Eastern Regional and BCS working together to better assist students
By: Matthew Shinkle
Tags: Education, Students, New Jersey, Stress, Anxiety

Eastern Regional and BCS working together to better assist students

Stress and anxiety is a major topic that Eastern is looking to allocate additional resources to helping alleviate for students, while BCS is continuing to revise its curriculum and grading Matthew Shinkle Jan 3, 2019·4 min read

As the New Year begins, here is a look at some of the new or existing programs available to Berlin students this upcoming year.

Eastern Regional High School is searching for better ways to reach and help students affected by anxiety or stress. Whether the problems are caused from the school, such as classwork, tests or other students, or from home or the community, Eastern administration has identified this as a major problem for students.

The Sun previously reported Superintendent Harold Melleby stated administration was focused on the issue and wanted to make available better resources for students dealing with anxiety or stress.

“There’s a growing number of students that are suffering from anxiety and depression,” Melleby said. “We want to better service these students.”

Melleby said that although Eastern has a student assistance counselor and specific assistance groups at the school with the ability for therapists to be involved, the number of students going through these programs has continued to grow in recent years, signaling the need for additional help.

“I think it’s incumbent on us and that we have a responsibility,” Melleby said. “I view one of our primary responsibilities to be looking out for the welfare, health and safety of students.”

Melleby said three school administrators visited Ocean City High School, which recently created a program to better assist students, to learn more about how Eastern can go the extra mile to better reach out to students.

Additionally, the Camden County Education Services Commission, according to Melleby, is working on a way to connect with area hospitals and hopes to have something concrete in the fall to better assist students as well.

Overall, Eastern is looking to get ahead of the problem before it becomes more serious.

“What we’re looking to do is maybe make the services that we’re offering a little more therapeutic,” Melleby said. “By that I mean maybe having outside help come in … and maybe expanding our resources, as far as some of our support groups that we’re offering.”

Melleby said it’s all in the name of better assisting students.

Additional Eastern projects moving forward into the New Year that Melleby also spoke about include the continued development of a five-year Strategic Plan.

According to the district’s website, the Strategic Plan will be the centerpiece of Eastern Regional’s application toward its Future Ready School Silver Medal certification. Eastern received its bronze-level certification this past year.

More goals include improving the participation rate to 95 percent for the PARCC for students, to decrease the overall student lateness to school by 10 percent from 2015–2016 levels and to reduce freshman course failures by 50 percent from the 2015–2016 levels.

As for Berlin Community Schools, Superintendent Kristin Martello wants to continue air quality testing, after having had tests done over the past year due to concerns from the community, to ensure a healthy environment for students, staff and parents.

Martello says all tests have come back negative for excess levels over the past couple months, and the school has followed recommendations from the Camden County Board of Health, such as opening vents more.

The middle school grading system was changed prior to the start of the 2018–2019 school year with regard to the weight of homework on students’ final grades. Martello said BCS reached out and discussed Eastern’s grading policy and found Eastern’s homework percentage was much less than BCS was doing before the change this summer.

“We shifted by 5 percent in homework to be more in line with Eastern and due to parent concerns,” Martello said. “So far it’s been good and everything seems to be well.”

Martello said no additional changes are expected to be made at this time, however future concerns from parents or faculty could open up that conversation once again.

Martello also said Berlin and neighboring districts Voorhees and Gibbsboro have discussed math at the elementary and middle school levels, since students from the three districts go to Eastern Regional after eighth grade.

“The ultimate goal is to ensure that all students by the end of ninth grade pass the Algebra I assessment because that is a statewide requirement,” Martello said. “So we’re looking to do some curriculum collaboration there.”

She also said the districts are looking at the fifth-grade level to better prepare students early on.

Additionally, BCS is looking to continue multiple programs that assist students in STEAM and team-building practices throughout kindergarten to eighth grade through multiple initiatives.