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Vineland Public Schools

Location

• Vineland is located in the center of southern New Jersey between Philadelphia and Atlantic City, 35 miles from each and just 110 miles from New York City and Baltimore.

District Description

Vineland Public Schools Administration Building

• Vineland is New Jersey’s largest city covering 69.5 square miles, larger in area than Newark, Camden and Trenton combined.
• The population of more than 55,000 is a culturally and economically diverse group working closely together for the good of the community.
• Approximately 60 percent of the students in the Vineland Public Schools receive a free and reduced price lunch.
• The mobility rate is approximately 10 percent.
  

Number of Students

• Vineland Public Schools has 18 facilities that serve 10,500 students.

Student Population Demographics

• The ethnic makeup of the student population is approximately
  • 31.3 percent Caucasian
  • 21.8 percent African American
  • 44.9 percent Hispanic
  • 1.7 percent Asian
  • .3 percent American Indian

Challenges Presented

• Vineland Public Schools identified the need to improve student’s reading and math scores in the classroom and on state standardized tests.
• In their search for a solution, functionality and price were among the top factors considered prior to the purchase and implementation of Pearson Digital Learning products.

Solution—SuccessMaker® Enterprise

Vineland Public Schools implemented Pearson Digital Learning’s SuccessMaker in 1998 and then upgraded to SuccessMaker Enterprise in 2003.  The programs are funded by District Board of Education, Federal Funding and Title I.  Vineland has a total of 327 licenses.  There are over 6,000 students in second through tenth grade using SuccessMaker Enterprise.  All elementary students use the program for both reading and math.  One of the high schools uses SuccessMaker Enterprise specifically for their students in the Special Education program.

High school students begin using the program early in the day.  Middle school students use the program later in the morning and after school.  Elementary schools students arrive at school just after 9:00 a.m. and use the program throughout the day.

Results

Cunningham Elementary School is an urban public school and part of Vineland Public Schools.  It is located in the center of the city of Vineland consisting of first through fourth grades.  Over 70 percent of the students receive free or reduced lunch.  The majority of first grade students enter each September at least two years behind in language skills.

The Elementary School Proficiency Assessment (ESPA) scores of fourth grade students at Cunningham were extremely low during the first year of testing in 1999.  Of these students only 24.4 percent were proficient in language arts and 42.9 percent in mathematics.  Cunningham embraced the challenge of improving student performance by concentrated staff development and the implementation of Pearson Digital Learning’s SuccessMaker program. 

The program was first implemented to increase math scores for all third and fourth grade students.  When outstanding results were seen, the program was also implemented for language arts.

As a result, ESPA scores have exceeded the state mean in language arts.  The graphs below reflect ESPA proficiency scores for language arts and mathematics during the last four years since implementation of SuccessMaker.  Cunningham is working hard to improve mathematics scores.

In 2003, the New Jersey Department of Education replaced the ESPA with the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK).  As represented in the graph below, third graders at Cunningham Elementary increased their test scores on the NJASK from 70.3 percent in 2004 to 92.6 percent in 2006.

Fourth graders also demonstrated substantially higher math test scores on the NJASK.  In 2003, students scored 67 percent on the test and in 2006, their test scores were 80.5 percent.

SuccessMaker Enterprise is also being utilized in the Before School Academic Program which targets needy children for extra language arts reinforcement.  Progress of these children was tracked, and the results were also astounding.

Since implementation of SuccessMaker at the district level, the Vineland School District has determined that using SuccessMaker Enterprise to supplement their curriculum has been particularly beneficial in increasing student performance on a variety of state and local assessments.  District level research demonstrated that increasing student’s time using the SuccessMaker Enterprise program significantly helped student’s performance on state assessments. As expected, recent test results for the district’s seven elementary schools were outstanding.

Contact us for additional information on how Pearson Digital Learning can help you achieve results with SuccessMaker Enterprise.