Southampton School District Sees Success In Its First Regents Intervention Program

The Southampton School District has seen success with its first-ever Regents examination intervention program, with more than half of the enrolled students, who had struggled with the tests in the past, scoring passing grades, according to district officials.

Implemented in the fall to help some high school students prepare for the January exams, the program consisted of after-school support groups for the tests on global history and geography, U.S. history and government, and the living environment. The 68 students were enrolled based on past low scores on those particular Regents, or by teacher recommendation.

For students whose eligibility to graduate depended on passing any of the 11 exams that were administered that month, there were also “academic hearings” as part of the intervention. In those hearings, teachers and other staff members met with students individually and discussed not only the academic variables that contributed to poor test results but the social and emotional aspects as well.

At a School Board meeting last Tuesday, February 23, Julio Delgado, the district’s coordinator of student achievement, explained that there was at least a 50-percent success rate on the global history and U.S. history exams for students who were enrolled in the program, and an 83-percent success rate for living environment tests. At least 75 percent of the students who took one of those three exams had failed them multiple times in the past.

For comparison, Mr. Delgado pointed to last year’s 10-percent passing rate in global history among the students prior to the intervention program. “That is a highly significant change,” he said.

Seventeen of the students who took one or more of the three exams required academic hearings as well. All but two passed, and those who didn’t either did not attend their hearings or attended only a small portion of them, Mr. Delgado said. There were also six other students who had academic hearings for the ELA, ELA Common Core, and Algebra 1 Common Core tests, all of whom passed.

“The evidence is clear that if they came to the class, they passed,” Mr. Delgado said. “Students who did not succeed this January were very close to succeeding, as opposed to last year’s test data.”

Because the academic hearings take place during regular school hours, they can continue to be held at no cost to the district, and high school principal Dr. Brian Zahn said the next round will begin early this month to prepare for the June Regents. An expansion to the intermediate school is also under way.

The after-school support groups did come at a cost to the district of about $242 per student—roughly $16,500 total—which is still significantly lower than most Regents preparation courses, Mr. Delgado said.

School Board members, as well as district administrators, said the success of the program makes it worthwhile for the district to continue offering it, especially because none of the students who took them in January passed the geometry, geometry Common Core, and earth science exams, for which after-school academic support groups were not offered. There are plans to expand the support groups to cover those courses, as well as algebra 2/trigonometry.

“You’ll see items in the budget for next year to support this,” Superintendent Dr. Scott Farina said. “I think it’s very obvious that this is proven [to be] successful.”

“This really is excellent,” said School Board member Roberta Hunter. “I think this is worth every penny.”