Staff aims for June vote on revamped schedule

Roseville High School administration may implement an intervention period schedule as early as next school year.

In a recent faculty meeting, administration proposed the new schedule to RHS staff to generate discussion amongst the staff until they come upon their final decision.

If the proposed intervention period is implemented, the 2016-2017 school year will consist of a regular Monday collaboration day and four “priority period” days, with the intervention period coming between first and second period.

The priority period’s teacher will dictate where a student needs to go during the extra thirty minute period in each school day. Under the current proposal, first period is prioritized on Tuesday, second period on Wednesday, third period on Thursday and fourth period on Friday.

Assistant principal Stephanie Malia states that administration’s decision to move forward with the intervention period is dependent upon teacher feedback. There will be a staff-wide vote on if the plan should go into effect with hopes of results coming back as soon as June.

“I would say if you want to make a change like this, especially bringing back something that people weren’t completely sold on the process in the beginning, you want to make sure you have as many people on board as possible before moving forward,” Malia said.

According to future assistant principal Anna Marie Clark, the plan is not set in stone yet. She hopes for the plan to include specifications for students who do not need to use the intervention period as well by offering larger venues.

“We don’t have a plan that is set, developed, and this is what we are going to do; this whole thing is in a discussion phase with the faculty,” Clark said. “One of the proposals is that if students do not have makeup work or need a teacher’s attention, there would be larger venues like the cafeteria, the library, or the theatre where they can either do individual work or collaborative work in the cafeteria.”

RHS had a similar program known as “Pairing Academics With Success,” or PAWS, five years ago. With a test run that ran as long as the second semester of the 2010-2011 school year and the full 2011-2012 school year, the PAWS program did not succeed as planned and was discontinued for the 2012-2013 school year.

According to counselor Graciela Fernandez, the PAWS program did not succeed because results were not seen as quickly as hoped, so the program was seen as a failure before it had its chance to fix the kinks. She hopes this new attempt will run successfully.

“I think any time you implement something, you need to see how it goes,” Fernandez said. “Obviously the first time we tried to have intervention, I think it was voted out way too quickly. People weren’t seeing the instant results that they wanted. It was kind of chaotic where people were ready to throw it away and I think as a staff now, people are more willing to give it the time it needs.”

Woodcreek High School has had an intervention period implemented into their school day for four years now, and WHS principal Jess Borjon feels that the program is attractive to students because it’s during school hours and not after school.

“I think the best way to describe it is to think if everyone at the school had to stay after for 27 minutes to be productive with their teacher,” Borjon said. “Instead, let’s take time out during [their] schedule for 27 minutes to go get help from any teacher [they] currently have and if [they] don’t need help, it will be a chance for [them] to get ahead on [their] classes. It is guaranteed four days out of the week and you don’t have to stay a minute after school.”|

According to Malia, in order for the plan to be successful, staff and students need to be on board and committed. Malia came from Spanish Springs High School in the Reno area, where her school had a program similar to the proposal for RHS.

“For it to work, everybody has to be committed to it, so we are trying to be mindful of the roadblocks we hit last time. You have to go in with a plan, you have to be committed, you have to give it time to work out the kinks. Give it time to work before you change it,” Malia said.

Borjon found through a staff-wide survey at WHS that 49 percent of teachers did not want to implement the program at first. After four years, around 82 percent enjoy the period and wish to keep it with only 18 percent wishing to go back to the old schedule.

AP Language/Composition teacher Deborah Sidler hopes the plan can be implemented at RHS.
“I think it is a great idea. The school I used to work at had a tutorial period for half an hour during the day and I found it very effective,” Sidler said. “My test scores were much higher at that school … I think any extra time with students is valuable. I think the process or idea is a good one, especially for Roseville, especially with how many people are involved in sports.”

WHS junior Maddison Christopher has seen a common interest of enjoying the added period from the student population at WHS and is thankful to have time during the school day set aside for extra aid, being the reason of success in the period on campus.

“Most students really enjoy intervention, I’ve never heard one student say they don’t like intervention,” Christopher said. “The students who use it for getting ahead or extra help really appreciate it because they don’t have to go after school. Whenever I struggle with what we learned that day in chemistry I am able to go in at intervention and have her teach it one on one to me and to have her help me with the homework.”

RHS sophomore Trinity Plummer values the academic benefits in the possible new intervention schedule.

“I mean I didn’t think that many students were failing classes, but I guess if it’s beneficial, why not?” Plummer said. “If I was failing I wouldn’t mind [intervention period] cause I care about my grades a lot,” Plummer said.