The Riverside Township School District aligns it's curriculum and instruction to the New Jersey Student Learning Standards (NJSLS) and builds learning opportunities that support the grade level expectations set forth in the state standards. 


To see a detailed breakdown of the NJSLS for each subject area, feel free to check out the NJDOE sites for each content area below:

The New Jersey Student Learning Standards include Preschool Teaching and Learning Standards, as well as nine K-12 standards for the following content areas:

• Career Readiness, Life Literacies, & Key Skills

• Comprehensive Health and Physical Education

• English Language Arts

• Mathematics

• Science

• Social Studies

• Computer Science and Design Thinking

• Visual and Performing Arts

• World Languages

As of the summer of 2020, the NJ State Department of Education updated the NJSLS for all subject areas except Math and Language Arts, which were last updated in 2016.

The state has required that all curriculum be updated with the 2020 NJSLS in time for implementation in the Fall of 2022. Riverside Township School District is currently working to re-align the curriculum, instruction, and assessments to reflect the updated New Jersey Learning Standards.

 

In all grade levels and content areas, teachers facilitate instruction and learning experiences that guide students through Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge, starting with simple recall and understanding, and moving up to deep thinking that involves evaluating information and using it to create new ideas, processes, outcomes, and solutions.

Riverside Township School District's Gifted and Talented Program is a comprehensive continuum of instructional adaptation and educational services coordinated centrally, but managed through each building individually. 

Providing Tiers of Gifted and Talented Services K-12

As the first tier of instructional adaptations and educational services for students demonstrating giftedness in specific areas, teachers provide individualized instructions to maximize pupil potential by differentiating for level and interest. Daily lessons are modified to provide additional challenges as needed for students and the curriculum for all content areas from Kindergarten through 12th grade include differentiation strategies for high achieving learners and/or accommodations for students identified as gifted and talented written directly into the unit planning documentation. 

In addition to that comprehensive approach to personalized advancement opportunities for all learners, a second tier of services exists for students officially identified in the elementary school participate in an additional pull out program that is designed to challenge students toward continued growth by pushing them to develop higher level thinking skills, foster creativity, develop the ability to effectively express ideas orally and in writing beyond their grade level standards, foster increased self-awareness and goal-setting abilities, and develop independent task management. 

As students move into the middle school setting, there are various opportunities in addition to in-class tier 1 enrichment supports taking place. Students can work on "Genius Hour" projects during RAM Period, be a part of the Media Design Class, focus on their literature and art talents in Graphic Novels, work with the Robotics advisor, work with the Science club advisor, work with the Newspaper advisor, work with the Yearbook advisor, CAD and other offerings during that Genius Hour time to focus on targeted gifted and talented activities within their particular realm of specialty. 

At the high school level, gifted and talented opportunities beyond tier one instructional adaptations for all students (based on accommodations written into the curriculum) take place through the offering of advanced coursework in core content areas (Honors/Advanced Placement), the availability of electives specializing in potential areas of talent for specific students - including world languages, the arts, computer design/technology, business, etc. The high school has expanded these offerings by partnering with VHS (Virtual High School) so that students can advance in highly individualized areas even further beyond those offered by Riverside Teaching Staff. On top of the courses available for academic advancement, the high school also offers a wide variety of afterschool clubs, sports, and activities. 

Gifted and Talented Identification Process

Tier 2 educational services are provided based on an identification process utilizing multiple measures to generate a possible gifted populations, including district benchmark assessment data, NJSLA scores and teacher recommendation. From that early listing of students, the ELP/Gifted Program Evaluation consists of:
● COGAT- COGnitive Abilities Test
● Parent Questionnaire
● Teacher Questionnaire
● Renzulli- Teacher questionnaire on social behavior
● Student Grades
● Student Interview with ELP Teacher/School Counselor

Policy and Compliance

The Riverside Township School District's Policy on Gifted and Talented Pupils can be found on the Board of Education's Policy site, as well as being linked here.

Riverside Township Policy 2464 Gifted and Talented Pupils.pdf

On January 13, 2020, Governor Phil Murphy signed into law A4710, the Strengthening Gifted and TalentedEducation Act. The Act establishes school district responsibilities in educating gifted and talented students and requires that a coordinator for gifted and talented services be appointed at the state level. 

In compliance with C.18A:35-38 of that Act:
An individual who believes that a school district has not complied with the provisions of this act may file a complaint with the board of education. The right to file a complaint shall be set forth in the board’s policy on gifted and talented education. The policy shall be linked to the homepage of the board’s Internet website. The board shall issue a decision, in writing, to affirm, reject, or modify the district’s action in the matter. 

Any individual who wishes to act on this right should access the the Board of Education's webpage for district policy's specifically the 2000 section for Curriculum and Program Policies. At the bottom of that page, there is a link to submit a formal complaint regarding compliance.