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Caroline L. Reutter School, Township of Franklin School District, Gloucester County 

Caroline L. Reutter School’s students ranked in the top 10% of middle and high school math performance statewide. When asked what accounts for such success, Reutter educators pointed to a model for teaching math developed by a district math coach that provides tiered intervention and remediation across grades K–6. Student placements are determined by universal screeners that detect each learner’s math fluency and skills (i.e., rapid recall of math facts and appropriate strategies). Identified students are enrolled in Tier 2 and Tier 3 classrooms that follow a structured daily plan: (1) a strategy-based lesson determined by the students’ diagnostic assessment scores, (2) a standard-based lesson from the grade-level curriculum, and (3) fundamental fluency goals, or goal groups, during which each student receives targeted instruction based on their goals. This school also developed a Tier 1.5 for “bubble kids” who receive push-in math support to prevent them from needing Tier 2 instruction in the future.

Sara M. Gilmore Academy, Union City School District, Hudson County 

Union City School District has tailored a bilingual instruction program to better meet the needs of its primarily multilingual student population. The program was designed to be culturally responsive and linguistically inclusive, offering students instruction in both their native language and in English. The goal was not just to teach English as a second language, but to support bilingualism as an asset, allowing students to develop literacy in both languages simultaneously. Newcomers with minimal English language proficiency are placed in a "port of entry" program, where instruction is provided entirely in Spanish. Students are then placed in an ML course. As opposed to some other districts, Union City has developed a bridge course where the general education curriculum is taught by a bilingual instructor instead of directly placing students into English language mainstream courses or solely relying on ML courses. The bilingual instructor of the bridge course is skilled in monitoring and addressing students' linguistic challenges, making the content accessible while gradually integrating English language learning. 

International Middle School, Cherry Hill School District, Camden County 

Students at Rosa International Middle School outperformed both the district and state in the NJSLA for mathematics in 2018–19 and 2021–22; their performance placed them in the top 30% of middle and high schools for SWDs. Their students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) also performed better than expected in both years. Rosa educators shared their efforts to enroll eighth-grade students with IEPs in algebra, which has been difficult to offer in the past due to co-teaching needs. Students with IEPs are supported through a consultative model in which the algebra teacher meets with a special education teacher once per week to plan IEP-driven accommodations. The math department recently created a “hybrid” seventh- and eighth-grade inclusion class that “compacts all of the seventh-grade curriculum and specific elements of the eighth-grade curriculum.” According to the Principal, this new course will “help... with [making] recommendations for [in- class resource] students and potentially resource students to go into eighth-grade algebra.”