Teachers Tap Into Students’ Needs With New Program

About 20 students walked across the lawn at Central Valley High School, picking up litter. It’s a nice way to enjoy a sunny morning and part of the community service project that’s required for TAP.

A roomful of students at University High School puzzled over groups of scrambled letters. You know the kind: “Fefeoc” equals coffee. “Ninoo” equals onion.

As U-Hi teacher Sue Hatch wrote more of the word puzzles on her chalk board, one of the students piped up: “You know, we really don’t care.” But a few minutes later, she was working on the puzzles with two other students.

This problem-solving exercise, also, is part of TAP - a start-up program that has won praise, and some criticism, in a recent district survey.

TAP stands for Tutorial Advisory Period. Both Central Valley high schools hold half-hour TAP periods, five mornings a week. Two or three days are advisory classes: mini-lessons based on a theme, or information about registration. The other days are tutorials, in which students study or get extra help from teachers. The same group of students, with all grades combined, reports to the same TAP teacher each day.

The school district surveyed all its high school students and teachers at the end of March. The district learned that, while TAP has its detractors in both groups, teachers tend to find more reasons to like TAP that students do.

Most teachers said the class gives them the chance to be an advocate for their students, to monitor their grades, provide ongoing communication between staff, students, parents and support personnel.

The TAP program has several goals. But providing an adult advocate for students is the top priority, said Kim Brunelle, physical education and health teacher at Central Valley High who led the district’s TAP committee in developing the program last year.

Brunelle sees signs of success, she said. One came the other day in an assembly where students were being recognized.

As one student was commended, “a teacher stood up and said, ‘That’s my TAP kid, that’s my TAP kid!’ We never heard that of thing previous to this year … where teachers are taking some ownership in the kids.”

Students said that TAP works well as a way to get information about school or school policies. It also helps with student registration, offers a convenient time for club meetings, study groups or make-up work.

Both students and teachers, overall, were critical of the lessons and school-to-work activities in TAP. Some teachers simply abandoned the TAP lesson plans.

Efforts to give the TAP lessons variety resulted in jumping around, U-Hi principal Erik Ohlund reported at a recent school board meeting.

Teachers and students found it difficult to work on skills, in the absence of any meaningful context. A lesson on note-taking, say, without something to take notes about, struck many students as absurd.

“Note-taking! That segment was heavily questioned,” Ohlund told the school board. “I think I heard from 990 individuals.”

Both Ohlund and Central Valley principal Paul Sturm outlined their plans to work with teachers to improve the TAP program.

One decision ahead is whether to regroup TAP classes into single-grade groups. That decision must come before any changes in the curriculum.

“I think maybe we overwhelmed the TAP period with stuff,” Brunelle said. “Maybe we need to work on the advocacy side of the program, and make sure we’re in tune with the kids.”