Dear Parents and Guardians:
As I mentioned in my Alert Now e-mail message sent last week we are making some changes to the logistics of our Knight Time classes and offerings. Since that message went out we have been able to meet as a staff and make some more decisions and I have additional information to share with you.
Our impetus for the change is to continually grow and improve and to meet the needs of all students. I want to highlight the following changes:
- Enrichment is not going away; students will be selecting their Knight Time enrichment courses for second semester in the next two weeks. Students will know their Knight Time schedule for January when they leave for winter break on the 16th of December.
- Knight Time is designated to meet the needs of all students by providing additional classroom support when needed.
- Our new design allows for a more fluid and flexible schedule.
- Homeroom will move to Fridays.
A concern we had was that all of our enrichment classes have not been tied into our curriculum or content related. With our new offerings in January all of our enrichment classes will be tied into our curriculum and will be content related. This is extremely important as we want our students to receive rigorous, relevant enrichment experiences.
We will also designate days for each content area to have a priority to pull students for interventions. For example, a student may be taking an enrichment class in rock climbing but recently struggled on a certain concept on a math test, the teacher can pull the student out of enrichment for a day or longer until the student gains an understanding of the concept. This is what we mean by timely, targeted interventions. Once the student gains the understanding he/she would return to the enrichment class.
Along with our intervention and enrichment offerings we will also continue the practice that we started this fall in our pilot of offering study halls. Students can request a study hall as needed or be placed into a study hall for additional time to complete homework.
Please be reminded that our current Orchestra, Electronic Publishing and Spanish classes that are offered during Knight Time will continue with the same schedule and students will attend these classes as they have been during first semester.
I hope this clarifies how we will be approaching enrichments/interventions for students. Our goal is to meet the needs of all students in a timely, targeted manner and to improve student achievement and growth. If you have any further questions feel free to contact any administrator here at Newton Middle School.