The Hall County Board of Education approved April 2 as a half furlough day at its work session Monday.
Because Hall County schools were closed two and a half days due to snow, the board will treat those days as furloughs and will let teachers off early the Friday before spring break. Since students already were scheduled for early dismissal after lunch that day, the board canceled teacher learning activities in order let them off early, too.
Additional furlough days were ordered by Gov. Sonny Perdue last month, but have yet to be officially approved. The new furlough dates bring the total to six for the year. Three were taken last semester.
Ninth-grade academy plans move forward
The board also gave clearance to East Hall High School to move forward with plans to create a ninth-grade learning academy.
The academy would consist entirely of first-year students taught in an isolated wing of the school reserved for the academy. The program would call for three teams of teachers from four core disciplines — math, English, science and social studies — and students would follow an identical curriculum with non-negotiable schedules.
The so-called "small-learning communities" are intended to keep fewer students from being held back in the ninth grade. The number of East Hall High students who repeated the ninth grade in the past three years averaged 27 percent, peaking at 28 percent in the 2007-08 school year.
School administrators are looking to drive that average down to between 4 percent and 10 percent, results seen at similar academy programs.
The program was backed by Superintendent Will Schofield.
"It’s not ‘will (the academy) work?’ It’s ‘yes, it will work,’" he said.
The idea behind the academy is that isolating these students would prevent negative influences from upperclassmen and give them a community to lean on as they start at a new school. A class would be offered on academic enhancement, including bonding activities, remediation and reward experiences for students. As for faculty, the school would not need to hire any new teachers but may add a counselor specifically dedicated to the academy.
School leaders hope to launch the academy at the beginning of the 2010 school year.
21st century learning
Looking into classrooms of the future, the board acknowledged the work of teachers who have merged interactive Web-based learning with traditional subject matter to bring schools into the "21st century."
While the usual canon is still taught and written assignments are turned in regularly, several East Hall High literature teachers have used technology to modernize the curriculum and keep students interested.
"We tried to make it interesting to the students and bring them in a little more," literature teacher Marc Anthony said.
The Web sites for Anthony’s and co-teacher John Hardison’s world and American literature class, dubbed Studio 113, are packed with videos and original songs directed, written and performed by students to illustrate literary themes.
"We’ve always said these kids at East Hall have talent, and I think now in literature they’re getting the chance to showcase that," Hardison said.
About 18 months ago, the board funded the "21st Century Classroom," adding video equipment, laptop computers, a green screen, a performance stage and a $400 microphone used by students to record songs.
Keeping students engaged has had positive results. The class boasts an 88-90 percent passing rate, according to Hardison.
Schofield said making classrooms technology-friendly, even if it means finding ways to make cell phones and podcasts part of the lesson plan, is essential to maintaining student engagement.
"I think what we’ve got to get out of them is schools ought (not) look like they did when I went to school, when my parents and my grandparents went to school," he said. "It’s changing exponentially."
Also at the meeting, North Hall High and West Hall High principals were presented with the silver and bronze awards for outstanding achievement from the governor’s office of student achievement.