Dear 8th Grade Students and Parents:
We are very excited to announce that we are going to begin a new class for each 8th grader beginning tomorrow (January 31st). For the first half of the year we have had all our Junior High students in technology classes, as directed by the IB program. However, we have now realized that many of our 8th graders in particular would benefit more from targeted classes designed to help them with an area of weakness, or greater potential strength. We are going to be referring to these as intervention classes, with each student assigned to a particular area of intervention based on their individual needs.
Our process for determining the intervention class for each student was this: on Friday, January 27th, the administration and all of the 8th grade teachers met together. We analyzed each student’s course work, class test results, and prior years CRT results in each subject. Using that data we went through an individualized analysis of each 8th grader to determine where we could provide the most impactful targeted interventions for each of them. Using this data and the teachers’ personal insight on each student, we placed students in subject specific classes (e.g. math, science, business technology, reading) or different study skills classes. While some students were placed in a subject class because they were struggling, others were placed in a subject matter class because we believe that they haven’t fully capitalized on what could be the subject of their greatest strength. Alternatively, some students were assigned to study skills to allow them to have more time to work on homework in subjects they already seem to grasp, while others were placed in a study skills class to work with a teacher on a particular need (e.g. test taking strategies or organization). These classes may be intervening where there is a weakness, a strength the student could maximize, a particular issue to be addressed, or simply to provide a new challenge to a student at risk of becoming bored in their current classes.
While some of these students may spend the entire semester in the same intervention class, other students may be rotated into various classes once a skill or subject has been mastered. We will communicate with your students when that is the case.
Thank you for the support in this change. We hope you and your students find this targeted approach beneficial.
Providence Hall Faculty and Administration
