Benson High School Advocacy Project

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Benson High School Advocacy Project

• School Counseling Team
• Leon McKenzie
• Doreen Poling
• Janet Starosciak
• Barbara Ward
• Steve Wren (intern)

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Advocacy Project Goals

• To raise the percent of Freshmen that earn a
  satisfactory grade (A,B, or C) in Algebra.

• To raise the percent of Sophomores with
  unsatisfactory math grades last year to
  satisfactory grades this year.

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Reviewing the Data, Freshmen
More than 83 of Freshmen took Alg 1 or higher
by choice
of 9th graders
Trans math ended and Alg 1A started in 2004-2005
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Reviewing the Data, Math Class (2004 sem 1 data)
Its not just the freshmen struggling in math
Its ALL the FIRST YEAR math students
of A,B,C students
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Summarizing the Data Relative to Concerns and
Strategy

• Success rates in math are low for freshmen and
  all first year math students
• While there are significant differences in
  success rate by ethnic groups the team feels that
  helping struggling first year math students of
  all races will be more useful than targeting
  groups by ethnicity
• There is little gender difference in math success
  rate.

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Collaboration

• Counselors
• Administration
• Math Teachers

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Action Steps

• General Steps
• Presented math data to staff
• Math class rosters reviewed for proper placement
• Administration met regularly with math department

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Action Steps

• Setting Up a Math Skills Class
• Administration selected math skills class
  teachers, allotted FTE.
• Data committee set parameters for admission of
  students to math skills class.
• 9th graders from trans math class,
• 10th graders with D or F in 9th
  grade
• Students scheduled into math skills classes
• Letter sent home to parents of all math skills
  students about the new class and that freshmen
  would not be in health class this year.

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Results So FarData from the Math Skills Class
Percent of students with satisfactory grades,
First Semester 2004-2005
Math Skills Lab Algebra
9th graders 83 60
10th graders 82 47
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Results So FarData from the Math Skills Class
Number of Students
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Looking closer at 2004-2005 data
Success in first year algebra varies by race for
freshmen but the race difference is much less for
sophomores
with A,B,C
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Next Steps

• Arrange for MS and HS math teachers to meet.
• Look at second semester grades
• Arrange for data to track the exact same
  categories over time