Schools to focus on black students

The Beaufort County School District has developed a long list of strategies to improve student achievement, with a specific focus on black male students.

The broad proposal includes additional teacher training, an increased emphasis on reading comprehension, and more summer learning and leadership opportunities for students.

It suggests a new program to give extra support to students who are held back in eighth grade so they can catch up to their peers by sophomore year of high school. It also points to the pay-for-performance model a state grant is supporting in the county's high-poverty schools.

The proposal follows a consultant's report the Beaufort County Board of Education received in January showing that achievement of black male students lags every other racial category in the district.

Just half of black males in the county's public high schools passed the state's exit exam on their first attempt last year, according to the report.

The report prompted the school board to make raising academic achievement -- particularly that of black male students -- its top instructional priority.

Sean Alford, the district's instructional services chief, presented ways to address the problem at the board's March 15 meeting. The strategies will be refined over the next few months as the district reviews them with school and community leaders, and they will return to the board for approval in the summer, he said.

Some of the strategies are new, while others are already in place. Alford said the district has been aware of the achievement gap through its own data analysis and was not surprised by the contents of the report.

For the past few years, district leaders have focused on achievement in historically underperforming and high-poverty schools through efforts such as extending the school year, adding magnet programs and attracting master teachers to those schools.

"It's not by happenstance that these same schools also have high populations of African-American males," Alford said. "These things go hand-in-hand."

This month's proposal shifts the focus of new and existing efforts to boosting minority achievement, instead of on specific schools.

Those efforts won't come at the expense of other students, Alford added.

"We have to maintain high expectations and accessible resources for every student," he said. "We are also at a point where we can no longer turn our heads and close our eyes to a dire need. We are going to muster every ounce of courage we have to do both. It's not an 'or' it's an 'and' ."

Denise Smith, principal of Robert Smalls Middle School, said some of the instructional strategies presented to the board are already in place at her school. For instance, improving reading skills is a schoolwide focus.

"Reading is where we can get the greatest bang for our buck in terms of student achievement," she said. "If we can raise our reading scores, we know it will boost other scores, because the skill is so fundamental."

Smith said teachers of all subjects, even elective courses, require students to read. Training sessions have taught them how to hold conferences with students to check for comprehension and teach specific reading strategies.

Part of the districtwide plan is to train all social studies teachers in middle and high schools to coach students in reading comprehension. Alford said social studies in particular offers a chance for students to practice reading nonfiction texts and primary documents, and this plan will encourage social studies teachers to take responsibility for improving students' reading skills.

Alford said he's also excited about the new Springboard Program, which is part of the plan. The district will identify and give extra support to eighth-graders who are either over-age for their grade level, being held back or at risk of dropping out because of academic challenges. That will allow those students to earn enough high school credits during the extra year in middle school to rejoin their class as sophomores and graduate on time.

"This allows us to capture those kids before they go into high school and make sure they have a solid foundation," Alford said.

This story was originally published March 28, 2011 at 12:28 AM with the headline "Schools to focus on black students."