Restart Mathematics Jerry Fox Kenmore High School

CENTRAL-HOWER EAGLES

Who We Are  921 Students  443 Male  478 Female  67.9% African Americans  24.1% Whites  5% Asians  2.7% Hispanics  0.3% Multi-Racial  86.1% Attendance  83.3% Mobility  65% Low-Income  19% Attend College  81 Staff Members  9 Math Teachers  Inner City

History  3 Types of Algebra 1. Basic 2. Intermediate 3. College Prep  50% or Higher failure rate in lower level classes  We tried a mini-restart (don’t tell)

SURPRISE  The Last week of school, Board says  “NO class lower than Algebra I”  “No transition period”  “New curriculum and books”  “Have a nice summer”

NO WAY  We said…  “It can’t be done”  “We will lose over 50% of our algebra students”  “How do we teach to those not ready?”  We left for the summer very upset

An Idea is Formed

What If….  We take students that fail first semester and let them “Restart” during second semester  We can let some teachers teach Restart and others teach the regular students  Math Dept says “Let’s do it!”  Everyone else says “Oh my”

What benefits do we hope for  Students get more time to learn Algebra  Students will earn ½ credit instead of losing a whole credit  Students don’t have to sit in a class a whole year knowing that they cannot pass  2 nd chance with new methods

What had to be done…  Massive schedule changes  Get math teachers to agree to take the Restart classes  Get Principal to agree  Get the kids and Parents informed  Really do it

What happened  A very nice lady agreed to teach restart with me (thank you Nancy)  A Long term sub agreed to take 1 class  We sent letters home to parents and notified students

Road Blocks  Some students did not like having their teachers switched  Scheduling computer hated us  Had to do schedules at the last minute just before and right after Winter break  Had to move kids

Results  175 students completed Restart  60 students passed  115 students failed  Did not look good

Take a closer look  115 students failed  92 of those were attributed to poor attendance  Only 83 truly viable students in the program  60 passed  23 failed  It was looking good

Un-looked for benefit  82% of the students that had moved on passed the whole year of Algebra 1  Only 42 of the 237 students failed  Only 20 are due to attendance  With the attendance failures removed the passing rate increases to 89%  Board offered the second half of algebra I for free over the summer to passing restart students

What are the biggest problems  Attendance  Lack of skills coming from middle schools  Apathy  No parental support  Discipline

What made the difference  More time with material  Smaller class size  Different teaching methods  Homogeneous grouping of students  Committed teachers

Summer, time to think

What to do the second year..  Needed a restart class for the second semester of Algebra in the fall  Needed to add a few sections of Restart for Geometry in the spring  Pull out lowest skilled students at the end of the 1 st grading period and give them a skills class

What happened fall of year 2  349 students in Algebra I  195 failed  154 passed  56% failure rate  115 failures due to attendance  66% passed, if attendance failures taken out

Fall Year 2 Restart  43 students in Restart Algebra  28 passed  15 failed  11 of the 15 due to attendance  28 of 32 viable students passed

What We needed to do for Spring  Set up Restart Algebra I classes  Set up Restart Geometry classes  Schedule students into both classes and reassign teachers to teach them

How did things turn out Restart Algebra  155 students completed Algebra IA  73 passed  82 failed  59 failed due to attendance  73 of 96 viable students passed  Given a chance to take second half of class now in the summer

Restart Geometry  57 completed Geometry  40 passed  17 failed  8 failed due to attendance  40 of 49 viable students passed  Given a chance to take second half in the summer

Regular Algebra and Geometry  124 of 168 students passed the second half of Algebra (74%)  24 failures were due to attendance  86% of the viable students passed  164 of 180 students passed the second half of Geometry(91%)  6 failures were due to attendance  94% of the viable students passed

Time passed with many different things tried…..

Kenmore Restart I have to convince them all over again

Who We Are  1023 Students  445 Male  578 Female  56.6% African Americans  40.2% Whites  1.4% Multi-Racial  22.1% with Disabilities  90.5% Attendance  53.7% Mobility  62.8% Low-Income  19% Attend College  81 Staff Members  9 Math Teachers  Inner City  81% Graduation Rate

How did it work at Kenmore

How to do Restart the Easy Way 1.Convince Principal/Teacher 2.Align teachers in master schedule 3.Collect data 4.Switch schedules 5.Send out letters 6.Try something different 7.Collect data 8.Don’t forget to take out attendance failures