Santa Clarita Valley Plan Emphasizes Remedial Work : Program to Send Some Failing 8th-Graders to High School

Promotion to high school will be easier for Santa Clarita Valley eighth-graders with failing grades.

But once they reach their new campus, the youngsters will be channeled into an intensive program to improve their scholastic performance, William S. Hart Union High School District officials said Wednesday.

The policy change is not an easing of academic standards, administrators say. Rather, it is recognition that sometimes forcing students to repeat a grade does more harm than good.

“Retention does very little to improve a student’s attitude about school and often does not attack the reasons for his poor performance,” said Daniel Hanigan, district assistant superintendent.

Additionally, the new regulations allow Hart educators to reduce the number of youngsters transferring from junior to senior high in the middle of the school year. Eighth-grade repeaters making this kind of switch arrived on campus too late for the first semester of yearlong courses, forcing them to scramble for a limited number of one-semester elective and non-academic courses.

For some students, this created a frustrating year that soured their attitudes about education. Officials added that many district dropouts entered high school at midyear. Last year, the district had a 5% high school dropout rate, the state Department of Education said.

“The student’s success potential was being hampered by retention rather than improved,” Hanigan said.

Currently, Hart district eighth-graders need a minimum of 107 credits to graduate from junior high. The new policy allows students with only 90 credits to be eligible for promotion if their principal recommends the advancement. Eighth-graders who receive such an “administration promotion” are not eligible to participate in graduation or any related school-sponsored ceremonies, administrators said.

With less than two weeks left in the school year, fewer than 90 of the district’s 1,300 eighth-graders fall short of the 107 credits and are in jeopardy of not meeting promotion standards, officials said. The number of those eligible to be promoted under the new policy depends on the grades on their final report cards, administrators said.

Once in high school, many of these special ninth-grade students will enroll in a newly developed remedial program. In the first year, the youngsters will spend half of the day in one classroom with the same instructor who will teach math, science and English.

For the second part of the day, the students move from classroom to classroom for electives and non-academic courses.

Students in the special program receive regular high school credit for all work done and should be able to complete high school in the usual four years.

This type of sheltered program provides students with individual attention they may not otherwise receive, the educators said.

In the 10th grade, the students will join the regular high school program and be assigned to special guidance sessions. Their course selections, attendance, discipline referrals and grades will be closely monitored by counselors, officials said. The students will take aptitude and occupational tests, the results of which will be discussed at a meeting with their parents.

Monitoring of the students’ progress and special counseling sessions will continue in the 11th and 12th grades.