GILROY
– California’s push to make high school diplomas more valuable
has local school officials on alert for students who pass classes
at Gilroy High, but fail the state’s mandatory exit exam in June
2004, to come back to the school with lawyers.
GILROY – California’s push to make high school diplomas more valuable has local school officials on alert for students who pass classes at Gilroy High, but fail the state’s mandatory exit exam in June 2004, to come back to the school with lawyers.
Nearly 200 members (33 percent) of the Class of 2004 still must pass the English-language arts section of the high school exit exam. More than 300 (54 percent) still must pass the mathematics section. The numbers indicate that some Gilroy High School students may have the required credits to graduate in 2004, but would not receive a diploma.
“That’s when you have to hire a fleet of attorneys because you might have kids passing your classes and not passing the exit exam,” Superintendent Edwin Diaz said Thursday night during a three-and-a-half hour special school board session where the district analyzed its latest student performance data.
Despite that concern, administrators, trustees and parents at the meeting endorsed the multi-phase plan GHS Principal Bob Bravo is implementing to improve student achievement there. The plan covers, among other things, instructional changes, new class offerings and increased remedial intervention for under-performers.
“I think it’s outstanding. He has a plan,” said GHS parent Jackie Stevens. “Separating kids based on their instructional level is a major change for the district. It’s a big philosophical shift.”
Gilroy public school students are showing a significant drop-off in performance on standardized tests when they move from junior high to high school. On reading tests, 10 to 15 percent more students fall below grade level when they move from ninth to 10th grade, district data shows. Trends in math scores are more static, but less than half of the district’s 11th-graders are performing at grade level.
The significance of the data gets gloomier as the deadline for passing a state-mandated high school exit exam approaches. All Class of 2004 students must pass both the math and English portions of the exam in order to receive a high school diploma.
Bravo warned trustees that Mt. Madonna High School, the district’s continuation school, could see an increase in enrollment by students who don’t think they’ll pass the exit exam. Bravo figures that some GHS students will intentionally fall short of their required credits to graduate, making them eligible to pursue those credits in a fifth year of high school at Mt. Madonna. The fifth year of instruction would give them another year’s time to pass the state’s exit exam and get their diploma.
Trustees Bob Kraemer and Jaime Rosso encouraged Bravo and administrators to investigate whether the district could implement a five-year program for under-performing students. Students would attend school for only four years, but would have five years to pass the exam.
“Maybe we could have a sort of red-shirting program like there is in college athletics,” Kraemer said.
This year’s juniors, the first class to be impacted by the exit exam, will get several more opportunities to pass the exam by June 2004. Three tests are given each school year and one more will be offered in the summer of 2004. English Language Learners get a one-year reprieve.
At Thursday’s session, trustees and parents expressed their clear support of GHS efforts to increase literacy and math intervention for under-performing students. Currently, the high school has six courses of remedial instruction offered during the regular school day. By January, Bravo plans to implement before and after school support classes that would include Saturday instruction.
The plan could, in effect, double the high school’s intervention efforts and make it difficult for some students to find time for elective courses.
For many students, Diaz said, “It’s really about changing the structure of high school.”
Bravo said he has identified eight GHS teachers willing to deliver Saturday school instruction and before- and after-school assistance. Funding would come largely from the state.
Bravo is also going to end the high school’s so-called pathways program, which emphasized particular aspects of the school curriculum based on an individual student’s interests.
“When the rubber hit the road in the classroom, we didn’t see a great deal of difference in instruction. We don’t think that’s the best way to invest our resources right now,” Bravo said.
The most severely under-performing group at GHS and across the district is English Language Learners. Across all subjects and grade levels, non-English speakers under-perform on standardized tests. In reading, 11 percent of ELL students are at grade level. In math, 2 to 25 percent of ELL students hit that mark.
Accelerated Literacy programs are in place to help students improve their reading by two grades levels per year. Another tutorial class is in place to work specifically with second-language students to prepare for the exit exam.
Part of Bravo’s student performance improvement plan is to have counselors, teachers and administrators interview each GHS student individually. During that time, students will be reminded about the significance of the exit exam and the classes they will be expected to take.
“As (the exit exam) gets more real, we won’t have to make (the remedial classes) mandatory,” Bravo observed.
