Jason Arndt, jarndt@shawanoleader.com
Students at Olga Brener Intermediate and Hillcrest Primary schools in Shawano will spend an extra 30 minutes per day on both math and reading/language arts starting in the 2014-15 school year.
Officials described what they called an intervention program, dubbed “Hawk Time,” to the School Board on Monday.
The intervention periods raised questions about how other classes would be affected.
“You added an hour. What else are you going to take off?” board member Beth McFarlane asked the administrators.
Principal Karen Smith said she expects classes will start 10 minutes earlier than usual at Olga Brener, lunch periods will be reduced from 60 to 45 minutes, library time will be reduced from 45 minutes to 30 minutes, and the snack/milk break will be incorporated into class periods to save another 15 minutes. That leaves about five minutes to be shaved from other areas.
Principal Troy Edwards told the Leader plans to incorporate Hawk Time into the schedule at Hillcrest were still being developed. He said the school would not change its start time or length of the lunch period.
He said the scheduling will be “quite tricky” and complicated, and would be developed further during staff training this summer.
“We are not taking anything away nor chopping anything, we are just refocusing,” Edwards said. “Our instruction times will still maintain Department of Public Instruction guidelines.”
Edwards and Smith said Hawk Time is based on a similar program they observed at Valley View Elementary in Ashwaubenon.
“We are always looking at our school and looking at how we can do better,” Smith said. “We were very impressed with what they were doing there.”
The 30-minute Hawk Time intervention periods will be a key part of the district’s efforts to improve students’ scores on standardized tests. After about a three-week assessment period at the beginning of the school year, all students will be placed in one of three tiers.
More advanced students will be placed in Tier 1, where one teacher will work with 25 students during each Hawk Time. In Tier 2, a teacher will work with four to eight students. The teacher-student ratio in Tier 3 is 1-to-3.
Students will have the ability to move up or down tiers throughout school year. Teachers and specialists will meet weekly to monitor the students’ progress.
“Every kid will get a targeted 30 minutes (in each subject) of intervention time daily,” Edwards said.
The intervention periods will integrate lessons from various classes to ensure there are no serious reductions in time spent on other subjects such as science and social studies.
“If a student is studying butterflies in science, he or she might be reading about it during the reading intervention time,” Edwards said.
Shawano schools performed below the state average in both math and reading last year on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination, which will be replaced next year by the Smarter Balanced assessment system.
Administrators say the Smarter Balanced assessment includes more rigorous content than WKCE and is more closely aligned with the Common Core State Standards.
Common Core, which has been adopted by 45 states, established consistent guidelines for what every student should know and be able to do in math and English/language arts from kindergarten through 12th grade.
Because the Smarter Balanced exams are computer-based, students also will be scheduled for 30 minutes of computer time each week to help bolster their performance.