Community members use expertise to help students pass CAHSEE
Gilroy – The student was obviously struggling.
When asked to solve the math problem she reached behind her toward the calculator sitting on top of the empty desk. But Charles Horejs quickly reminded her with a friendly smile that calculators aren’t allowed – at least not on the California High School Exit Exam.
“You’re OK,” he said. “You’re right on the money. The more you practice the better you’ll become.”
At least 112 seniors from Mt. Madonna and Gilroy high schools need to pass the CAHSEE, according to results from the November test. A total of 77 GHS and 35 Mt. Madonna seniors need to pass one or both sections of the exam. The exam is divided into an English language arts and math section.
All GHS and Mt. Madonna high school juniors and seniors who have not passed the CAHSEE are advised to enroll in intervention classes, but parents may opt their children out by signing a waiver.
GHS Principal Jim Maxwell said juniors are advised to take the class but they really focus on the seniors who need to pass the CAHSEE. All the seniors and their parents have met with their counselors and signed an individual learning plan “in which the major point is to be in intervention class,” he said.
“We’re telling them your kid’s got to be in this class,” Maxwell said. And to the students “this is the last shot for you to walk the stage.”
Students have one more chance to take the test in March and if they don’t pass they won’t graduate with the Class of 2006.
That’s the main reason Horejs and other community members, who learned through the Dispatch and word-of-mouth that Mt. Madonna High School seniors were struggling, decided to give their time to the students.
The volunteers plan to assist three times a week, working with students during the continuation school’s CAHSEE intervention classes. Some tutors started helping out last week, but for a few, including Dom Galu, Wednesday was their first day. They’re hoping that their expertise in math or English and the individual help will give the seniors that extra nudge.
“I think that it’s an effort to fill in some of the gaps kids might have,” said Galu, who served as Mt. Madonna principal for five years, and who spent 29 years with the Gilroy Unified School District.
“One thing that’s impressed me is how serious the kids are,” he said. “They’re all focused. They’re all working hard.”
Galu’s observation was evident during the afternoon class. Students sat behind their laptops, polishing their English and/or math skills, while the teacher and tutors made their rounds. All of the computer screens were filled with practice CAHSEE problems and the students were concentrating on the work.
Although Galu’s background is in English, he’s helping students on both sections of the CAHSEE, while Horejs and Kai Lai plan to streamline their skills to one area – math.
When Horejs entered the Mt. Madonna classroom he wasn’t sure what to expect, but quickly learned the students are at a variety of levels and the major issue is many of the teens don’t have a firm foundation in math.
Some of the students never learned basic concepts, such as addition and multiplication, he said. That lack of skills was visible when Horejs was helping a student subtract fractions but she didn’t know the answer to 13-7.
Still, Horejs said he was “pleasantly surprised” with the caliber of students, pointing out that many were extremely sharp.
“I took them to the side and I said ‘Go to college. I don’t care how you do it … but try to continue your education,'” Horejs said.
For Lai, a former GUSD school board member and advanced placement tutor, the classroom is a familiar place. But tutoring AP students is much different his new project because he can’t assume that the Mt. Madonna teens know pre-algebra or geometry, so he has to begin with the basics.
During the week and a half he’ been tutoring, Lai has noticed that there’s three definite areas in need of improvement: organization, knowledge of mathematical terms and comprehension of confusing word problems.
To solve the word problem issue Lai told the students to never assume and if confusion arrives solve it as two separate questions. For example, if the question says that Jane took three nieces and nephews to McDonald’s and asks how much she spent, solve the problem twice first assuming that Jane has three nieces and then again assuming she has six nieces and nephews, he said.
Students take CAHSEE, which tests their reading, writing and math skills at the eighth grade level, for the first time as sophomores. If they fail to pass in the 10th grade, they have five more chances to take it before graduating.
