ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 16, 1996 TAG: 9604160052
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
A reading transitions program is being planned to raise the reading skills of middle school students in Pulaski County before they move on to high school.
Superintendent Bill Asbury told the county School Board Thursday that some students are entering Pulaski County High School without the reading skills they need to be successful there.
"We can lower the standards of ninth-grade English," he said, "or we can attempt to raise their standards to the ninth-grade English standards that we are requiring of all our children."
The second option was the only one which appealed to the board, and it voted 4-1 to proceed with a transitions reading program recommended by high school Principal Jim Kelly and Vada Boyd, chairwoman of the English department.
Rhea Saltz voted against the motion because, he said later, he had not been given enough time to study the proposal.
Kelly said transition programs between the middle schools and high school had been talked about for two or three years. This program would identify students not performing at levels expected for ninth-grade English, and place them in the transition program.
Students would receive credit for the class, but it would not count as one of the four English credits they must have to graduate.
Boyd said the program would focus on the student's reading and writing skills, and would usually be for one semester. "But if it takes two, then we'd like to keep him in there for two semesters," she said, until the student can handle ninth-grade English work.
School Board member Beth Nelson said the program would have to be evaluated by keeping data on achievement levels when students come into the transitions class "and then follow these students to see if indeed it makes a difference."
"What I want is teachers to analyze why ... what these test scores mean," Asbury said.
"Let me tell you, this has been going on for years," he said, and students have been graduating without having achieved skills in English, math and other areas that they need in life. "They're the ones you hear about from the employers," he said.
Pulaski County needs to make it clear that students here will not get diplomas if they cannot read, write or compute at a certain level, he said.
"We've got to expect it of them, and we've got to help them," he said. "We can't just let them go. We've got to fix them."
Asbury said staffing needs for the program will depend on how many students are enrolled in it. "At this point, you sort of have to live within your means," he said.
Nelson said improvement in student achievement will depend on parents as well as teachers.
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