School Improvement

This episode is about high school honor courses. HS honors class create academic Darwinism. Taking the top students in a grade and having them compete is not a good practice especially in smaller districts. The honors class deludes the quality of the regular classes and in small school the delusion is much greater. The best solution is to set criteria for a student in the previous class to jump up a grade. For example, an A in the 8th grade English class and passing the state assessment could be criteria to allow me to go to 10th grade English by choice not forced. The other option is to make any course available to be called Honors based on getting an "A" and creating a culminating experience in addition to the regular work to give honors distinction.  It can be a video, addition test, presentation, or a project. 
Don't allow honors classes to get you back into the GPA game and skew grade points. Just adjust the transcript to read Honors as the course name.

Trimesters.org - CLEP testing - Larry Bell - Merit Pay - Bart goes to SP.Ed. - Homework Strategies - CLEP - ASVAB

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.trimesters.org
Text: 269-449-6091

Guided Academics is a Tier 2 RTI intervention. The class is added to a teacher's assignment during the school day. The class can be taught by anyone, it is considered an other in the coursebook. I would keep the class at 15 or less and make sure that students who are attendance and discipline problems are not put in there. Everyday they get a 10 to 15 minute mini lesson on study skills and the rest of the time they work on their core classes. Sound familiar, yes this is resource room for regular ed. kids.
Here is the guy I would look at for study material. He is the real deal and an awesome presenter, his name is Larry Bell.  Check out his store on the website. If you have any other questions you can contact me at trimesters.org or [email protected].

Trimesters.org - CLEP testing - Larry Bell - Merit Pay - Bart goes to SP.Ed. - Homework Strategies - CLEP - ASVAB

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.trimesters.org
Text: 269-449-6091

I briefly explain the four options for students to get college credit in high school. The first is to simply go to the college campus and sit in on a college course. This option is the most authentic for content and atmosphere.  However, the timing of the course and the travel can greatly effect there high school schedule. The second option is to take a course online. This provides the greatest access to courses and the easiest to put in a student schedule. However, this option is also where student tend to get only 3 grades, A,B and F. The issue is being self motivated and being able to learn is this fashion on their own. I highly recommend that they have a content teacher as a tutor. The third option is AP testing offered by the College Board. This is the most rigorous of all college credit options and takes the most instructional time from your high school staff. The test is graded 1-5 with 3 being a passing score. The downside is that student get a one time test and all colleges treat AP scores a little different.  The majority of students in AP don't take the test or get less than a 3. The core AP courses require a full year of instruction, some of the lesser AP can be done in a semester or two trimesters. The under used option is CLEP testing which allows for all of the common college requirements to be taken on a schedule that works for high school. High school honors classes can be easily designed to cover the CLEP requirements and the student sets up the test date and time. Any student can take CLEP if they have the knowledge and a retest is an option three months later.  In short, are you close enough to a college to go their, a self motivated learner to go online, want to be challenged as much as possible and have a nationally standardized test to show,  or finally just want to jump start yourself for college by taking as many requirements as you can in high school.

Compare CLEP to AP

Trimesters.org - CLEP testing - Larry Bell - Merit Pay - Bart goes to SP.Ed. - Homework Strategies - CLEP - ASVAB

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.trimesters.org
Text: 269-449-6091

This is about the importance of taking College Algebra in High School. College Algebra is far more important than calculus at the high school level. About 70% of college degrees require 1 math class usually called college algebra. A high school student with college algebra done is 70% more likely to get a four year degree. It has always been the gate keeper for getting a post secondary degree. We don't have enough time to talk about why a social work degree needs to be able to do college algebra. 

 If colleges public universities not ivy league or private schools do a 4 year graduation cohort like public schools have to do it would be ugly.

If you have college athlete and the recruiter finds out they have college algebra done, they will go up on the list.

 I talked about CLEP testing and click on the link to learn more. CLEP testing can be done for almost all of the basic college requirements and is universally accepted. 

Trimesters.org - CLEP testing - Larry Bell - Merit Pay - Bart goes to SP.Ed. - Homework Strategies - CLEP - ASVAB

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.trimesters.org
Text: 269-449-6091

This is about helping to improvement secondary parent / teacher conferences. Make a policy of no grades less than a C- can be given without parental contact. No text message, voice call, zoom or in person. 

Trimesters.org - CLEP testing - Larry Bell - Merit Pay - Bart goes to SP.Ed. - Homework Strategies - CLEP - ASVAB

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.trimesters.org
Text: 269-449-6091

This is about changing the community access and perception of the school. Fill the stands and let the concession stands boom. 70% of your gate fees are home crowd, stop charging admission.

Trimesters.org - CLEP testing - Larry Bell - Merit Pay - Bart goes to SP.Ed. - Homework Strategies - CLEP - ASVAB

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.trimesters.org
Text: 269-449-6091

This episode does have some of my personal opinions about the need to prepare students for these tests. This preparation goes with creating a senior scholars program and college prep for students.  Much more on the trimesters.org website.

Trimesters.org - CLEP testing - Larry Bell - Merit Pay - Bart goes to SP.Ed. - Homework Strategies - CLEP - ASVAB

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.trimesters.org
Text: 269-449-6091

This is an important step in changing graduation from singling out students to recognizing the class. Check the website at trimesters.org for more information.

Trimesters.org - CLEP testing - Larry Bell - Merit Pay - Bart goes to SP.Ed. - Homework Strategies - CLEP - ASVAB

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.trimesters.org
Text: 269-449-6091

This is a very simple policy to help students and encourage them to retake failed or low grade Classes. By the way, we do not allow students who have a B- or better to retake classes to build their GPA. The second policy is on seniors taking their final final exams. Seniors should have the option to take them if they are in good standing on it can only help them basis. Good Standing means under the attendance limit, no major discipline issues, and passing the class. They can earn days off at the end and help their final grades if needed.

Trimesters.org - CLEP testing - Larry Bell - Merit Pay - Bart goes to SP.Ed. - Homework Strategies - CLEP - ASVAB

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.trimesters.org
Text: 269-449-6091

The third episode is about creating and using a common set of classroom expectations. This is a major policy for schools to create the culture of learning and respect. This policy also uses the process of the teachers coming together and voting on a policy they create and are obligated to support. Annually buildings should review their common classroom expectations, late homework policy and extracurricular participation policy. If you want more information and examples please go to trimesters.org.

Trimesters.org - CLEP testing - Larry Bell - Merit Pay - Bart goes to SP.Ed. - Homework Strategies - CLEP - ASVAB

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.trimesters.org
Text: 269-449-6091