The district proposes a four-week, weekday summer program for up to 90 rising kindergarten-to-third-grade students at Ecole Toussaint Louverture Elementary School and Sheila Oliver Academy.
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A curriculum committee update describes a transformed ELA curriculum organized around weekly learning outcomes instead of end-of-unit reference expectations. Foundational skills are integrated with reading and writing, and grammar is embedded in the program rather than taught separately.
Livingston’s opening-of-schools report lists new and revised curriculum for 2026–27 across elementary, middle, and high school. Changes include AP Physics 2 and two AP Physics C courses plus AP Business Principles at Livingston High School; middle-school math offerings; and elementary ELA and science curricula.
Preliminary 2026 cohort data presented on September 28, 2026 records 185 students denied graduation from a twelfth-grade class of 794. Of those who did graduate, the numbers passing the state test directly were far smaller than the numbers cleared through the portfolio appeals process: at Trenton Central High School 261 in English and 105 in mathematics passed the test against 211 and 329 through appeals, and at Capital City High School 107 and 106 came through appeals. Separately, 2026 eleventh-grade results reported in August put graduation readiness at 38 percent in English and 28.4 percent in mathematics, and the district was told by the state that the results it received contained errors.
At the September 28, 2026 meeting the superintendent told the board the district's results from the New Jersey Quality Single Accountability Continuum review: 65 percent in instruction and programme, 95 percent in fiscal management, 100 percent in governance, 98 percent in operations and 81 percent in personnel. Because one area fell below the 80 percent threshold, state rules require the district to write a district improvement plan addressing the non-compliant indicators, and the superintendent gave the submission deadline as November 7. Committee chairs referred to it again later the same evening. This is the only place the result appears: no posted agenda, minutes or packet in the year records it, and the district's own accountability page carries nothing newer than 2016-17.
The board approved the 2026–27 high-school course catalog, amending its August agenda item to update dual-credit course names and revise science graduation requirements. The catalog lists 15 required science credits, with evidence-based courses covering physical, life, and Earth and space sciences, as well as engineering and technology.
From September 2026 Old Bridge High School students have accounts on MagicSchool, an AI platform for schools, and the district plans to add AI language to the elementary, middle and high school student handbooks. Students reach the tools through Clever with a join code their teacher provides, after teacher and student training. Student activity rooms stay visible to district administrators, the platform's built-in alerts and filtering are used to flag problems, and AI characters that act like people are restricted to staff accounts. The district says it will next pick selected elementary and middle school programmes to use MagicSchool.
The Board awarded Wilson Language Training a 2026–27 contract for a comprehensive structured-literacy program based on the Science of Reading. The contract is capped at $81,688.20; the minutes do not specify student grade levels or eligibility.
The September 15 board agenda proposes approving an agreement with Empower Somerset to pilot the Teen Outreach Program curriculum at Pathways Middle School during the 2026–27 school year, at no cost to the district.
The Board restored Ridgewood High School’s AP self-study option for 2026–27, reversing the plan to discontinue it. Students may again prepare independently for a self-selected AP exam without taking the corresponding AP class, following the model offered in 2024–25.
The Board approved new and revised curriculum for the 2026–27 school year, including Advanced Robotics, multiple AP and dual-enrollment offerings, revised ELA, math, science, social studies, world-language, STEAM, and other courses across K–12.
Paterson is expanding its in-district specialized education programs at Dale Avenue School and Norman S. Weir School for students whose individualized education plans require intensive support. The district says the added capacity is intended to serve more students locally and reduce reliance on out-of-district placements.
Orange Public Schools opened Orange Horizon, a new therapeutic center at Scholars Academy, for K–6 students returning from out-of-district placements. The program brings specialized support into the district, including clinicians and mental-health staff; no after-school program was planned at launch.
From September 2026 the district's English language arts curriculum in kindergarten through grade five is Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts. The superintendent described it as combining explicit phonics-based foundational skills with knowledge-building content in history, science and literature, and said the aim is to close achievement gaps by building background knowledge in the primary grades.
The Board's summer 2026 curriculum writing approval list includes new courses (AP Precalculus, AP Business and Personal Finance, Personal Finance and Career Management, Intro to Business and Marketing, Work-Based Learning) alongside revisions/rewrites to numerous existing math, science, ELA, business, world language, and visual/performing arts courses.
The Board approved its District Improvement Plan after the June 2026 New Jersey Quality Single Accountability Continuum review found the district’s Instruction and Program area at 77%, below the 80% minimum threshold.
On August 12, 2026 the board accepted an artificial intelligence literacy programme for its high school, sponsored by a technology company and delivered through an outside learning platform at no cost to the district, for up to 1,300 students and staff from August 14, 2026 to August 13, 2027. Separately, the curriculum management software the district renewed for 2026-27 at $36,592.50 includes a $5,000 option described as artificial intelligence curriculum for kindergarten to grade 12. The district has adopted no policy on student use of generative artificial intelligence; none appears in any of the policy readings collected for this page, including the complete recodification of the policy manual on September 23, 2026.
On August 12, 2026 the superintendent announced the district's new five-year strategic plan, Optimal Success: Forward by Design, running from 2026 to 2031. It replaces Moving Into Greatness, which ended with the 2025-2026 school year. The plan was built from community roundtable discussions held at Orange High School through the spring, with a final session on June 18, 2026, and the district's 2026-2027 goals were posted for public review at the same time.
On June 29, 2026 the board approved a resolution refusing funds from the state for the Perkins Secondary Consolidated Grant for fiscal year 2027, the federal programme that pays for career and technical education. At the same meeting it accepted other federal money: $4,565,836 under IDEA, $10,276,754 in Title I and $1,035,050 in Title III. The minutes give no reason for declining Perkins.
The board approved planning and opening the Johnnie L. Cochran Academy Gifted and Talented Program for the 2026–27 school year. The minutes authorize the principal to receive up to $5,000 for planning and opening work in July and August 2026.
The district selected Amplify Desmos as a single kindergarten-to-grade-five mathematics programme, replacing the separate programmes previously used in the lower and upper elementary grades. Teachers were trained on June 2, 2026 and administrators confirmed the launch at the June 23, 2026 meeting for the 2026-27 school year. The district is also looking at replacing the screening tool it uses to check elementary mathematics progress.
Hillsborough High School is planning to move from eight periods a day to a rotating drop schedule of six. The district told the board on June 22, 2026 that this raises daily instructional time by 16 percent, lengthens periods from about 50 minutes, and lets a student earn up to 160 credits over four years instead of 140, which is one extra full-year course or two half-year courses each year. It also creates an access period shared by every student at lunch, so clubs and extra help can meet during the school day. Staff visited Ridge High School in December 2025 to see the model working, and two Hillsborough students presented in favour of it.
On June 22, 2026 the board voted down a $25,000 long-term professional development plan with Living Yes LLC. The plan came out of stay interviews in which staff asked to present their own training, and would have trained administrators, brought in a keynote speaker and built staff presenter cohorts over six months. Members objected that the vendor's standard contract listed topics that 'may include' equity, implicit bias and restorative practices, which one member called controversial, and that the contract came before a detailed scope. The superintendent replied that the contract was below the bidding threshold and he had brought it to the board precisely for transparency, and that he had offered to have the presenter attend a committee meeting. Five teachers and the education association spoke against the rejection.