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Thursday, July 03, 2008

Students Get A Jump-Start

By Andrea Schoellkopf
Journal Staff Writer
       School is starting early, almost a month early, for more than 3,000 Albuquerque elementary students this year.
    Twenty-five schools in high-poverty neighborhoods are opening their doors for their youngest grades in an attempt to give them a leg up on the school year. Many of the schools started this week as part of the state’s Kindergarten through Third Grade (K-3) Plus program, which adds 25 days to the 180-day academic year.
    “Students lose math and reading skills during the summer,” Superintendent Winston Brooks said at a news conference Tuesday at Emerson Elementary. “This program is designed to combat that ... Our hope is the additional instructional time will help narrow the achievement gap” for children from high-poverty areas.
    Emerson third-grade teacher Terry Hanz works with a group of English-language learners who were at least two years behind in reading when they started last summer. By the end of the year, they had advanced an entire year in reading level and “were almost proficient” in their third-grade test results, which was more progress than their counterparts following traditional calendars.
    “I wish all of the parents would send their kids because it’s so beneficial for them,” said Hanz, who also adds some science and social studies lessons that she doesn’t have time for during the regular 180-day schedule.
    At Emerson, the enrollment grew from 100 last year to 148.
    State Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, who sponsored legislation for the program and its predecessor Kindergarten Plus, said districts are reporting “phenomenal” results in achievement, as the students progress through school.
    “These kids who get ahead (in kindergarten) show they are staying ahead of peers” in third grade, Stewart said.
    Schools in the state can offer the program if they have at least 85 percent of students eligible for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program. Some 50 of the state’s 89 districts are participating, Stewart said, at a cost of $8 million.
    The program is voluntary, and there are still openings. The students are assigned to classrooms where they will stay for the entire year.
    “This is not summer school,” said Mary Ellen Farrelly, principal of Emerson’s K-3 Plus.
    Alex Pastor’s grandparents figured he was reading at grade level, but still enrolled him in the program as a second-grader last year so he could quickly make new friends after transferring from a West Side school.
    “He was in the second grade, but he was reading on sixth-grade level by the end of the year,” said his grandfather, Kenneth Thompson, who signed him up again this summer “because he was getting bored here at the house.”