In last month's column, I explored a challenge educators face on a daily basis: the struggle to get students to complete schoolwork outside of school. If we were able to engage all students in completion of work at home, test scores would increase and the achievement gap would decrease.
So, how do we accomplish this? At the Hoboken Charter School, teachers have developed initiatives over the last year to address student failure to complete work outside of class. We refuse to lower expectations for children who have not completed homework in the past. Rather, teachers are seeking solutions to the challenge and experimenting with ways to successfully implement those solutions. Some of the strategies teachers are implementing are radically changing student performance.
For students who are struggling academically, we added a support period to the middle school schedules, through which the students receive support in homework completion, organization, and study skills with their core teachers. Teachers are also teaching study and organizational skills in class, so students are able to complete their work with greater independence. In addition, our teachers are available for an hour after school three days a week for homework help. Any student who has a 69 percent or below in any class is expected to come to all three days. At Back to School Night, teachers provided parents with their contact information so parents could easily discuss any issues with their child's teacher.
In addition, teachers have committed to updating and sharing grades with the students every two weeks. If a student's average drops six points or more in a class, the teacher will call the student's parents and make himself available for a conference with the student and his parents. Also, at the mid-trimester point, we mail a progress report home, which gives teachers an opportunity to see problems as they arise. How many times has a teacher averaged grades for the report cards and realized that a child went from an A average to a C-average or that a student missed one project and went from a C- to an F? Frequent grade monitoring helps to eliminate surprises for both teachers and students.
No longer do we hear students expressing confusion over their low scores. Now, students immediately feel the impact of a failed test or missed homework assignment. Teachers notice these initiatives have sparked a new commitment among students to complete all assignments accurately. Although we don't have perfect homework completion at our school, we are making gains as a result of collaboration among students, families, and teachers.