Klaressa Howery

Oakland University EA 748

Prepared for: Dr. Brandell
Issue Analysis, Management, and Communication Plan

It is vitally important that our students show growth each and every
year. Therefore, when a sixth grade student is three years behind in their
math skills then it raises concern and the need for an intervention to close
the gap in their math education becomes critical. In Center Line Public
Schools we are continuing the third year of reading intervention support for
any student identified with decoding or comprehension concern. Due to this
narrowed focus and strategic reading programming, we are seeing academic
growth for students who have been scheduled into the Read 180 and
Corrective Reading sections. But what about the student described above
that needs a math intervention? Wolfe Middle School students who need an
intervention in math to improve their academic skills at an accelerated rate
need to have that option. Therefore, my issue to analyze: How can my
middle school provide additional support for our students in the math
content area?
This issue impacts all stakeholders to some degree. If you are a
student who struggles to complete your homework, many times this
frustration leads to student misbehavior. If you are the teacher, your struggle
is to address common core standards even though some of your students
lack the prerequisite skills necessary to master grade level math skills. If you

are the parent, your worry is that your child is falling further behind and
dont know how to help them.
The issue of math intervention is currently being handled for only
students with individual educational plans. Three years ago, the special
education department purchased Essentials of Algebra and Connected Math
from McGraw Hill that takes the direct instruction approach. The majority of
students involved in this remedial course have shown growth as determined
by the NWEA. With these positive statistics, our building administration
requested that this be utilized as a tier II intervention for our regular
education students who are in need of additional skill development in math.
Last year, our building screened regular education students using the
McGraw Hill placement test and found a sizable number of regular education
students who qualified for placement in one of the two courses. Our school
has been allocated the exact same number of staff for this past year to build
the master schedule. Unfortunately, our current math class sizes are already
near 34 students, therefore placing a teacher into a remedial math course
would mean that these averages would only increase. I worked with my
principal to triangulate student data using MEAP, NWEA, and math screeners
to identify students with greatest need. We were able to calculate how many
sections would be needed increase support in the math content area.
After reading some of my classmates ideas that were posted on
moodle, I learned that they either have or are experiencing similar

challenges. Josh wrote about WIN (what I need) time. It is a block of time
that students can travel to get additional help. We have an advisory hour
around lunch time that could be tapped into doing a similar activity for a no
cost intervention. He also talked about E20/20 for remedial support. I am
familiar with this system and agree that it offers a chance for skill
development. I know that our district had purchased E20/20 8th grade math
class that we used years ago for beginning 9th grade students who did not
pass their final middle school math class. This summer I will investigate this
idea further to determine if E20/20 could be feasible for next years 6th and
7th grade students.
Two more suggestions were presented by Noel and Jenna that dealt
with utilizing the co-teaching model. Their ideas were similar in that students
were grouped by skill sets with two teachers in the room. We have run cotaught sessions in math and have seen positive results. If we can be more
strategic with student placement, students with higher needs could be
placed into the co-taught sections. These three co-taught classes (one at
each grade level) could mean that about seventy-five regular education
students would receive additional support next year.
Currently, our administrators are looking into the co-teaching model as
it is more expensive. Currently our data shows that this model is working to
close the gap. This spring, members from our board office asked to take a
closer look at our middle school math student data. This community interest

may shed more light on this issue and allow our school to get additional
resources needed to address math interventions.