A Karenina wrote: Sorry for the delay in starting this thread. It is no reflection on my level of interest.
Sorry for my delay in even realizing there was a thread about it! It is a reflection of my denser-than-uranium cranium!
After reading over the website for your school, I have a few questions:
How are students chosen? Is it voluntary?
Nope. It's involuntary. According to the "No Child Left Behind" law, parents can no longer override the school system for retention in the 8th grade. (Thank God!)
These kids have 6th grade or lower skills in the 8th grade by standardized test. Is there something wrong with them? No, they are perfectly normal, no specific learning diabilites, no special ed, no low IQs. Nothing. So why are they so low?
Life got in the way. Our kids have horrible home lives. Poverty is the norm. Single parent almost exclusively. here's an example: I asked one kid why she hadn't done her homework (she's a really neat kid too) she replied, "Well I was trying to do it on the living room floor, but my brother was smoking crack and then the gun went off accidentally and after the cops left it was 3 in the morning and I couldn't finish it.
Another replied: "After I leave school, I have to go to my job as a waitress and close at 1 am. Then I go home, feed my little brother and sister and then tend to my invalid mother."
Getting the picture?
How involved are the parents in both enrolling the students, and in keeping the school running?
they don't want to be involved with their kids lives, much less their school. I drag them kicking and screaming into my classroom and send them to jail if they don't insure that their child attends school. They usually say, "I can't make my child do anything." I reply, "You are the parent, that's your job." HB106 makes it possible to hold them accountable. It's our anti-truancy law.
Of course breaking the habits of decades is a tough job.
Who provides the funding?
Our District. We are a state-funded school. The question was "What can we do with these kids?" The answer was "Give them the help they need and the hope that they may rejoin their peers in 10th grade."
Think of us as an Educational M*A*S*H unit. We handle the trauma cases. All our students are horribly injured, educationally speaking. Some we lose, some we help to a certain extent and hope others can complete the process, and others walk away healed completely. Without us, they would all die (read that as "dropout of high school")
Why is it only for 8th graders?
Because that's the only grade in which we can override the parent's wishes. I've never understood that. why is it that if a doctor tells you that you need surgery on your leg, you always trust them, but if a teacher tells you, "Your child is not ready for the next grade." they are automatically wrong. It's not like you are helping your child by sending them to the next higher level unprepared. It's just setting them up for failure.
How did you start it?
It was a good idea on paper. We knew we couldn't send them to high school with a couple of extra remedial classes. We tried that and it didn't work. Too little too late. We certainly couldn't send them back to 8th grade. Where's the motivation to do good now? they would've destroyed those classes, and besides, it didn't work the first time...why would it work the second.
See our problem? Where to send them? So we thought up this school. Then asked for teachers to try to help the toughest, most hard core bottom 10% of all middle school kids.
2,500 teachers stepped back.
I stepped forward... I always was a big mouth. I used to say that if you wanted to call yourself a real teacher, you didn't just teach to the straight "A" students. You taught to the ones that sat in the back and told you, "I'm not learning anything and you can't make me." Now I'm putting my money where my mouth is.
Oh, and nobody sits in the back of my room! LOL! I make them all sit up front!
Do you know of similar schools across the country, or is yours the first of this kind?
No. As far as I know, we are unique. It's been a Grand Experiment. And so far, a very successful one. Out of all the kids we have helped in the last 3 years, 100% of which were at extremely high risk of dropping out, 3 out of 4 are still in school and doing well. Better yet, 6 of our kids are on the honor rolls at both schools right now.
Quite a miracle considering that they have had nothing but "F'"s for years.
You know the funniest thing? The kids are angels here. There is no "I'm the bad kid" persona. Everyone here is in the same boat. We'ver never had a single fight in three years. We are the Alamo. We hold out hope. No human being wants to be a failure. It was quite a shock to them to be held back, but we come along and say "Don't worry, we will help you to catch up."
Who wouldn't go for that?