GILROY
– Separating students by ability and offering seven 45-minute
classes per day is the best way for Gilroy middle schools to teach
students, a district committee says.
GILROY – Separating students by ability and offering seven 45-minute classes per day is the best way for Gilroy middle schools to teach students, a district committee says.
The Middle School Task Force presented Wednesday night a glimpse of how it thinks academic curriculum, extracurricular programs, graduation requirements and other policies should be carried out at middle schools. The group is charged with designing one program for all GUSD middle schools before the start of the 2003-04 school year.
“We looked at several models for setting up the regular classroom day, but because we want to provide electives and intervention this plan made the most sense,” GUSD administrator Dom Galu said.
Having one set of instructional and school policies is important now that the district has done away with the magnet school format. In addition, next year all GUSD elementary schools will end at fifth-grade and a third middle school, Ascencion Solorsano, will open.
“That’s the rationale behind this effort,” Galu said.
As it stands now, the group is recommending three levels of classes in reading, language arts, math, social science and science. Students would be broken up into accelerated, grade-level and remedial (also called intervention) classes.
The seven-class, 45-minute schedule, which is used to varying degrees now at Brownell and South Valley middle schools, makes it easier for schools to meet the district’s time requirements for remedial instruction, Galu said.
Remedial instruction takes on added significance because of state mandates for student improvement on standardized test scores. Brownell Middle School has failed to meet its improvement goals two years in a row, meaning the state could intervene by replacing school management or, more likely, making the school change its teaching methods or materials.
According to the district, 71 percent of GUSD students are below grade level in reading. Roughly half of its students are below grade level in math.
Galu heads up the task force, which is made up of district administrators, teachers, parents and students. Wednesday night’s session was billed as a forum for garnering public opinion and input before it presents the plan to Superintendent Edwin Diaz Jan. 30 and to the school board Feb. 13.
“I was pretty comfortable with what I heard tonight. There really isn’t any major change,” said Kirsten Shew, the parent of a future middle schooler.
Shew and GUSD parent Stephanie Chisolm wanted to see more rigorous graduation standards proposed by the group.
The task force is looking at two options for graduation requirements. One recommends students maintain a 2.0 grade point average throughout middle school. The other would require students, for instance, to pass at least one semester of every year-long class.
South Valley Principal Paul DeAyora, who sits on the task force, defended the group’s recommendation.
“It isn’t as rigorous as you might expect, but it’s more rigorous than in the past,” DeAyora said. “We’re trying to give every child the opportunity to go through the graduation ceremony.”
