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High schools need to get to know their students to increase learning

By Michele Tjin

Knowing who high school students are as individuals will pay dividends in the classroom and later in life, a high school district official said.

At the Oct. 3 board meeting of the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union School District, Kevin Mount, coordinator of educational services, gave a presentation to the board that analyzed test scores from last spring's STAR test results. This standardized test was given to all the freshmen, sophomores and juniors in the district.

In looking at math and science test scores, Mount found students who wait longer to take the higher classes generally scored lower on the test. For example, at Los Gatos High School, 100 percent of the ninth-graders who took the algebra 2 test showed proficiency and were matched by the 82 percent of the sophomores who took the test. Only about a quarter of the juniors, 28 percent, were proficient in the subject.

"It's pretty intuitive," Mount said. "The kids who are coming in accelerated just do better."

This pattern generally held in other math classes, as well as in biology and chemistry.

Mount said the purpose of studying the data is to know which students are slower so teachers can identify early on who needs help.

"We need to develop systems to deliver specific information about students to teachers," he said.

However, one size does not fit all.

"We have to think about all the kids in our classroom," Mount said. "When you have a class with mixed grades, you have to understand different abilities to learn."

Mount also broke down the makeup of this year's freshmen classes at Los Gatos and Saratoga High schools. While most of the students come from Redwood or Fisher Middle schools, almost 10 percent of this year's freshmen came from 34 different schools, many of them private schools.

"The district has attractive schools," Mount said. "We recognize the hard work that teachers do."

About three-quarters of this year's freshmen take a foreign language, and 41 percent of them are enrolled in a level 2 foreign language class. This confirms students are going to high school well prepared and are planning for college education, Mount said.

One area where Los Gatos freshmen differ greatly from their counterparts in Saratoga is that few of them are enrolled in art or music. At Los Gatos, just 22 percent of ninth-grade students are in art or music, compared to 74 percent of freshmen at Saratoga.

"Music has a magnetism all of its own [at Saratoga]," Mount said. "Success breeds success. I know the passion that students have for music [at Saratoga]."

Saratoga principal Jeff Anderson said one reason for the difference is that taking music at Saratoga can often be a natural extension of the students' music experiences at Redwood.

"It's a seamless program that flows" into Saratoga's, Anderson said.

Mount said knowing who makes up the freshmen classes should encourage the district to continue communicating with the feeder schools. A benefit includes identifying students who could be served well from differentiated instruction.