SALAMANCA — For the first time in several years, summer school classes for Salamanca students were held in the district, and school officials say that made the difference.
Assistant High School Principal Lynn Magiera presented Tuesday to the Board of Education on the success of the district’s summer school program.
“It was really great to have our kids back in the building for summer school services,” Magiera said. “Being able to focus on our kids, and us knowing our kids, what their needs are and the relationships that we built, helped to foster some more energy to get it done.”
Over the summer, the district offered several online courses through Apex Learning where students could recover credits they didn’t get during the regular school year. These included living environment, U.S. history, health, physical education, algebra II, 11th and 12th grade English and sociology.
“Those courses are not easy for everybody,” Magiera explained. “They go according to the student’s pace, but they only have eight weeks to get it done.”
The students came into the high school to work on the courses on the computer and had monitors in the room with them if they had questions, Magiera said. But students also had the option to work at home to do more or go ahead.
A credit accrual online courses was also offered for health class, Magiera explained. This option was for students who didn’t fail heath previously but wanted to get the credit for it over the summer.
“They wanted to move ahead and open up more room in the schedules during the day in the regular school year,” she added.
Additionally, the district offered traditional summer school courses in the classroom for ELA in grades 7 through 11, math for grades 7 and 8, algebra I and geometry, global studies and U.S. history.
“We had some fantastic results, from graduation all the way through summer school and the Regents exams,” said High School Principal Chris Siebert. “A lot of kids are earning credits that they didn’t quite earn in June.”
BY THE END of summer school, 44 students recovered credit for one course, 11 recovered credits for two and one student recovered credit for three courses. Additionally, four students earned credit for health and four earned credit for geometry, moving them ahead going into the school year.
“This allows them to accelerate as they move into ninth grade to take Algebra II, pre-calculus as sophomores, calculus college credit as juniors and then we’re looking to offer them Calc II their senior year,” Siebert explained.
“When students see what was accomplished by these kids over the summer, we’re hoping it will open up the doors for down the road,” Magiera added.
In August, the district gave Regents exams for every course they offered. Forty-four students passed their Regents exams, Magiera said, many for the first time.
“For some they had taken it before, but had upped their score,” she said. “When I looked at the scores, those who retook the Regents raised their scores an average of 13.4 points per test.”
While some may have only done better by one point, Magiera said one student improved upon his Regents for the living environment class by 37 points after taking the credit recovery course over the summer.
“Then we had one senior who successfully recovered course credit for two classes he needed to recover in order to graduate,” she added.
Magiera said it was great to have Salamanca students at their home campus for summer school after several years without.
Doing what was best for the students made the difference, Magiera explained, in that they were able to recovered course credit and not have to double up or repeat a class in the new school year.
“Plus, it gave us a chance to make improvements with our Regents exam scores,” she added.
(Contact editor Kellen Quigley at kquigleysp@gmail.com)
