May 8, 2013 at 5:02 p.m.
Panel approves SIM hiring
Panel approves SIM hiring
If approved by the full Board of Education, half of the cost of the position will be covered by special education flow-through dollars. The position is expected to last only one year.
Director of Curriculum Kelli Jacobi and Assistant Superintendent Dave Wall explained why the position is needed.
"It fits so well with our RTI umbrella that we started thinking immediately about how we could do it," Jacobi said.
"This is a model out of the University of Kansas that has been around for 20-plus years. It is not brand new. They've had wonderful results and the research is there to back that up."
At its crux, the program is about teaching older students how to become successful in their educational endeavors.
"It is about teaching students strategies to become successful. It's often used with special education students but can be used with all students who are struggling. It's important that our regular education teachers understand the strategies because it's not just a special education issue. The kids need to be encouraged to use these strategies and actually use these strategies throughout the day," Jacobi said.
"We have to stop helping our kids just pass a class. We can't just help them do their math homework or their reading homework. We have to be working on strategies to help them be successful when they don't have an adult sitting there helping them with their homework. That's what this does."
Wall said the program would create a common framework students could easily understand.
"At the secondary level, as the kids get older, they're left up to their own devices to figure out how teachers teach. Every teacher has a different approach to how they instruct students which really puts students at a disadvantage. There's no common framework. What SIM does is allow teachers to put into a framework the lessons, the benchmarks, the standards that students need to attain during a given period of time," Wall said.
"So, as one student goes to another teacher's classroom or another content area, it's a similar sort of approach. There's still autonomy, there's still flexibility, but the framework is there which does not currently exist and the lack of that existing contributes to the achievement gap."
This is the logical next step in the district's ongoing RTI efforts, according to Jacobi.
"This fits under all of the Response to Intervention strategies we've been working on. This is that tier support that's currently missing. In the kindergarten through third grade buildings, we have that ERE, the Early Reading Empowerment to help the young ones with the reading strategies that they're missing. This is for older students, fourth grade through 12th," Jacobi said.
The position would only be for a year, as the plan is to train a couple of faculty members during that time who could step in and become SIM coaches themselves.
"We want to be able to do it much in the way that we did our early reading empowerment training. We want to make sure that we're providing it to all of our teachers at the levels involved," Jacobi said, explaining that the plan is to have some faculty members trained in the implementation of the program so that future training can be taken care of in-house.
"We want to have somebody in house, not an administrator, but a teacher/coach that can help with this process in the future and be there to model for the teachers in the classroom, to work through the problems that arise."
"We want to have someone trained so that we can sustain this," Wall added.
Committee Chairperson Judy Conlin was supportive of the plan.
"This is now another layer that adds more supports and has the research behind it to help our kids succeed," Conlin said.
Mary Peterson also put her support behind the proposal.
"Every kid should have all of the same tools," she said.
The issue will now go before the full board.
RHS report cards
Also Monday, Rhinelander High School (RHS) Principal David Ditzler gave the committee a status report on the school's attempt to eliminate F grades for students who have not completed work. Instead of F's, students are receiving an "incomplete" until the work is finished.
"This current year, we adopted, as much as we could, having zeros not bring students grades down, and if the work wasn't finished, rather than a zero, students earned incompletes," Ditzler said. "When students did not complete all of their assignments, they would earn an incomplete ... and we then work with the students to make up that work as much as possible."
As for how much time students have to complete unfinished assignments, Ditzler said that's was up to the teacher and administrators.
"Board policy does not say there is a time limit. Administrative guidelines say it's up to the teacher and administrator to develop the timeline. I'd like to keep allowing students to make things up. I'd like it where incompletes don't ever just turn into an F because that would defeat what we're trying to accomplish," Ditzler said.
Since the change was made, the amount of F's handed out to RHS students is down or has stayed the same across the board in all subjects except for math.
Ditzler said he is working on plans to bring those grades up.
"The math courses are seeing changes differently because of the way students are interacting with the math curriculum," Ditzler said.
"I know that these grades will mirror what has been seen in English and social studies, but it will take a little bit more time and some renewed efforts with professional development to continue efforts to change instructional strategies."
Ditzler finished by informing the committee that he would be coming forward with additional professional development plans in the future.
"I will need additional staff development and support and resources so I'll be working with you to keep doing that. Every time an incomplete turns into an F, it defeats what we're trying to do and it hurts the student," Ditzler said.
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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