William S. Hackett Middle School Tutoring Program Proposal

1. William S. Hackett Middle SchoolTutoring Program Proposal Extended Day Committee Ava Holt Chris LaBuda Kathy Schnurr Valarie Karas Vince Avila

2. Objective • The Extended Day Committee has been tasked with creating a tutoring program at Hackett Middle School.  This program is designed to provide opportunities for students to get extra help, to make up work, and to foster their overall academic success. In addition, this program can be used to provide enrichment or to extend lessons. Overall, our objective is to provide students with multiple opportunities for success.

3. Related Data • Presently, of the 595 students at Hackett Middle School, 304 students are failing at least one class. Another 212 students made honor roll last quarter. We would like to address the dichotomy highlighted by this data.

4. Program Overview • The proposed program will offer tutoring services to students who are failing one or more classes at Hackett. Tutoring will be available from 3:15-4:15 Monday through Thursday - with two days devoted to tutoring in the core classes and two devoted to tutoring in elective courses. The program will also have hall monitors for safety purposes. Enrichment is another goal of this program and, therefore, presents an opportunity to extend lessons and challenge our students.

5. Schedule • Monday & Wednesday (3:15-4:15) – Tutoring Opportunities for Core Classes • Tuesday & Thursday (3:15-4:15) – Tutoring Opportunities for “Specials” or Elective Courses

6. Student Recruitment • Any student of Hackett Middle School may participate in the program. Teachers may encourage high-achieving students to attend for enrichment purposes. • Students failing one or more classes will be especially encouraged to take advantage of our tutoring opportunities because those students will be placed on academic probation for each failure. Such students are excused from the program once they are deemed “passing” by each of their teachers. • The parents of students who are recommended for this program will be contacted by tutors from their teaching team. This communication will relay the benefits of the program and ask for parents to encourage student attendance in this initiative.

7. Academic Probation • Students who are failing one or more classes will be placed on Academic Probation. We plan to use the most current available data to determine which students are failing. For example, if a student received a grade below 65 for second quarter, they will be listed as a student on academic probation and will not be removed from that list until their teacher informs the program coordinator that they are passing. • Students on academic probation cannot attend a teen night, field trip, or assembly. In addition, they may participate in extracurricular activities, but may not take part in games or productions sponsored by such clubs/sports/organizations. For example, a student on academic probation may attend basketball practice, but may not play in an actual game until he/she is passing all of his/her classes.

8. Staffing Structure • 1 Tutoring Program Coordinator • 10 Core Tutors • 8 Elective Tutors Art FACS Foreign Language (2) Health Music Physical Education Technology • 2 Hall Monitors • Substitute Tutors 1 permanent Unlimited on-call • Considerations for Self-Contained, Special Education Teachers Although integrated special education students are assigned to a team, we recognize that this is not the case for students in self-contained classrooms. Therefore, self-contained special education teachers may wish to provide tutoring services for their students and will be compensated (up to two hours total a week) for tutoring their students.

9. Teacher/Staff Responsibilities We encourage you to sign up to be a program tutor if you are interested. Otherwise, your role will be to: • inform students of their pass/fail status • inform students of the work they must do (or the concepts they must demonstrate mastery of) in order to pass • provide such work to the tutor responsible for your team or content area • make the appropriate changes (per the teacher discretion) to student grades upon receiving their completed work • let the tutoring coordinator know when a student on academic probation has reached passing status in your class. This will likely occur through email. We will discuss how these updates will occur with the “coordinator” once he or she is hired.

10. Timeline*** • January 18th – The Extended Day Committee presents the plan to the faculty at our February faculty meeting; interested faculty members sign up to tutor in the program. • January 30th – Staff (tutors and hall monitors) for the program are secured; data is assessed to determine which students should be especially encouraged to join the program. • February 6th – Begin implementing the program with students. *** NOTE: Our timeline will likely need to change due to the status of our SIG funding.

11. Next Steps • Teacher Sign Up – We have a sign up sheet in our meeting today. • Teacher Feedback Forms – Feedback forms will be passed out to each faculty member. We will ask that they return these forms before leaving the meeting.