The Board of Education heard about NJ ASK scores, MHS making the National AP Honor Roll, the date for the legislative information session among other things at this week's board meeting. Here's a wrapup:

•  Dr. Christine Burton, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, presented a report about the results of the NJ ASK and HSPA exams. She told the board that in every grade except sixth, students faired as well as or better than other similar schools that Millburn is grouped with and compared to. Millburn also continues to increase the number of advanced proficient students while the numbers of partially proficient students shrink. However, sixth grade numbers were lower than they had been in the previous year, and Dr. Burton said she is looking into whether the dip is a result of the transition to Middle School or if there was a deficiency in an area of the curriculum or the studies. Yet, even with the lower scores, 93 precent of 6th Graders passed the Mathematics portion and 87 percent passed the Language Arts Literacy portion. In addition, all the schools, except the middle school met all 40 of the State’s Yearly Progress indicators and the Middle School met 39 out of 40 because of sixth grade. The district will post the report on the district’s website.

• Board members discussed at length whether to set policy to outline guidelines for teachers, coaches and volunteers for avoiding conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts when in a position to pass judgment on their own children or other children that could pose a conflict. Neither motion – either to create policy or review current policy – passed, but Crisfield told the board he would investigate what kind of policies, if any, other districts have that cover such conflicts and the board could decide what to do from there.

• Superintendent Dr. James Crisfield announced that Millburn High School is among schools that have been named to the Second Annual Advanced Placement Honor Roll nationwide. Millburn is one of 367 schools that made it onto the honor roll by having more students take AP classes and do well on the exams. Crisfield and the board commended Principal William Miron and the AP teachers for maintaining excellence while offering the classes to a broader range of students, which is how MHS made it to the AP Honor Roll.

• Crisfield also announced the date for the education legislative information session, which will include “hot topics” such as teacher tenure, charter schools, charter school reform, vouchers - issues that could come up in the upcoming “lame duck” session. Crisfield said all the representatives from Districts 27 and 21 have been invited to the session that will take place Wednesday, Nov. 30, at Mt. Pleasant Middle School at 11 Broadlawn at E. Mt. Pleasant Avenue in Livingston.

• District officials are still trying to figure out when Hartshorn and Glenwood students will make up the two extra days they missed after the snowstorm.  Dates under consideration include “recapturing” MLK day or Jan. 2. In addition, if there are any more days off of school either because of snow or power outages, those will come out of April Break.