Well, for years now, Asbury Park School District has pointed to its soaring graduation rates as proof of a successful turnaround.

The public school district went from less than half of students earning a diploma to more than 80% in just a few short years.

But an investigation by the Asbury Park Press found a different reality, a system designed to make failing nearly impossible, with students promoted despite chronic absenteeism and little academic progress.

Joining me now are two of the journalists behind the investigation, Charles Day and Frank Scandal.

And I should note that your colleague, Amanda Oglesby, worked on this investigation as well.

Welcome to you both.

Thanks so much for coming on.

Charles, let me start with you.

Basically, what did you uncover here?

Well, about the beginning of the year in January, a lot of lawsuits came across, and I was just covering my beat in Asbury Park, the school district.

And in the three years I've been at the press, I kept hearing the name "Rep-A-Let" over and over again, kind of as the catalyst for the issues going on now.

So when we started looking into what everyone on the ground was saying, from administrators to parents, that's when we uncovered what we found to be the 64th floor.

Initially, I was looking for anybody in the school district to just tout their accomplishments, because coming from a family full of school teachers and educators, a 20 percent jump in anything, the teachers won't shut up about it, and they'll be proud of it.

But I wasn't able to find that.

I found spotlight videos, man-on-the-street interviews, interviewing students from back then, but I didn't find anyone in the administration touting that 20 percent jump.

What I ended up finding was Dr.

Repollet speaking in Trenton about the 64th floor and how that was equity to all the students, and it kind of just kept snowballing from there.

And we should know Dr.

Repollet was the, Lamont La Repollet was the superintendent who then went on to be the education commissioner for New Jersey and is of course now the president of Kean University.

But yeah, what was the policy quickly and how did it help to boost those graduation rates?

Well, from what we could find and what we uncovered in the story, it only helped to boost the graduation rates.

The 64th floor essentially was just have what it sounds like.

65 is passing, 64 is not.

And that became the floor.

Now, it is normal within school districts to have, like, a 50 or 55 floor, essentially so if a kid fails early in the year, he's not doomed for that year.

The 64 floor made it so, no matter what they have a 64, they can do nothing all year, show up in June and pass one test or do extra credit stuff, as you alluded to earlier, and then have a passing grade, which is, you know, not, you know, just rubber stamping children through graduation.

Frank, one of the more surprising findings was that students were earning credit for tasks like babysitting, doing laundry, other household chores.

How did those types of activities qualify as academic work, at least in the school's eyes?

I think just asking the question answers the question.

I mean, nobody would really think it does, but it's a whole credit retrieval system.

It's not unheard of.

When I worked in Westchester, there was a similar system in New Rochelle.

So it's a company in Pennsylvania.

They pay for it.

There's thousands of dollars.

Most people would say doing laundry or babysitting would not really constitute tutoring or learning the subject matter as well.

And as you can see, the grades did not get any better.

The test scores did not get any better.

So while you're graduating another 35 points worth of kids, they're not coming out with any more measurable success.

So therein lies the, you know, when reporters Amanda and Charles and I started talking about this story, that's where the investigation went.

After all those lawsuits that we mentioned, that Charles mentioned and we wrote about, that triggered the whole, let's look into this.

It just doesn't make sense.

- There were some lines, Frank, from parents, students within the district that maybe you all spoke with, that there was an understanding that the diplomas students were getting might not reflect real preparedness.

- Yeah, well, that was what Charles and Amanda uncovered when they interviewed the teachers and board members and people from the outside.

They said, "This is not good for the kids."

And that's what they talked about is, "This is about the kids, and our job is to prepare them."

And there was a lot of people in the school system that felt this was not gonna help the kids.

So you had an administration that had a policy that Charles and Amanda dug into, but you had people on the ground, teachers, parents, who said, "Well, what did this really mean?

We have a diploma, but what does it really mean?

Did we fail the kids?"

And I think our story speaks for itself there.

What type of oversight, if any, Charles, was there for this or is there now at this point?

Well, first, I also want to add that a lot of the parents we spoke to this year were in some of these graduating classes from the last 10 years.

So they are the people that knew that these extra credit courses weren't doing anything for them.

And as far as what it is now, I don't believe the 64th floor is still in place.

The current administration is acting superintendent Mark Truppino.

And from what we could find, the 64th floor kind of started falling out with the previous superintendent, Dr.

Adams, but we kind of got mixed comments on that.

But as of right now, the 64th floor is not in place anymore.

I couldn't really get a straight answer on if there is a floor in place, but no one really defended it.

The closest that we got to anyone defending it as a policy was Felicia Simmons of the Westside Community Center, a former board member who was in the story, just pointing out that maybe for a short amount of time that this could have really been something good and worth helping and building something, but this wasn't supposed to be what it became for years.

So that's the closest to a defense that we heard.

You also reported about the, I think you called it the revolving door of superintendents that have been at the district, these lawsuits that you mentioned at the top of our discussion here.

Is there a sense that a lot of this or most of it stems from some of these policies?

Well, it's a tree, kind of like a coaching tree if you're a sports fan, right?

That if you think the coach is good, you keep hiring from that coaching tree, from Parcells to Bill Belichick.

This is similar in the sense that it was Repolet, then it was Gray, then it was Adams.

So they all were building off the previous one.

Now the current superintendent, Mark Giobino, is kind of the first one to break that coaching tree in the last decade.

Frank, let me end with you.

What type of response, if any, have you all been able to get from the governor's administration, the Murphy administration, or the previous superintendent, Lamont Rapoport?

Well, Dr.

Rapoport would not speak with us.

We reached out to him.

We realized that he was going to be the person we wanted to talk to.

He said, "Talk about this policy."

He already did it in a legislative hearing, so we're not sure why he wouldn't speak to us about it now.

In terms of Murphy, Governor Murphy's office, they gave us a statement that essentially skirted the direct issue, but talked about, you know, they thought he was the right person for the-to lead the New York-you know, to the New Jersey Education Commission, and then, obviously, he went on to it.

So some unsatisfactory comments, I would say, from those corners.

But the reporting that Charles and Amanda did got lots of response from the community.

And we're waiting to see if anything happens after that.

So Charles covers the community very well.

Obviously, Amanda's education.

So this was a great team to dig into it.

And they worked well together.

Thank you both, Frank Scandale, Charles Day, and to your colleague Amanda, thanks so much for sharing your work with us, for coming on the show.

Thank you, Brianna.

Thank you.

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