These questions came from the BLOG
How will students be held accountable for their learning and parents for getting the students to school?
We understand the need for accountability for both learning and attendance. There will be a grading system that awards some credit for the STEP classes and attendance will be handled as usual. Students will be expected to attend as school starts at 7:50 and the tardy and attendance policies will remain in effect. There is some discussion in the STEP sub-committees of creating something similar to the senior contract for STEP.
Why three regular days and two block days instead of two regular and three block or all block ?
The initial proposal included revising the number of block days in addition to adding the STEP period. During this process, it was determined that may be too much to accomplish and that the block day revisions were tabled for a later date.
Is there any way that PE could be done during the STEP period?
It doesn't seem likely that PE or any class currently offered would be able to be offered during STEP because the number of instructional minutes are not equivalent.
Also, will band kids have to go to O period PE when marching band is over and it's still first semester? If athletes do, it's not fair that musicians don't.
Advanced Band is a year round class and year round attendance is required to earn full credit for the class.
How flexible and how responsive to our kids’ needs do you intend the program to be? Would the teachers be available when she needed them?
Would student’s be able to skip the Step class on any given day in favor of the going to the core academic teacher with a class question?
Will students take advantage of the growth opportunity?
Will traditional grading potentially discourage students from stepping outside of their comfort zones?
If there is a grade for STEP could it be for attendance only and 85% could be an “A”?
What will the compensation be for the staff?
Are students locked into one STEP course for each quarter?
It is only reasonable to expect that once students have selected the STEPs that they want to take, they stick with them for the duration of the class. We expect some of the STEPS to be quarter-long, semester-long, and year-long. Our counselors already spend a lot of their time making sure that academic schedules and guidance services meet the student's needs. It could get all consuming if students can bounce around at will in their STEPs and counselors have to process STEP change requests for any student at any time. We do expect that students will be able to get passes out of STEPS to see their other academic teachers at predetermined times when these teaches have set aside a STEP to see their students.
Does this mean that they can potentially take 4 different STEP classes in a year?
Yes, but the potential is even greater. Students could take a different STEP every day of the week and switch them each quarter. Theoretically a student could take 20 STEPS a year!
Do remedial needs take preference on any given day?
Remediation or intervention will be given preference over elective STEPS, but there are five STEP opportunities a week and it is expected that as long as the remediation and elective is offered more than once or on different days students should be able get the intervention services and the enrichment of the elective or club STEPS. There will be some unavoidable conflicts that we can minimize with good scheduling. But in instances where conflict is unavoidable, the students' academic achievement or other needs will be the first priority.
What prevents kids from just "sleeping" in late and miss STEP?
Ideally, the opportunities to engage in stimulating and enriching electives, study hall to get caught up and organized, extra help from their teachers, a good loud alarm clock, the existing tardy policy, and insistent parents who support the school attendance requirements. School will start at the same time as it does now. It's just that the academics start a little later in the morning.
Since these are optional classes...with no grades...who cares if they attend or not?
The choice to attend school during this time is not optional. The types of STEPS students take are varied and range from Study Hall to AP Writing lab.
What do the teachers think of this proposal?
If the teachers think that this is bad...do you think that this idea will succeed?
As a student, I have heard a great amount of interest in regards to starting the school day later in the morning. Is this proposal even under consideration?
There is no proposal currently being considered that would start the school day later. One of the main goals of STEP was to keep the start and ending of the school day as close to what we currently have.
How does this affect 0 period?
It doesn't affect O period at all.
How are teachers supposed to finish all the required curriculum for students to be prepared for AP exams and other tests?
What evidence supports that a reduction in core instructional hours is a good idea?
Are there any schools that have successfully reduced instructional time and increased student achievement?
With just a 5 minute passing period, will a student be able to ask his or her teacher a final question if they need to at the end of class or for an occasional need to use the restroom??
If the STEP program doesn’t work, how willing will the high school staff be to go back to a schedule that increases instructional time?
Who and how will the program and participants be held accountable?
Are there benchmarks for success such as increased test scores?
Who monitors the quality of professional development?
What are the anticipated class sizes for the STEP courses, and will there be enough staff to teach them?
Have we considered pilot testing this program to see if it has any chance of working before we try it out on the entire school?
When will it be implemented and will there be opportunity for parent input to the process, which is only now just beginning.
What other alternatives have been examined, such as extending the school day, which now finishes for students at
What is it that we are really trying to achieve, and what metrics are we going to use in order to know whether we did a good job or not?
The following questions are from the parent evening that was held on May 7th
Will staffing become an issue, where will the teachers come from?
If the current plan goes well, will you be looking at the block idea?
How are you going to protect the STEP time?
When will the student choose their classes? Registration process?
How will you make sure the students get to first period? Father concerned about attendance
Why would you not just suspend students when they are absent?
We don't usually suspend students for being absent as it is often not considered punishment to tell them not to come to school for not coming to school. It is more likely that a student would be required to come to Saturday school or detention for excessive absences, tardies, or truancies.How are students going to choose? What happened when teachers pressure students to be in their STEP classes
Was any thought given to having STEP classes the end of the day?
What evidence supports that a reduction in core instructional hours is a good idea?
Could we pilot the STEP?
Would the 20th Century Institutes courses be held during STEP time or remain after school?
What methods would you look at to determine if this STEP program is successful or working?
I’m concerned about details, but it sounds like this is something that could work.
· Time line of implementation?
· This September, next September?
· The large number of classes, curriculum?
Will teachers teach what they want to teach? I’m worried for the middle student.
Where should students go to get an answer to STEP questions?
It sounds like this was driven by remediation- What percentage of students need remediation? 100% of our students need some type of remediation.- social, academic, or emotional
Click Here to see LCHS 2007 achievement test scores. Use pull down menus to select County = Los Angeles, District = La Canada, and School = La Canada HighHere you can see the percentage of students in grade 7-11 achieving below proficient across the tested subjects. Other criteria such as grades, teacher referral, counselor referral, and discipline referral will also be used to identify students needing intervention and/or remediation.
I’m concerned that the students will be stuck in a class for 9 weeks, how would my students go about not having this happen?
Will the information you provided be posted online? Could we have some type of web page so parents may ask, give suggestions- blogging?
Did you touch on the how this will impact athletic programs?
Will you be accessing the needs of the students and will you work with parents- report for parents?
