Governor Hopes Woodbridge Initiative For Freshmen Will Boost Graduation Rate
By Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) went to high school last week in Prince William County, but he didn't have to travel the area's clogged roads by car or yellow bus. Instead he took a chopper and landed right on the school's parking lot.
Kaine visited Woodbridge Senior High School on Thursday to check on its two-week summer "institute," a state-funded program that is preparing more than 40 rising freshmen for their transition into high school and high-stakes accountability.
The orientation program is designed to give the students, selected by the school system because of their mediocre grades, extra support in basic courses such as science, math and reading, as well as character building. Kaine said he hopes Woodbridge's program and similar ones at other schools across Virginia will reduce the number of freshmen who have to repeat a grade and, in turn, boost the graduation rate.
Woodbridge's orientation program, which lasts through this week, is being funded mostly by a grant that originated from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and was passed along to the National Governors Association and eventually to 10 states.
"You have a strong school system that has been a real attracter for people here, but we do see some of these trends," Kaine told Prince William school officials last week, referring to a high percentage of freshmen in Virginia schools who repeat and how other states continually have higher percentages of seniors going on to college.
Woodbridge is one of 30 schools in the state that received a Virginia Honor Schools Grant. Prince William's Brenstville District High School in Nokesville and Manassas's Osbourn High School also received grant money and are doing similar programs, state officials said.
Kaine said Virginia education officials will track the students participating in the schools' programs and, partly on the basis of test data and disciplinary records, see whether any of the initiatives are worth funding annually. The Virginia Honor Schools Grant program will last for one more year, until the grant ends.
Other schools across the state are using the money to hire literacy coaches throughout the academic year or breaking up the freshman class into a school-within-a-school to give the students a more intimate learning environment, state education officials said.
Prince William school officials said that they were optimistic about Woodbridge's program and that the county School Board will need to track the students over several years before deciding whether to make the initiative permanent.
Pamela Gauch, associate superintendent for student learning and accountability, said scores on the state Standards of Learning exams and the Curriculum Management System, which assesses students' knowledge of Prince William's coursework, will be examined.
"I see us moving to more programs outside the school year," Gauch said. "Some children will need this."
Woodbridge Principal Alan Ross said in an interview that about 100 rising freshmen were considered eligible for the program but that because it's voluntary, just fewer than half participated. Ross said he traveled to 15 homes and spoke with about a dozen parents urging them to enroll their teenagers in the program.
With freshmen taking SOL exams in world history, earth science and math, every student's performance can have a major impact on the school's standing, he said. Oftentimes, whether a school meets the annual benchmarks of the No Child Left Behind Act can come down to a handful of students. Schools' reputations are built on those standards.
Ross said it can be difficult impressing upon middle school graduates that high school is a different landscape with much more rigorous rules that determine whether a student passes a class and moves to the next grade.
"High school credits are very different from middle school credits. We don't have any committee that determines if you move on," he said. "In high school, if you don't pass six classes, then you're still considered a freshman. There are some students coming here, and they've only passed two or three classes."
In Woodbridge, Kaine visited several classrooms for a few minutes and introduced himself to the students.
"When an elected official wants to be part of something that is really great for students, it speaks highly about how he prioritizes his time," School Superintendent Steven L. Walts said.
Kaine told the students that one of his children is starting high school in Richmond this year.
Some students knew the governor was visiting. Others -- including Nam Nguyen, 14, who dressed in torn jeans -- had no idea. "I didn't know you were coming. This is a surprise," he told Kaine, who smiled and laughed.
For Fernando Cardozo, 14, spending his precious last weeks of summer at an orientation program was not something he was all that into -- initially. But he soon warmed to the idea because, well, his mother told him he had no choice, he said.
"I had bad grades. I had C's and D's in middle school," he said. "I don't know how to study the right way, but here they're showing me examples."
View all comments that have been posted about this article.