LYNN — While many students are spending their week off from school relaxing, nearly 170 of the city’s middle schoolers are using it to improve their math skills in hopes of boosting their MCAS scores.
Monday kicked off week-long Acceleration Academies, facilitated by Sontag Prize in Urban Education, which are being held at Breed and Thurgood Marshall Middle schools — 84 students from each school have signed up to attend, according to Deputy Superintendent Patrick Tutwiler, who is running the program.
The acceleration academies are held during school breaks, where motivated students from underserved communities are paired with the nation’s top teachers for an equivalent of one month of focused instruction, according to the Sontag Prize in Urban Education website.
Tutwiler said the program is also about celebrating wonderful teachers. The academies this week have small classrooms with 10 to 12 students, with seven teachers per school. The Sontag Prize in Urban Education is awarded to top teachers from across the nation, who teach in the academies.
Tutwiler said there were also acceleration academies held over February vacation, which focused on English and Language Arts. For the first year of the program, he said officials decided to hold the academies at the middle school level at Breed and Marshall.
“We felt our efforts would be best applied for these two schools for our maiden voyage,” Tutwiler said. “Pickering (Middle School) is already a Level 1 school. This is a gap closing endeavor. We wanted to put our efforts where the need is greatest.”
Tutwiler said the acceleration academies are for a targeted group of students, with kids selected through data analysis.
He said the program is a Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) focused acceleration academy, which takes standards in English/Language Arts or math where students have shown to struggle and teachers spend 25 hours with them over the course of vacation to get them to close that gap. This is the equivalent of 25 days of instruction — students receive five hours of content instruction per day.
Tutwiler said the goal is to get students to do better on the test. He said the academies are about teaching standards and focusing on skills that students need in English or math that will show up on the assessment.
“These are students in the middle who are going to get a boost who are right on the edge of performing well,” Tutwiler said. “We’re just going to get them over the hump.”
Sixth graders at Breed Middle School, Hade Hurtado and Keiry Sanchez, both 12, were in a classroom that was focused on fractions and ratios, but all of the classes were focused on different standards.
“One of my friends told me it (the academy) was really fun and you could learn a lot of new things,” Sanchez said. “Plus, I’m really bad at math.”
Sanchez and Hurtado said they were interested in attending because they wanted to improve their math skills. Hurtado said she wanted to be able to raise her hand and be confident in her answers when it comes to math.
“Some of us were chosen because our teachers believed we could do better,” Hurtado said. “I also thought I could do better.”
Kathie White, the lead math teacher for Breed Middle School and a Sontag Prize recipient, said rational numbers, a common core standard for the seventh grade, was what her classroom was focused on improving.
White said the kids have given up their vacation to be able to understand the material, be successful and further their education.
“It’s a really great opportunity,” White said. “It’s really a great program and we’re really lucky to have it here.”
Tutwiler said teachers in the academies get paid $3,000 each. It’s not a cheap program — the February acceleration academy between both schools cost approximately $72,000, which includes all of the elective teacher costs and food services. Students are also given an elective each day, which includes physical education, and are given breakfast and lunch.
Tutwiler said the vast majority of the costs are offset by grants, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and Title 1 funds. School officials applied for and received a $100,000 academic enrichment grant from DESE, which pays for the bulk of the cost, with Title 1 covering the rest. Through the grant, both Breed and Marshall received $37,500 for the program. Cobbet Elementary School received the remainder for a different program.
Tutwiler said the program has seemed to work in other districts — the academies have also been in Lawrence and Boston — but school officials want to see if data shows increased MCAS performance before committing to it in Lynn.
DESE Commissioner and former Lawrence School Superintendent Jeffrey C. Riley founded the acceleration academies during his tenure in Boston Public Schools. He called Superintendent Dr. Catherine C. Latham to let her know about the academies.
“I’m really interested to see how this program has impacted MCAS, but I still, no matter what, think it’s a win for us because kids reported they really enjoyed the (first) program,” Tutwiler said.