Testimony of Dr. Jamil Maroun

Superintendent, Manville Public Schools

New Jersey State Board of Education

August 7, 2024

My name is Jamil Maroun, and I have been an educator for nearly 20 years, serving in various roles, including high school teacher, Supervisor of Science, Elementary School Principal, Assistant Superintendent, and currently the Superintendent of the Manville School District. 

Our district is a PK-12 school district in central New Jersey, comprised of approximately 1,800 students. Our community is extremely diverse, facing a wide range of challenges and needs. About 65% of our students qualify for free/reduced lunch, 70% are minorities, with approximately 57% identifying as Hispanic. About 37% of our students speak Spanish as their home language, 21% have IEPs, 14% are Multi-lingual learners, and 11% have migrated to the United States in the last three years, many of whom are Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE).

While I want to address the validity of the tools used to measure the “quality” of our academic programs. These assessments and their results have been shown to be heavily influenced by out-of-district socio-economic factors beyond the control of local school districts. In my dissertation, we were able to predict district performance within about 10 points based on parent income for about 70% of the districts in New Jersey. These high-stakes assessments are not the best tools for measuring a school's performance. While some advocates argue that growth is the answer, I respectfully disagree and believe results should be controlled for out-of-district SES factors.

However, that is not why I am testifying today. In the 2021-2022 school year, our district was among the first to complete QSAC post-COVID. We were also one of the first districts to be “in need of improvement” post-COVID for reasons beyond our control. In our Instruction & Program (I&P) area, we scored 79.4, just 0.1 points short of passing. Upon review, we found two major factors that affected our I&P score,the results from assessments that are the predictive results based on out-of-district economic factors and our dropout rates. 

We received low scores due to dropout rates, particularly among special education students.  That year we had 119 students in our four-year graduation cohort.  Of the 119, 111 graduated in their cohort meaning we had a total of 8 dropouts.  Also that year, 24 students with IEPs graduated, as not graduating with their four-year cohort. Among these six, three students had severe disabilities and had actually “graduated”, participated in the graduation ceremony, and completed their coursework.  However, these three students had severe disabilities and were entitled to additional services from the district until they were 21 years old.  So, we could not mark them as graduates and their continued adult life skills education counted as a dropout during our QSAC process.  Had these students been marked differently in the QSAC process, our district would have not been found to be a district in need of improvement because our graduation rate would have been 96% (instead of 93%) overall and 88% instead of 75% among our students with disabilities. 

Our district provides the services needed for severely disabled students, creating an inclusive environment for students with a severe learning disability, creating a program that meets their academic and provides them an experience at graduation with their cohort and gets dinged with low scores for high dropout rates for students with disabilities.  This anomaly continues in our current QSAC monitoring system and I implore the SBOE to work with the NJDOE to address these inconsistencies in the formula.

While the DOE’s suggestions do not address all the challenges districts face with the QSAC process, the department's proposal is a positive step forward. These proposed changes reflect a responsive Department of Education and mark an important step in the right direction.  I want to thank you for your time and emphasize that I believe accountability is necessary; however, we should be measuring in QSAC the items a local school district has control over and the measures should be consistent with the expectations of the BOE.