Making The Grade, Or Not
Board member Trent Merchant tried to wrap his head around the concept of promoting students to middle school, who hadn’t performed at or above grade level in elementary school.
“We’re saying we’ve held you back once, but we’re going to send you on and hope you get it then?” Merchant asked.
Gorman and Chief Academic Officer Ann Clark said that struggling students in all grades receive extra support that prevents them from falling behind, even while they’re being promoted without technically being on grade level.
“The feeling was with that support in place it would be possible for the student to move on to the next grade level without necessarily being on grade level,” Clark said.
Some of that extra support includes everything from the district’s reading immersion program for grades K-3 to so-called Ninth Block, which carves time out from the regular school schedule where kids who need remediation can receive it.
The district also offers an extended day program for extra tutoring and establishes Personal Education Plans for students who score below grade level on End Of Grade exams, something required by state law. Through Supplemental Education Services, at Title I schools parents can get up to $1,500 worth of free tutoring for their children.
“Our students who are in trouble in fifth grade typically didn’t just get into trouble in fifth grade,” Gorman said. “They were in trouble earlier and we just missed it. That’s where we’re focused, on the interventions in elementary school.”
That intervention extends through the upper-grade levels, officials said, with extended day programs and EOC companion courses, along with alternatives such as Hawthorne High School, where students can take remediation classes while still being enrolled in their regular high school.
“We just don’t believe a student who is going to be 17 during their middle-school years is ever going to graduate,” Gorman said in defense of the new standards. “We’ve got to get them into an alternative high school program for them to have any chance. And they’re probably not going graduate from our traditional high school.”
With all the educational support and alternative programs CMS offers, school board member Joyce Waddell pressed officials on why the district’s dropout rate remained so high.
Based on data that tracks groups of ninth-graders across four years’ time and reports how many graduate on schedule, only 66 percent of CMS students accomplished the feat last year. Conversely, 34 percent of students who started ninth grade failed to graduate on schedule.
“If we’re doing what we say we’re doing, the dropout rate should be minimal,” Waddell said. “There’s no reason for failure, unless something else is wrong.”
Board member Richard McElrath said he was glad that the new standards allowed more flexibility for students to take additional vocational education classes.
“A child has to have a reason to come back to school when they find out they’re not doing too well academically,” McElrath said. “We need to give them a reason to come to school the next day.”
1 2
We need your help! If you like PunditHouse, please consider donating to us. Even $5 a month can make a difference!
Short URL: https://pundithouse.com/?p=2134
