diane D'Amico:

DDamico@pressofac.com

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