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Program offers homework help to students in need
It’s 3 p.m. at Sweet Home Junior High and the students are long gone – most of them, that is.
In one classroom, approximately 10 youngsters sit at desks with their textbooks open. They’re not there, particularly, because they love studying. Most are simply trying to get passing grades and they’ve come to an after-school study hall to get on track.
“I was on the verge of failing eighth grade,” says Tanika Caldwell, who said she has been a regular at the study hall since it started in October. “I was having trouble focusing with a lot of kids in the classroom, so this is good for me.”
The study hall is funded in part by stimulus funds from the American Opportunity and Recovery Act passed by Congress last fall.
Joan Pappin, district health service coordinator, said its purpose is primarily to provide low-income kids and those with difficult home circumstances with tutoring opportunities. “Our goal is to offer a place to get their homework done with help,” she said.
In addition to the junior high program, a high school study hall, held on Wednesdays after school, began in January, Pappin said. The high school program is run by two educational assistants, Peggy Rolph and Debbie Johnson, and has drawn as many as 15 students in its first few weeks.
“We expect that to grow,” Pappin said. “So far it’s been great.”
The junior high study hall runs Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m., immediately after school ends. School Counselor Shelly Roe heads the program, with help from educational assistants Vanessa Gallup and Judy Hope on Thursdays, when they offer a snack in addition to “more focused help,” which, Roe and Pappin said, draws a bigger crowd.
Roe, who is in her third year as counselor at the junior high, said she was looking at grades in October “and decided we needed to do something about kids who were failing.”
She said the school had a study hall staffed by an educational assistant the first year she came, but it lost funding for that. Last year, it tried doing one during detention period “but that didn’t work out very well,” Roe said.
The grant funds pay only for Thursday’s study hall, so individual teachers have volunteered to open up their rooms on a rotating basis, two each day after school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to provide help for students who need it.
“I’d say 15 to 35 kids stay after,” Roe said, adding that Thursday attendance is usually highest because of the food. “Anyone is welcome. There are some kids I strongly suggest come. Actually, it’s working out really well.”
She said that although several teachers have volunteered their rooms specifically, “usually we have kids in five or six classrooms after school. Teachers have their classrooms open; kids realize they can stay after.”
Eighth-grader Ronald Smith said the study hall “gives me extra time that I need to catch up.
“I get most of (my homework) done so I have less to do at home,” he said. “I have more time to do my chores.”
Cody Becknal, a seventh-grader who was working nearby, said he was getting an F in a language arts class before he came to the study hall.
“It’s actually helped me in other classes,” he said. “I started caring about my work because I had almost all F’s. These people are helping me.”
Roe said the mix is about “half and half” between students who need help with grades and those who are just taking advantage of the chance to get their homework done.
She said that when she becomes aware of a student who is failing, she will alert his or her parents and “strongly suggest” that the student come to study hall.
She said the junior high has instituted an “Anti F Dance” during the last hour of school on Fridays. If a student has no failing grades, he or she can come to dance.
Roe said improvement wasn’t immediate when the study hall was begun last fall, but “now a lot of kids are taking advantage of it.
“The numbers are improving,” she said. “It’s slow. It’s just getting them in the habit of doing their work after school.”
Caldwell said she’s found it easier to focus on school since she started attending the study hall.
“My grades are up to C’s and B’s, not F’s,” she said. “There’s more one-on-one help here. I come every day.”
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