Struggling school revamps its math program. Will it add up?

NORFOLK

Days before the sixth grade math Standards of Learning test, Melinda Thompson didn't think she'd do well.

"I might not know some of the questions," she said.

Her classmate Kevin Miller vowed to study in the time he had left.

"I think I'll do good," Kevin said, "but I'm still nervous."

Everyone at Lake Taylor Middle School is holding their breath.

Over the past nine months, Lake Taylor's 800-plus students have worked in class and out, in large groups and small, on computers, on paper, and on dry-erase boards to strengthen their skills in their weakest subject.

This year, math scores mean more than ever.

Lake Taylor is one of two South Hampton Roads schools that failed to meet benchmarks on state standardized tests for four consecutive years. Cradock Middle School in Portsmouth is the other.

To improve the scores and meet state requirements, administrators brought in a new principal and assistant principal and revamped the school's math program.

If their plan work s and the students also succeed on the English, history and science SOL tests, Lake Taylor will gain full accreditation for the first time in the fall. Students like Kevin and Melinda will advance to the seventh grade with a better understanding of the math they'll need to build upon through middle school.

If the plan doesn't work, Lake Taylor will continue to carry the stigma of a low-performing Virginia school - and Kevin, Melinda and the other children could fall further behind.

Lake Taylor Middle School sits between Kempsville Road and Interstate 64, steps away from Lake Taylor High School and nearly surrounded by playing fields.

The middle school's students come from Ingleside, Fairlawn, St. Helena, Poplar Halls and Campostella elementar y schools. More than 70 percent of Lake Taylor's students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, compared with 58 percent of the students in the Norfolk school division.

The school offers the Distinguished Ladies etiquette and self-esteem club for girls and the city-sponsored After the Bell after-school program, among other activities.

Earlier this year, posters for the SOL Academy papered the walls in the upstairs and downstairs corridors.

On an April day, Steven Thomas' math students began class with five daily review problems.

Question 1: "What number represents the variable in the following equation? X-3=15"

Kevin sat alone in the back, nearly dwarfed by his oversized black jacket and baggy jeans. He chose the spot, he said, to concentrate better because his classmates are sometimes loud.

Kevin is 12, with a round, happy face and a fondness for football and SpongeBob SquarePants. One day, he wants to be "a doctor that does everything." On his previous semester's report card, Kevin received an array of A's, B's and C's - high marks in social studies and English and lower grades in orchestra and math.

Like most Lake Taylor sixth-graders, Kevin passed the math SOL test in the fifth grade.

This year, he said, math class was harder.

"Equivalency expressions, integers, things like that. Long division," Kevin said. "I didn't have to do that in fifth grade."

Students throughout Virginia struggled when the state introduced standardized math tests for sixth- and seventh-graders two years ago. Fewer than half of the students in several of Norfolk's middle schools passed the tests in the first year, and despite improvements, the schools also didn't hit the benchmark pass rates in the second year. At Lake Taylor, those math woes, coupled with weak English scores in previous years, put the school at risk of losing accreditation.

Norfolk teachers found that even when their students answered a problem correctly, they couldn't always explain how they did it or why they chose a particular approach.

Kevin sometimes fell into that trap, his teachers said. He also worked quickly and didn't always check his calculations.

"He's always very confident in his answer," said Stacy Palen, a teacher who has tutored Kevin. "He always backs it up, even if it was the wrong answer."

Weekly quizzes, tests every three weeks, quarterly exams, diagnostic assessments and practice SOLs were the cornerstone of Lake Taylor's math strategy.

In the past, teachers followed the data to identify trends in their classes. This year, they tracked students' individual answers to gauge their learning levels. They also examined the common errors to try to figure out students' misconceptions.

Then the teachers, with the help of math specialists, each tweaked their lessons so students spent more time on what they needed most.

For example, teachers and administrators found that many students struggled with the relationship of decimals to fractions. As a result, all math teachers posted number lines called "equivalency tapes" in their classrooms and regularly drilled their students on them. The tapes show figures, such as 0.25 and 1/2, in the proper order.

Kevin's teachers determined that he needed extra help with least common multiples and greatest common factors.

Thomas assigned him to work in a small group with Palen.

After Thomas' review questions, four of his students hunched over a round table in the near-empty library with worksheets on least common multiples.

"What does it mean to be least?" Palen asked the children. "What does it mean to be common?"

Kevin, the chattiest, moved quickly through the exercises.

Melinda Thompson said almost nothing.

She doesn't talk much in groups and usually hides behind her brown hair, purple-rimmed glasses and hoodie sweatshirt. Her cousin tells her that she'll go Goth some day, which makes Melinda laugh.

She loves animals and aspires to a career as a veterinarian or zoologist. If that doesn't work out, she says, she might be an artist.

This year, Melinda earned mostly A's and B's, but she's never been good at math. Homework from Thomas' class often kept Melinda up late, and she would go to bed without finishing.

"It takes a while for me to get used to one type of math subject," Melinda, 12, said.

She and Kevin worked in a small group with Palen several times. They practiced skills and applied them to word problems until the teacher felt they'd mastered the concepts.

Melinda had trouble with multiplication - remembering equations such as 12x12=144. Instead of multiplying, she would do the addition, and sometimes she'd add the numbers incorrectly.

"She came to me very unsure about what she was doing and lacking the confidence," Palen said.

Palen walked Melinda and her other students through worksheets. She drew diagrams, suggested they use their fingers if they got stuck and encouraged them to explain their answers to one another.

