A pair of motions passed during the May 21 school board meeting might seem unrelated.
One vote moved Evergreen Elementary school to school-wide Title I funding from the schools previous status as a targeted Title I school. The other move extended kindergarten instruction through the end of the day. Despite their seemingly different aims, both seek to address the needs of Evergreen students as early and as flexibly as possible, according to superintendent Rich Rhodes.
“It gives us more time with kids,” he said. “That’s one of the biggest pluses. It allows us to get an extra hour and forty minutes longer of instructional time.”
The extra time will allow Evergreen to be more
competitive in seeking out and obtaining the states coveted five-star ranking from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, a ranking which Stikine Middle School obtained last year.
“When you’re in a star
rating system and you’re
competing against other districts in Alaska and other schools, that’s an hour and forty minutes less instructional time that students are getting there,” she said.
The decision to move to an all-day system comes with a sacrifice, Rhodes said.
“On the downside, we were using that time to really target students who were not quite up to speed with the rest of the students, so we’re going to have to recalculate how we’re using additional resources in order to make sure that those kids that are struggling in those areas are getting some support,” he said.
Because that time will no longer be available to boost low-performing students, officials paired the extension of kindergarten to full-day with a shift from targeted Title I
funding to the school-wide system. The move allows the district to move portions of the estimated $193,000 annual
federal payment in the direction of programs aimed at helping those students, according to Rhodes. Officials had previously been required to identify
students who were demonstrably a grade behind other
students in terms of math or reading, Rhodes said.
“That now allows us to
utilize those resources more openly for all students,” he said.
In addition, officials and teachers are considering
building a rest or break time into the schedule for younger students unaccustomed to
facing a full day of kindergarten, Rhodes said. Officials scheduled a meeting with parents earlier in the month to discuss the changes. Parental response has been positive, Rhodes said.
The extension of kindergarten hours also aims to expand instruction ahead of the implementation of a new set of academic standards adopted by the state, said Evergreen principal Deidre Jenson. In addition, targeting students earlier may mean less work as they progress through to later grades, the educational equivalent of the Ben Franklin saying “A stitch in time saves nine,” according to Jenson
“I think we’re seeing overall there’s a need to get our kids ahead as much as we can, and make sure the gap is closed,” she said. “If we can can give as much instruction at the very beginning, rather than waiting a couple years and now they’re struggling, and now we need to do some catchup with kids. Let’s try to make sure they’re on track right from the start, rather than let’s see whose struggling and try to catch them up.”
In the past, kindergarten teachers did double-duty as “Title I” teachers, catching up the struggling students with their peers in the first or second grades, Jenson said.
“Now we’re saying, just hit them hard [with instruction] right away,” she said.
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