Friday's Internet Edition, September 10, 2010.
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News editor - Editor’s Note: During a four-hour meeting on Saturday, CCISD trustees heard findings on various school programs. Due to the amount of information covered in the meeting, only the first three programs presented are covered here. The remaining three programs will be covered in next week’s issue. No action will be taken on the committee’s findings until a Feb. board meeting.
Sunset Review Committees for six Copperas Cove school programs presented their findings to the CCISD trustees on Saturday.
The first program on the agenda was block scheduling. Cove schools utilize the modified A/B block, where students attend eight 90-minute class periods over a two day period. This program was implemented in the fall of 1993 and allowed the district to adjust to the increase of 24 credits that was required by the state for students to graduate on the recommended or distinguished graduation plans.
The committee that presented its findings on block scheduling cited additional advantages to block scheduling Each day, students would have to complete homework from just four classes instead of six. Discipline referrals would be reduced due to less transition periods and the school would be able to have three lunch periods rather than two.
The last year of traditional 6-period scheduling, the 1992-93 school year, showed the attendance rate at 92.8 percent while the 2001-02 school year showed attendance at 95.7 percent. The drop-out has also been reduced since implementation of block scheduling. The 1992-93 school year had a drop -out rate of 2.7 percent, while the 2000-01, the last year of record, had 1,3 percent drop -out rate.
TAAS tests scores have improved with the school on block scheduling. In 1992-93, 80.6 percent of the school population passed the reading portion, while 83.1 percent passed the writing and 59.4 percent passed the math portion. In the 2001-02 school year, the scores were 95.4 percent on TAAS reading, 93.2 percent in writing and 91.2 percent in math.
The committee also found that block scheduling allows for more one-on-one student communication with teachers, more ease in balancing extracurricular demands with academic demands due to two nights to complete homework, fewer classes missed when a student is absent, fewer tardies and less student stress.
The effects of changing to a traditional schedule would mean the modification of lesson plans, lowering the minimum number of graduation credits, modifying the arrangement with Central Texas College in regards to certain courses, the reduction of lunch periods, the review of homework policies and possibly lessening the number of elective and advanced choices.
The committee’s recommendations were to maintain the modified block scheduling with a return to compliance with the district - adopted staffing ratio of 23 - 1 through the gradual reduction in personnel through retirement or resignation. The committee also recommended training current and new teachers on effective teaching strategies for block schedules and incorporating training sessions into the normal school day so that teachers don’t have to leave campus.
The campus site -based decision-making committee concurred with the recommendations of the Sunset Review Committee, as did the district site-based decision-making committee. The Sunset Review Committee was chaired by Mike Wilburn of CCISD central administration.
Another program under review is gifted education. Sarah Straley, committee chairperson, said the it’s not the program itself under review, but the structure of it, as a gifted education program is mandated by the state.
CCISD’s gifted program began in the 1970s on the Halstead campus with one teacher who served high achievers. Currently one teacher serves kindergartners, first- and second- graders on all campuses, while third- and fourth- graders are served by two teachers in established resource room on the Hollie Parsons Elementary campus.
Gifted students in grades five and six are served by one teacher on each intermediate campus and they meet for one class period per day. At S.C. Lee Junior High School, seventh and eighth graders are served by one teacher with specific subject input from content teachers, while students at CCJHS are served by content area teachers with state-mandated training. Students at this level meet one class period per day.
High school students are served by 19 trained content area teachers. Students are interwoven into the Pre AP and AP classes, which meet according to the high school schedule.
The Gifted Education program is funded by the state, which funds up to five percent of the students enrolled. CCISD presently receives $110,000 from the state, while the program costs $454,981. The net cost to CCISD is $344,981, which is mostly personnel costs.
The program is evaluated each year with a teacher, parent and student survey. These surveys show overall satisfaction with the program. The committee also examined state test results and found that all subjects were passed with 100 percent, although all objectives were not always mastered.
TAAS scores for students in the gifted education program are high every year, with the lowest scores at 98.6 percent. Students in GATE programs across the state show similar results.
Students are identified for the gifted program based on criteria that indicate a high likelihood of school success, said the committee, adding that it is unknown whether the gifted program results in high achievement in and of itself.
A study of other district’s programs did not reveal a structure that could be less costly or less restrictive to CCISD. In fact, other structures, such as Talent Pool, require more teachers and more material. The committee noted that most high schools use the Pre AP, AP or other programs to address their gifted. The committee also found that the present gifted education program does not overlap or duplicate another program in the district.
The committee stated that students in the gifted program are provided a forum for learning and personal growth and focus goals on individual goal setting, self-direction, organization of time and the wise selection of activities.
Other goals are to help students use critical thinking and to think more creatively, to be independent learners, to reach a high level of competency through in-depth products, to be self-evaluative, to develop their own values and attitudes and to cope more successfully with their giftedness in relationship to themselves and others.
The committee did not see that making widespread changes in the program would create a more effective or efficient program. They recommended that the present structure remain in place. Both the campus and district site based committees support the committees recommendation.
The Writing to Read program piloted at Fairview during the 1985-86 school year and became district-wide in 1986-87, presently continuing on six campuses in some manner.
The program is designed to develop very young students’ reading skills through their own writing. It was designed to operate in a lab setting with equipment such as computers, printers, tape recorders and expendable supplies. A true model requires a lab assistant.
WTR costs $47,234, personnel costs which are mostly funded by Title funds. The district would not realize a financial gain in eliminating the program.
Educational Testing Services, in an independent study, found that children learn with WTR, write better than comparison groups, have a significant advantage over comparison groups, compare favorably to other students and perform as well as other students on spelling. Additionally, teachers and parents respond positively to WTR.
The committee stated that the impact to eliminating the WTR program would be that children will no longer have the advantage of this tool for gaining literacy at an early age and that reading and writing scores may not be as high.
They also reported that WTR has been a valuable and integral part of the primary literacy curriculum for 18 years; however, the program is no longer supported by IBM and the software is becoming obsolete. Only the oldest school computers will run the program, the committee said.
The committee also found that there is not a comparable program available to replace WTR at this time. The program is not being used according to the model on four campuses.
The recommendations were that WTR continue on the three campuses that have a strong commitment to the program but be eliminated on the four campuses not following the model. The committee also recommended that the older computers from the four eliminated programs be reserved to keep the other three campus programs running for as long as possible.
Although the committee felt that the program is a good one, said Straley, WTR will end when the older computers die. In the meantime, the committee will continue to look for new, comparable software.
The campus site based committee had no questions or comments while the district site based committee supported the committee’s recommendations.
The other programs under review are academic teaming, content mastery and the Central Library Office.