Kevin thought he'd found the greatest common factor of 24 and 9. Palen challenged him.

"Is there something bigger than 3?" Palen asked Kevin.

"There is something bigger than 3," Kevin said with a grin, "but it's not the right answer!"

The next day, Thomas' class trekked upstairs to the computer lab and logged on to a Carnegie Learning program called Bridge to Algebra.

The software was new to Lake Taylor, replacing a program that had become outdated.

The program allows students to work at their own pace. It adjusts the difficulty of the problems based on their responses and gives them hints. When students answer enough questions correctly, they move on to the next concept.

Kevin signed into his computer. First question: "Use the model to write the fraction 18/21 in simplest form. Enter the greatest common factor of the numerator and denominator."

He typed 3. Correct. Next, the computer wanted the simplified fraction. Kevin entered 6/6, then changed it to 6/7. Correct again. How about: 18/21 divided by (blank) equals 6/7? Kevin typed 3/3. He was on a roll.

As Kevin worked, about half a dozen small bars in the upper right-hand corner of the computer screen monitored his progress. Green meant he hadn't mastered it yet. Gold meant he had. The green changes to gold and back again according to how fast he worked and whether his answers were correct.

"When I get all gold ones, that's when I finish," Kevin explained.

A few chairs away, Melinda was stuck.

"In Brianna's collection of 6 insects, 1/2 of the insects are beetles. The remaining insects are caterpillars. How many are beetles?"

The computer was looking for 3. Melinda typed 3/6. The answer box turned red. Wrong. She chewed her fingernail and glanced around for help, but no one noticed.

She turned back to the computer and clicked on a tab mark ed "Look Back." Her screen filled with explanatory text and diagrams. She read it softly.

Her yellow bars were turning green. Melinda was taking too much time. She clicked back to the math problem and typed. Red box. She tried again. Correct! She tilted her head back and sighed with relief.

Melinda was not a fan of Carnegie.

"The computer can't explain as much as the teacher can," she said.

Neither Kevin nor Melinda was familiar with the word "accreditation," but they knew SOL exams were important.

Kevin thought the test would determine whether he was promoted to the seventh grade - which is not true. Melinda said a teacher told her that a student who'd been making A's ended up in a class for learning-disabled children after he failed an SOL test.

"They make it into a big deal," Melinda said.

Last year, Norfolk Superintendent Stephen C. Jones blamed Lake Taylor's failure on a lack of experienced math teachers: just six of 13 held degrees in the subject and several were long-term substitutes.

This year, 12 of 14 teachers hold math degrees, and one holds an engineering degree. The other was a long-term substitute.

Six of the 14 returned to the school from last year. Three, including Palen and Thomas, were new to teaching, and the others were new to Lake Taylor.

During the most intense parts of the school year, Palen and other Lake Taylor math teachers spent Saturdays with specialists from the Norfolk school division. On Sundays, Palen woke up early to finish grading papers before her weekly dinner with her parents.

"We all know we're working hard," Palen, 23, said. "We know we're doing the best we can."

One Lake Taylor math teacher left in January. Jason Gainey said the school was a pressure cooker, where dedication to data sometimes got in the way of instruction.

Kevin's mother also worried that teachers didn't seem to have enough time to break down concepts sufficiently for students to learn them.

"It's like, 'I'm going to explain it. You need to pay attention, and if you're not paying attention, then tough,' " Mattie Miller said.

Melinda's mother, Ruby Thompson, said her only criticism of the teachers was that they didn't communicate frequently enough about her daughter's progress.

Sometimes the educators' task seemed daunting.

Kevin described a school where students jumped up on desks during class. Melinda said some kids screamed at teachers. They said fights were common at the beginning of the year but less frequent toward the end.

Teachers were disappointed that some Lake Taylor sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students tested as low as third-grade level on an assessment of their pre-Algebra skills last fall.

Every month, a team of state and city educators in charge of Lake Taylor's math program reviewed the fluctuating scores, reported progress and discussed challenges. How can teachers keep students engaged in their lessons? Is there a way to install and use computers in each math classroom? Was the data being used properly?

They also noted improvements: better behavior in the corridors and cafeteria, students on task and working hard in the computer lab, increased attendance at the SOL Academy.

After months of scrutinizing, school leaders are cautiously optimistic about the pass rates on this year's SOL exams. Results are expected in mid summer.

"We will be fully accredited," Principal Michelle

Williams-Moore said. "It's a matter of when."

For Melinda, sixth grade was a good year.

She enjoyed walking the hallways and talking to friends, and she even ended up with a random nickname in math class: Melody.

Melinda's teachers said they saw breakthrough moments for her: when she answered a question for a game in front of cheering classmates and when she was the first in her group to turn in a correct test paper.

Ask Kevin about the good things at school, and he'll say he can name only one. Lake Taylor's after-school program.

Fights and disruptions during the school day bothered him, and Kevin was suspended at one point for his role in an altercation.

He also learned some math. One day he scored a 90 on a quiz and joyfully showed his test paper to Thomas.

"When my head starts hurting," Kevin said, "that's when I start remembering stuff."

Sixth-graders at Lake Taylor Middle School took the math SOL test May 21.

Kevin predicted that he scored at least 500 out of 600. A passing score is 400. "It was kind of easy, actually," he said.

Melinda also thought she passed the exam, though she couldn't figure out some of the answers - especially fractions.

She was one of the last to finish.

"I was relieved that all of the testing was finally over."

Amy Jeter, (757) 446-2730, amy.jeter@pilotonline.com