Math grades improving at Sweet Home High School
by DAVID F. SHERMAN Managing Editor

The Sweet Home High School math department is making significant strides in efforts to improve the test scores and proficiency of all students, according to administrators and teachers who made a presentation Jan. 16 to the Board of Education.

High School Principal Joleen Reinholz said the faculty strives for "continual improvement" by creating a professional learning community modeled after other schools in the country.

A school that operates as a "professional learning community" engages the entire group of professionals for learning within a supportive, self-created community, according to Melanie S. Morrissey of the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.

"Teacher and administrator learning is more complex, deeper, and more fruitful in a social setting, where participants can interact, test their ideas, challenge their inferences and interpretations, and process new information with each other. The professional learning community provides a setting that is richer and more stimulating."

Sweet Home math teacher Dave Gerspach said the effort is about more than grades on a report card.

"All students have the opportunity to reach their full potential in math, in order to gain appreciation for its value," he told the board. "During the past three years, we have seen more students passing the courses and mastering the courses."

Results from 2003 revealed that less than 65 percent of the students passed Math 1, putting them in jeopardy of not graduating, he said. The solution was to focus on students enrolled in Math 1 and Math 2 to make them stronger for Math 3. Academic intervention teachers were in constant communication to help the failing students, a move that virtually guaranteed all students would have the same experience as in any other class.

Faculty also shared the same planning time in the eighth period of each school day.

"There were common assessments and the same unit tests, allowing the results to be analyzed equally, Gerspach added.

The results were positive, keeping the team on track for its goal to have 90 percent of the students pass the local assessment this year.

Faculty members said putting in this effort at the earlier class level has boosted enrollment "substantially" in Math 3 during the last four years.

"We have had better passing rates across the lower levels. Promoting them to take this higher level course creates less of a concern for graduation," he said.

Approximately 60 Sweet Home students choose to take a fifth year of math.

Gerspach said the district should continue and actually extend its academic intervention services for math so that the students can reach their potential and the department can achieve its mission.

In other district news:

The final meeting of the Sweet Home Redistricting Task Force will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 29 in the Norman Vergils Community Center in the high school, 1901 Sweet Home Road.

The task force has been studying options for potentially redistricting the attendance zones established for the district's four elementary schools.

A formal recommendation will be made to the Board of Education prior to the Tuesday, Feb. 13 public meeting.