Helping Students Succeed

• Reading specialist and/or Title I intervention
  
• Parent meeting(s)
  
• Homework Clubs
  
• Teachers staying after school on their own time to offer extra help
  
• Re-teach basic foundational skills
  
• Small group instruction
  
• Special education referral
  
• Converse with previous teacher(s) to find out what has worked in the past
  
• Referral to Child Study Team, which provides numerous suggestions for teachers to implement in the classroom
• Cooperative learning
  
• Peer tutoring
  
• Additional help at recess and snack time
  
• Read material to students
  
• Read directions to students
  
• Student can dictate answers to teacher or aide
  
• Use word processor to accommodate writing
  
• Restructure classroom setting
  
• Work one on one
  
• Check on student independent work early and often to ensure understanding and that he/she is performing task correctly
  
• Diagnostic evaluation
  
• Specific instruction in weakness
  
• Teach to child's strength
  
• Use manipulatives to make math instruction concrete
  
• Provide hands-on learning
  
• Multi-model teaching strategies
  
• Thematic learning that makes learning meaningful to the child
  
• Praise even the modest of gains
  
• Shorten assignments
  
• Teach study skills
  
• Monitor and assess student daily
  
• Teach note-taking skills
  
• Teach thinking skills
  
• Teach questioning skills for understanding and clarification
  
• Teach self-monitoring skills
  
• Use tape recorders for students to answer orally
  
• Use tape recorders to record stories or writing passages
  
• Use magnifying glasses to enlarge print so it can be seen clearly
  
• Establish classroom rules and procedures
  
• Adhere to classroom procedures
  
• Make certain that the student is learning the skill at each level before moving on to the next level
  
• Identify students preferred learning style and use it frequently
  
• Evaluate each task asked of the child and modify task when necessary
  
• Rewrite/restate directions
  
• Follow directions with an example
  
• Have written example for student to refer back to when working independently
  
• Start with a single problem and add more as student progresses
  
• Set goals with student
  
• Set goals with student and/or parent
  
• Establish criteria for successfully reaching goals
  
• Establish homework procedures with parents. In our tech programs, teacher assistants work with students in the Career Support Center in one to one and small group remedial sessions
  
• Adult education courses offered at SHS
  
• Students in danger of failing usually have little or no career goals, so we do vocational assessments to identify achievement/abilities as they relate to career interests
  
• Students are encouraged to tell their teacher that they feel they have gotten into a horrible situation grade-wise and ask the teacher directly, what they would do if they were the failing student.
  
• The teacher will usually name a few explicit things that the student should do.
  
• Come before or after school for extra help from their teachers. It is recommended that they make appointments in advance with the teacher to assure that the teacher will be in the right place at the right time and have the right materials ready to help that student.
  
• Start doing their homework every single night in that class. Many students who are failing are not doing it every night.
  
• Visit their guidance counselors or principals to strategize the problems. Often guidance counselors and principals will talk to teachers on behalf of students to see what the students can do to help themselves improve in the classes.
  
• Set up staffings, or have their parents set up staffings, at which their guidance counselor, a principal, teachers and parents all meet and make a plan for the student to improve in the class or classes.
  
• Ask their teachers to assign them a classmate who is doing well in the class to help them get caught up with their work.
  
• Students can request, or have their parents' request, weekly progress reports from their teachers.
  
• Meet with teachers during lunch and/or study halls to gain extra help.
  
• Subscribe to the math peer tutoring service, which is offered by the math team if they are failing a math class.
  
• Attend Saturday detentions to buy back tardies to class, if they are failing because of their tardies.
  
• Meet with their case monitor if they are receiving special education services.
  
• Attend summer school if they fail with a 60% or better or have an extenuating circumstance for having failed a class.
  
• Go to the Crisis Room to talk to a crisis teacher about the problems they are having in the class. In some cases, the student may be removed from the regular class and given the opportunity to earn the credit by doing the work with the Crisis Room Teachers.
  
• Go to any adult in the building whom they know and like to ask for advice on how to improve in the class.
  
• Go to another teacher who teaches the same subject or a related subject and ask that teacher to give them extra help
  
• If a student is struggling and is on IEP, we call a meeting to review the plan with the team, and try to fix the problem.
  
• For a regular education student, the teacher and parent meet, the teacher consults with others in the building (reading specialist, counselor, principal, nurse, sp. ed. teachers, etc.) to get ideas.
  
• We also have the formal Child Study Team that the teachers may bring the student to. At that meeting, all special education staff and specialists have input, as well as several classroom teachers. Sometimes we give recommendations to follow in the classroom, and have the teacher return to us after x amount of time. Other times, it is pretty clear that testing may be the way to go. Then, the teacher, special education teacher starts the ball rolling
  
• The Mentor Program at the middle school targets 'at risk' students that the program positively refers to as 'students of promise' -- we had 41 mentors to support 41 students last year. This year we will be initiating the program at the High school and 2 elementary buildings (School Street School and Maple Street School)
  
• Child Study. Any child, "in danger of failure," is referred for discussion. Our Child Study Team reviews the case and makes recommendations that may include curriculum and instructional changes, diagnostic testing in math or reading to determine the student's strengths and weaknesses, referral for services from the reading specialist, or the writing of a behavior management plan.
  
• Reading Specialist. Our reading specialist provides small group reading instruction to approximately 30 students. She also assists classroom teachers with modifying curriculum and instruction for individuals.
  
• Special Education Program; Approximately 28% of our students are identified special education students. These students have an individual education plan that we follow. Resource room teachers and special education aides provide additional individual or small-group instruction for these identified students.
  
• Incentive Programs. We attempt to encourage positive and constructive student attitudes through many programs such as the Accelerated Reader Program, Book-It Program, our school Character Education Program, etc. These programs reward students by recognition of their individual efforts.
  
• Summer school that provides an additional 19 mornings of math and reading instruction,
  
• Tutoring by staff members or by volunteers that visit the school on a regular bases,
  
• Teaching test-taking strategies
  
• Providing parents with materials for home instruction
  
• Advisor-advisee program - 1 X week - small teacher-student ratio, monitoring of performance, instruction on study skills and life skills
  
• Satellite program - 1 X week - provides an in school opportunity for students to receive extra help in a small group setting. This time is also used for enrichment.
  
• Agenda Books - required for all student
  
• Homework Hotline
  
• After School Help sessions - available up to 4 X week
  
• Before and after school media center availability
  
• Progress Reports - mid quarter for all students, individual students may receive weekly reports
  
• Team / Parent conferences
  
• Phoenix Alternative Team
  
• Academic detentions
  
• Instructional Modifications / Individualization of Instruction - ongoing for all students
  

Introduction

How to reach the
90% reading goal

District Data 2006-2007