School ‘zaps’ kids to improve their grades

On Wednesday, North Pines Middle School student Ben Driver accidentally left his social studies book at school.

That meant he couldn’t do his homework on American Indians of the Pacific.

And it also meant that on Thursday the 13-year-old got “zapped” by his teacher for not turning it in.

Starting this year, students at North Pines who receive a zero on any assignment are “zapped,” or selected by their teachers and parents for an after-school homework assistance program called ZAP, for Zero Acceptance Policy.

Students are required to stay after school for one hour to complete the work, or just get help if they need it. Students can participate by choice, as well.

“It pushes me to do better,” Driver said. “I get money taken off my allowance if I get zapped.”

The homework program is just one piece of a larger effort to improve academic success at the school through a state Comprehensive School Reform grant North Pines applied for and received in 2002. And it’s working.

Last year, 162 failing grades were given to North Pines students during the first-quarter grading period. This year, 91 failing grades were received by North Pines students. And there was a 30 percent increase in the number of students making the honor roll this fall.

The grant was designed by the state to help schools struggling to meet state standards, specifically on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. The WASL is the state’s answer to the federal No Child Left Behind law, which set the goal of having every child proficient in reading and math by 2014. The test is given to students in grades four, seven and 10 each year.

“When we hit 19 percent (of students passing) in math, I said, ‘This is it. We’ve hit rock bottom,’ ” said Principal Dave Bouge. “We also figured out that about half of our kids were about two years below grade level in reading.”

The school is receiving $70,000 per year for the next three years to improve student achievement through new reading strategies, increase the awareness of the achievement gap as it relates to teachers’ expectations of students from challenged economic backgrounds, and to increase parent participation.

North Pines, situated on busy Pines Road just north of Sprague Avenue in the Central Valley School District, has 52 percent of its students receiving free and reduced lunch – the highest of all of the middle schools in the Spokane Valley.

“This is a good, hard-working, working-class community,” Bouge said. “But right now, times are really tough for them.”

He said the school draws from a greater than average number of single-parent homes.

“Sometimes those kinds of situations bring unique issues,” Bouge said. “Teachers and staff here have been working hard to have a softer edge with the kids, and a more helping response.”

Part of the reform at the school is to try and get more parents involved in their child’s education. At the middle school level, that is increasingly hard to do, Bouge said.

“At this age, 12, 13, 14, parents start to hear, ‘Mom or dad, you don’t need to come anymore.’ It’s a natural growth process,” Bouge said. “But it’s also the worst time to let that go … at a time when they are needed the most.”

Teachers and staff at the school have greatly increased communication with parents, through regular e-mail or phone calls. They are required to call if a student has been “zapped” for after-school homework help. They also send more “good work slips” home to let parents know when their children do something right.

That’s working, too.

Last year, about 76 percent of parents attended a parent-teacher conference. This year, 94 percent attended a conference.

“We make all of the conferences, we haven’t missed any,” said parent Bill Meltingtallow. “We got a little ‘proud parent’ certificate this year that says we make all the conferences and we’re involved. That’s pretty neat.”

He also said that his son, William, has improved his grades and that he has fewer missing or late assignments.

“He was getting Cs, and now he’s getting mainly Bs and A-minuses,” Meltingtallow said. “I was really impressed. I think what they are doing is really helping.”

Each year the school is evaluated by the state to see how the money is being spent, and what programs are being implemented. This year, the state was so impressed, it offered more funding.

“They were very pleased with us,” Bouge said. “It’s very rare to get that kind of a compliment.”

The additional funding will be used for added curriculum strategies at the school as defined by the goals of the grant.

“They offered us the ability to shoot ahead another year … on a stronger curriculum,” Bouge said.

Currently, about 50 percent of the grant money is used to fund a program called CRISS (Creating Independence through Student-owned Strategies). CRISS provides an umbrella strategy for reading instruction across the curriculum.

The priority is on teaching the core subjects – math, language arts, science, and social studies – by using reading as the backbone for all of those, Bouge said.

“If the kids get the same approach in every class, they know it’s important,” Bouge said. “We want the message that reading is important for all courses.”

Every teacher is being trained in CRISS, and the school is encouraging fifth-grade teachers from the feeder schools to learn it.

“We need to recognize early when a student needs help, or is falling behind,” Bouge said. “Chances are, if you flunked the first unit in math or science, you’re going to flunk the rest.”

Through the school reform, teachers in the core courses were also given a common lesson-planning time to allow for collaboration. Teachers have 40 minutes a day to plan their lessons, and to talk to other teachers about students identified as needing assistance.

“We really couldn’t do that before,” said Diane Chapman, who teaches language arts and science. “We were just in our own little worlds, in our own classrooms.”

“I think we’ve totally turned around,” Chapman said. “The kids really understand that they can do better. And it’s not that they have to, but that they want to.”