Past Principal Points
On
Struggling Kids
Over the past three years, AKCS has been giving
increased attention to those students who are struggling in school. While we
have long acknowledged that we don’t have the staff or space to accommodate
severe learning problems, we have always accepted students with mild or
moderate learning difficulties; and many of them have done very well, even
graduating from grade 12 at AKCS. About three years ago we
created the position of Remedial Reading Teacher (currently
Up until this year, most of our energies have
been focused at the elementary level where we have been trying to identify
children needing extra help as early as kindergarten and grade one and give
them assistance as long as they need. (Sometimes this may be for just a half year;
at other times it may be throughout their school career.) This year we have
begun to provide more specific training for our Teacher-Aides to enable them to
assist the youngest children so that our Reading Teacher can now focus on upper
elementary and junior high children. At this
point, we now have thirty-six children from K-8 receiving some kind of
additional support. This represents about 13% of our student body, and many are
children who would never get extra help anywhere else because they are not so weak
that they would qualify. We are trying, however, to be proactive and address
these issues as soon as possible.
At the high school level, we do not have any
remedial program in place at this time, so this is an area for future
improvement. On the other hand, Alberta Learning has approved several academic
streams with varying levels of challenge for students with different abilities,
so this need is largely (though not completely) met through the programs
currently available.
Despite our
progress to date, I know that there are a number of children still struggling
in our school. They may or may not be getting additional support, but the bottom
line is that they are still doing poorly, and (along with their parents!)
getting discouraged. We need to address this sooner rather than later. Through
the first two reporting periods, I have asked parents to meet with teachers and
make plans for any children who were experiencing difficulty. Sometimes this
has involved the use of special homework books, or some Friday detentions, or
assistance from a Teacher-Aide or the Reading Teacher. However, if you have a child who, for the second reporting
period in a row, is still getting two or more D’s or one or more F’s in the
same subject (in jr/sr high two less than 60% or one
less than 50%), then obviously our plans have not been successful.
As Dr. Laura often said, “Insanity is doing the
same things over and over and expecting different results.” If what we have done to date has not been successful for your child,
then we need to be doing something different. I am personally committed to
solving each of these problems over the next quarter. If it’s a character
issue, then we need to put appropriate consequences (positive and/or negative)
to bring about a change of behavior. If it is an academic issue, then we need
to either provide the support needed or modify the program in such a way that
every student can be successful. My initial priority will be to work with
parents of junior high students as I see that as the area where we need the
most intervention, but I will be happy to work with any parent whose child has
been struggling for some time and don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.
Please contact me as soon as possible and we will
get this under way immediately.
Principal,
Copyright © 2003/2004 Airdrie Koinonia Christian
School Last modified: