By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The odds of big changes coming in math instruction for Great Bend Middle and Great Bend High School students: significant. A handful of math teachers from the two buildings attended Monday's USD 428 Board of Education meeting to discuss changes that will impact grades 7-12 beginning in the 2024-25 school year.
GBHS math teacher Daniel Schneider explained the problem. Right now, students are placed on an advanced math track entering seventh grade. Those students essentially take two years of math their seventh-grade year, all with the hopes of advancing to calculus by their senior year in high school. Schneider and other math teachers say moving that double-up year to 10th grade will help both students and middle school teachers.
"By only having the seventh standards instead of both seventh and eighth, you're looking at a reduction of about 32 percent of the curriculum load for those students and those teachers, which will allow middle school teachers time for enrichment, as well as intervention as needed," Schneider said.
Middle schools teaching students on the advanced track must cover 56 standards in the seventh-grade year alone. That stress would be alleviated if Algebra I was moved from GBMS to GBHS. Schneider said, based on 2021 state assessment scores, just 38 percent of the students in the advanced track were scoring at or above their grade level in math, while 61 percent were scoring below grade level. For the Class of 2018, 60 percent of incoming freshmen were part of the advanced track, yet only 39 percent of those students enrolled in calculus as seniors.
Middle school math teacher Peggy Haag said it can be difficult to judge how a sixth grader will perform in later years of education. Moving the double-up year from seventh to 10th grade gives the students more freedom to choose their path.
"Even though we have those good math kids, seventh grade is a big year," she said. "That is a huge transition year to come from elementary to middle school, and maturity may not always be there. They may be really great at math, but maybe they're not ready to handle two years in one year. Being able to push that back to sophomore year, when it's more their choice, they've had a year to get used to high school."
Haag added that taking out the pre-algebra class in seventh grade would allow middle school teachers to offer another elective that may shape a student's learning path. All agreed that the changes would not impact any student still wanting to enroll in Calculus as a high school credit, or College Algebra for a college credit, as a senior in high school
Monday's discussion was merely a first read in front of the board of education, which will take action on the matter at a future meeting.