School wants to raise the bar

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DIXON - Reagan Middle School officials want to raise expectations for some students while providing more help for those who struggle academically.

Principal Erica Crescio and Assistant Principal Matt Magnafici made a pitch to the Board of Education's curriculum subcommittee last week to toughen grade promotion requirements.

If approved, the plan is students will need to pass at least two quarters of their core classes - math, language arts, science and social studies - to advance to the next grade.

Subcommittee members agreed to recommend the idea to the board, which will vote on the matter June 25.

Under the current system, students must earn 32 points each year to move to the next grade level. An A+ is worth 12 points and an F is worth nothing, so conceivably, kids can earn 32 points in the first quarter alone.

"Thirty-two points for promotion allowed them to slide the rest of the year," Crescio said.

The new policy, if approved, should emphasize the importance of learning throughout the school year, she said.

"We did find kids tend to slack off fourth quarter. ... First, second and third are pretty even," Crescio said.

The change shouldn't affect most students, who earn the required 32 points a year without issue.

For those who struggle, however, it is a different story.

That's why next year the school will put into place Response to Intervention, a method of assessing and charting a student's learning ability. In it, kids who are not performing at grade level get individualized attention in all classes.

"Students who are struggling in reading and math will be identified, and spend time receiving extra interventions to get to grade level. It's a whole-staff initiative," Crescio said.

The school has had trouble helping such students. Now, if a student fails a class, he or she is put in the "Lunch Bunch" program - an adult-assisted study hall - until they received a passing grade.

Honors student Sara Peck, 14, of Dixon, just graduated eighth-grade. She agrees that programs need to be put in place to help kids, but before or after school, not during lunch.

"As far as Lunch Bunch, every kid doesn't like it because you're taking them away from the one part of the day they're not stressing out," Peck said.

About half of the kids in her school try to pass, and half don't, she said.

"There's definitely a lot of kids who don't really care about grades, and there's also ones who try but don't get what they're doing. I think as long as kids do their best, they should be able to get help, and if they pass at least one quarter and get all credits they need, they should be fine."

Kathy Etchison also has a daughter, Annie, who graduated from Reagan with honors.

Etchison said kids bogged down by the stress of not passing a class should have some help.

"Anything that improves standards for our children is a good thing, but I hope that they will work with kids at the lower end of the scale, too. You should provide some services, whether it's tutoring or mentoring, so these kids don't have that added pressure without support," Etchison said.

Students go to summer school if they fail two quarters in one subject, which happened to 90 Reagan students this year.

If a student fails three quarters of any core subject, they are held back a year. This year, seven of 204 eighth-graders were held back, as were three seventh-graders, one sixth-grader and two fifth-graders, Magnafici said.

Those are the students who continue to be the most difficult to reach, Crescio said.

"We have probably six to 10 kids in eighth grade next year who've already been retained one time. It's a bad scene when someone is retained two times. They become an outcast in so many ways," she said.

Most kids who are held back simply lack of motivation, Crescio said. "They are more than capable, they just refuse to do [the work]."