U-46 teachers question plans for study skills course
Union officials say implementing a new study skills course could endanger Elgin Area School District U-46's music, art and consumer science classes, as well as the jobs of its teachers.
"The cart's before the horse," said Tim Davis, president of the 2,400-member Elgin Teachers' Association. "Before you bring in a new initiative, I believe you have to intentionally engage the community so they can provide feedback and input. That piece was missing here."
In mid-January, Superintendent Jose Torres announced that several new programs would provide additional support at the middle school level.
Along with adding foreign language courses and guidance counselors, Torres said the district would also begin offering AVID study skills courses for seventh- and ninth-graders next school year.
AVID, an acronym for Advancement Via Individual Determination, teaches B and C students organization, analytic skills and notetaking, helping them to move onto more challenging academic territory, with the ultimate goal of being accepted to a four-year college.
Developed at San Diego's Clairemont High School in 1980, the program currently is in use at 4,000 schools across the country.
According to data collected by the AVID Center, 87 percent of high school seniors who took the course applied to a four-year college last year. Just shy of 80 percent of those students were accepted.
Academic improvement for students taking the course stretches across ethnic and gender lines, according to recent studies by the Institute for Higher Education Policy and the California Postsecondary Education Commission.
The program may be successful, but members of the union's Instructional Council are concerned that slating students for AVID courses will leave them little room in their schedules for other electives.
As a result, Davis said, there could be less need for art, music, consumer science and computer courses and teachers. According to district data, U-46 employs 63 art teachers, 73 music teachers, 29 family and consumer science teachers and 28 industrial technology teachers this school year.
U-46's eight middle schools currently have eight 43-minute periods, with three of those periods serving as electives, Abbott Middle School Principal Shelly Hertzog said.
However, district's five high schools have eight 50-minute periods, with only one or two electives for ninth-grade students. AVID, Bartlett High School registrar Carol Vance said, could work out to be freshman students' only elective.
"That kind of limits them then," she said. "It could be their only elective. That would be a shame."
When Springfield School District 186 implemented AVID in 2003, Mary McDonald, a former school improvement coach in the district, said the program was added with a conscious decision not minimize other electives.
"We only had six periods a day, and if you looked at the core subjects that only left them with one elective," said McDonald, now associate director of the Consortium for Educational Change.
The district, she said, "had to rethink how we schedule students," and eventually added a seventh class period to the school day.
The U-46 teachers union's Instructional Council voted down a proposal Feb. 19 supporting the adoption of AVID.
The following Monday, union members spoke out to the board of education, requesting a more complete proposal, with more clear cut information on how the program would impact elective courses, and more time to study it.
Despite the request, district officials continues with plans to implement the program.
"Instructional council is important, but they are advisory," district spokesman Tony Sanders said. "We're still moving forward to make sure we'll have AVID in place at the middle and high schools next year."
The structure of the school day is scheduled to be examined next school year as part of the district improvement plan.