TRENTON — Ten school districts in Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland counties are on the state Department of Education's list of “Districts in Need of Improvement” released Tuesday.

All but one of those districts — Pleasantville — were on the list last year, but five made substantial progress and could be removed from the list next year.

Statewide, 54 school districts and six charter schools are on this year's list. That's three fewer than last year.

State Education Commissioner Lucille Davy said 19 of the districts met state benchmarks this year, but are on hold to see if they continue that progress in 2007.

“I think there is more focus on aligning what is taught to the state standards, and more attention being paid to subgroups of students who are not achieving,” Davy said about the progress districts are making.

Districts that fail to meet state testing benchmarks in at least one of 40 criteria for two years in a row are included on the list. Districts must improve their performance or meet state standards for two years in a row to be removed from the list. The ranking is part of the state requirements under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The best news was for Buena Regional, which was removed from the list this year. Superintendent Diane DeGiacomo said grants the district received from the state allowed it to hire reading coaches and start after-school and summer tutoring programs that resulted in better student test scores. She said publicly funded preschool and better data analysis of test results also helped the district track and target problems.

“It's a whole series of changes,” DeGiacomo said. “I think preschool has had a huge effect and is one of the best things the state has done.”

Five of the 10 area districts — Galloway Township, Hamilton Township, and Hammonton in Atlantic County; Lower Cape May Regional in Cape May County; and Bridgeton in Cumberland County — made what is called AYP, or “adequate yearly progress” on state tests given in 2006, and their status is on hold for this year. They are still on the “needs improvement” list, but if their test results continue to improve or meet the state standards in 2007, they, like Buena, will be removed from the list.

Middle Township in Cape May County, Atlantic City and Greater Egg Harbor Regional in Atlantic County, and Cumberland Regional in Cumberland County remain on the list. Pleasantville was added for the first time this year.

For most of the districts, the problem centers on one or more small subgroups of students, which can be a source of frustration when the entire district makes the list. But state and local officials agree that identifying the subgroups has forced districts to pay more attention to them. Locally, special-education, limited-English and black students face the greatest struggles.

In Hamilton Township, elementary school special-education students met state requirements in math but not language arts. In Galloway Township, the small number of elementary school students with limited English skills also met state standards on the state math test, but not the language arts test.

“If the test had been given in Spanish, or Gujarati, they'd have knocked it out of the ballpark,” Galloway Superintendent Douglas Groff said. “You want to say, ‘Oh give us a break,' but that's not how it works. The goal is to educate all children. The staff has been doing a great job, identifying what the students need and how we can help them. We are making progress.”

In fact, all of the districts that remained on the list are making progress. Hammonton met the state requirements in every grade this year.

Atlantic City is one of 13 districts statewide that will get special state evaluations in early 2007 because it has not met the state requirements for the past four years. The district's students made progress this year, just not enough within every subgroup to meet the state benchmark. Middle school students showed the most improvement this year, but students in the high school continue to struggle.

Superintendent Fredrick Nickles said with the large number of non-English speaking, minority and poor students, it is a constant challenge to meet the state standards in every grade every year.

“We just had a student come in from Vietnam today,” Nickles said. “He doesn't speak any English.”

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