District hopes program will help students SOAR

SOAR requirements are the same as those for traditional students.
& lt;a href=mailto:viviano@vindy.com & gt;By JoANNE VIVIANO & lt;/a & gt;
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- With only slightly more than half of the city school district's students making it from ninth grade to graduation, and enrollment continuing on a downward trend, district officials are hoping a new Internet-based program will help keep more youngsters on track toward a diploma.
Students of Academic Rigor is slated to begin Monday with 36 students who will complete course work via the Internet.
A goal of SOAR developers is to target students who need to retake a course to graduate on time, who have dropped out of school, or are home-schooled -- and to "pull them back into the district, if not physically," said Pamela R. Logan, supervisor of guidance, home schooling and Title I support for the district.
"This is a way of increasing our graduation rate, and it has outstanding possibilities," Logan said. "It's curriculum is limitless. And it's interactive. It's not just a textbook online -- it engages the student."
Of the 36 pilot SOAR students, roughly half are home-schooled, the rest are split about evenly between dropouts and students who must make up a failed course, Logan said.
Officials are starting slowly but hope "once the word gets out" the program will expand, said Jerome E. Parm, a district administrative specialist who handles data analysis, intervention, summer school and extended day programs. Maximum capacity is 120 students.
"I think we've got something with real promise here," Parm said.
Curriculum
The district has purchased NovaNet curriculum through Pearson Education Technologies and will use it primarily for high schoolers but also for middle school pupils. Supplemental programs -- such as e-reading rooms, research options, accelerated programs for students who are performing well in school, tutorials for ACT or SAT preparation, or Ohio proficiency test tutoring -- could be brought to students in the future.
"It's a win-win for everybody. It's a win for our community and a win for our district," Logan said. "This is the start of something that has a great capacity for increase and benefit."
Total cost of software and setup was less than $50,000, Parm said. The 15 teachers trained to use the program are certified in the areas they will monitor and are already teachers in the district. They will complete online duties after school or at home and are paid the same way as a teacher who tutors students after hours. Parm said he expects they will devote six to 15 hours to SOAR each week.
Individual attention
Parm said a student entering SOAR first takes an assessment test for each course and is placed at a level within the courses based on ability. For example, a student who is trying to make up a credit may not have to go through the entire curriculum if he/she scores well on a pre-test. Once in a course, students must score at least 80 percent on each lesson in order to proceed to the next.
Students are matched with individual teachers who monitor work to determine progress and are present whenever the students take a test, Logan said. Teachers are also available to meet with students if necessary and are notified by NovaNet with a "red flag" if a student struggles in a specific area.
Students receive the NovaNet software and a password to work on courses from home at any time of day or night. If they do not have a home computer, the software is also at all local public libraries, the Boys & amp; Girls Club of Youngstown and the Madison Avenue Multicultural Center. Once they are within the NovaNet system, they are unable to surf other areas of the web.
SOAR participants are required to fulfill the same credits for graduation as traditional students and earn a Youngstown diploma. They also are required to take state-mandated proficiency tests.
"Some people and some kids may think this is easier than school, and it's not," Parm said. "I guarantee it is not the easy way out. It has rigor."
Successful alternative
Pearson Education Technologies literature shows some success stories: The dropout rate among students using NovaNet at Cary High School in Raleigh, N.C., fell from 4.6 to 3.5 percent; in the Putnam County School District in Palatka, Fla., there was a 50 to 66 percent reduction in the time needed to complete required credits; and at LaSierra High School in Riverside, Calif., a group of black and Hispanic students -- who had the lowest scores one year before -- outscored white students on a standardized math test in 2001-02, and girls whose scores had been below boys surpassed them.
"Many school districts are looking at alternatives to fill in some gaps for various needs they might have," Parm explained.
He said other Ohio districts, including Cincinnati, Toledo and Washington, and Pittsburgh schools have used NovaNet for various programs. Pittsburgh targets its alternative school population. Some schools use it for in-school instruction in a computer lab.
In Youngstown, Logan hopes it will turn around the lives of students who "had no diploma, no future."
"Our expectation is that parents will look at what we're doing: quality education -- which is what we're about," Logan said. "This is an alternative they can seek."
& lt;a href=mailto:viviano@vindy.com & gt;viviano@vindy.com & lt;/a & gt;