COHORT CLASSIFICATIONS RESOLUTION NO. 1 NEW JERSEY SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION SEMIANNUAL DELEGATE ASSEMBLY December 2 , 2023 The following resolution was received from the Plainfield Board of Education (Union County): DELEGATE ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION WHEREAS, Beginning in 2011 , the New Jersey Department of Education began calculating graduation rates through the use of student cohort s in accordance with the Every Student Succeeds Act (“ESSA”) State Plan and reporting the information in accordance with the New Jersey Standards Measurement and Resource for Training (“NJSMART”); and WHEREAS , The Cohort model essentially tracks the number of students entering 9 th Grade in comparison to the number of students who graduate withing a 4 or 5 year period adjusted by the number of students who leave a school district; and WHEREAS, The method for accounting for and reporting students who leave a district, in general terms, depends upon whether the departure is verified or unverified, meaning if a student’s whereabouts are known subsequent to leaving the District versus; and WHEREAS, The current cohort statuses include the following: graduated (state version), graduated (federal version), on - track continuing, off - track continuing, active student - status unknown, transfer in, transfer out - inactive, dropout, and excluded from the cohort : and WHEREAS, Per the NJDOE, the “transfer out - inactive” status includes students who were exited with a transfer - out school exit withdrawal code in NJSMART b ut have not yet been enrolled by another NJ SMART s ubmitting district ; and WHEREAS, A student classified as transferring out “unverified” continues to be counted on the last attended school district; and WHEREAS , S chool districts such as the Plainfield Public School District with the high rates of poverty and non - English speaking student population are most frequently among the New Jersey districts with high mobility rates of students repatriating to their country of origin, allegiance, citizenship, or outside of New Jersey whose whereabouts are unknown or who have not enrolled in another New Jersey system; and WHEREAS, Although the students have exited the Plainfield Public Schools, they are considered as “unverified” departures and consequently, remain counted as part of the initial cohort for graduation rate purposes; and WHEREAS, The Plainfield Board of Education proposes that the classification requirements for cohort status “transfer out - inactive ” be amended in order to classify students who have exited the respective school system, but whose location cannot be verified following due diligence, be reclassified as “excluded” for purposes of the graduation rate classification ; and WHEREAS, The Delegate Assembly is the official policymaking body of the New Jersey School Boards Association; and WHEREAS, Education - related policies resulting from prior Delegate Assembly and Board of Directors actions are codified in the NJSBA's Manual of Positions and Policies on Education ; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That the Plainfield Board of Education proposes the following revised language for adoption by the Delegate Assembly and inclusion in NJSBA's Manual of Positions and Policies on Education : The NJSBA supports allowing school districts to classify students as “excluded from cohort” Once reasonable attempts have been made to confirm that the student has in fact transferred elsewhere, either domestically or internationally. RESOLVED, That this resolution be placed on the agenda for consideration at the December 2 , 2023 D elegate Assembly. Adopted at a regular meeting of the Plainfield Board of Education on September 2 6, 2023 Cameron E. Cox , MPA, SSS School Business Administrator