Wildwood Catholic Students Required To Take Remedial Classes in Public School Districts

ERMA — Seniors entering Lower Cape May Regional High School from Wildwood Catholic High School will find themselves at a disadvantage since Catholic Schools do not administer the state-mandated High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).
HSPA is used to determine student achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics as specified in the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards. The test is given to all students in March of their junior year.
At a Jan. 28 Lower Cape May Regional Board of Education meeting, Jim Neville, the father of a Wildwood Catholic High School junior, said if his son comes to the Lower school district and hasn’t taken the HSPA, he must take remedial math and language courses. He said that would preclude his son from taking higher level courses that would provide a better grade point average (GPA).
Neville said he received information from Faye Ball, special review coordinator for state assessments from the state Department of Education
He said he believed the remedial courses were for students who did not pass the HSPA, not for those who have not taken the test. Neville said he would write a letter to the state Department of Education requesting Wildwood Catholic students be allowed to take the HSPA even though they are not enrolled in public school. He said he would send the letter to Trenton via County Executive County Superintendent Terrence J. Crowley.
Neville said he believed it was unlikely Wildwood Catholic students would be allowed to take the HSPA. He said Ball told him if Wildwood Catholic parents write a letter to the board of education requesting their children do not the remedial classes, it alleviates the school board of any obligation they would have should the student not pass the HSPA.
Neville said his son’s college SAT scores put him at over 75 percentile of all of the high school students in the county. He asked the board take the SAT into consider and not ask his son to take remedial classes.
Board of Education President Richard Hooyman said the dilemma was Catholic schools do not require HSPA. He said the district’s policy was students transferring in from anywhere were required to take remedial courses.
Hooyman said Lower Cape May Regional High School Principal Joe Castellucci and Director of Curriculum and Instruction Christopher Kobik have been attending meetings on the county and state level to address the problem. He said the board would not be able to give Neville an answer at the meeting.
“I want the best education he can get and that isn’t being in a remedial math or English class,” said Neville.
Hooyman said it posed a problem to let one student skip the remedial courses but not another.
Lower Cape May Regional Superintendent Jack Pfizenmayer said he though it would be possible for Neville’s son to take Advanced Placement or honor classes along with remedial classes for a short period and then take another elective course.
Neville countered that electives would be less valuable than an honors course. Pfizenmayer suggested Neville and his son come in and look at scheduling.
“We understand this is obviously a real big concern,” he said.
Pfizenmayer said the board was considering a number of ideas as a solution.
Neville said about 11 Wildwood Catholic students lived within the borders of the Lower Cape May Regional District. He predicted three of those students would enroll in the Lower Cape Regional district.
The alternative is spending their senior year at Holy Spirit in Absecon.
Board member William Nelson suggested taking the remedial courses may “not be all that bad and not ruin your child’s grade point average.”
Neville said the GPA ranking for a level one class for an A plus is 4.33, for an honor’s class: 4.66 and for an advance placement class is 5.33. He said if his son is forced to take a level one remedial class, the best GPA he could get is 4.33, which would preclude filling it in with an honors class in the same timeframe.
The boards set an annual tuition price of $8,000 for students who wish to attend in the district but do not live in Lower Township, Cape May or West Cape May. Pfizenmayer estimated 41 students that live in the Lower Cape May School District could attend next year from Wildwood Catholic.
“If they were evenly divided amongst all the classes, there would be little or no impact financially to the district,” he said.