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Recovery Program gives struggling H-F High School students a second chance

Homewood-Flossmoor High School has developed a special program to give a helping hand to those students who have a failing grade first semester.

The Recovery Program is giving those students a second chance. It has various steps that can help students raise their ‘F’ grades on graduation requirement courses. The numbers do not reflect grades on elective classes.

Remote learning isn’t working for every student. That has become clear this first semester of the 2020-21 school year. 

“Some students across all academic levels struggle with the remote learning environment,” said Principal Jerry Anderson. She pointed to internet issues, a high social-emotional toll, overall stress of remote learning, and the months-long duration of remote learning.

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“We did have an unusual number of failures,” said Superintendent Von Mansfield. “Not as extreme as we had thought, but we still want to provide some supports and rearrange a few things to help these students recover credit and time lost for various reasons.” 

“I just want to say we are not alone. Many districts are finding numbers like these,” Anderson said. She stressed that at H-F “our focus is on the learning, not the compliance.”

Staff will be proactive beyond the classroom and remote one-on-one sessions, and they  are starting to use an app that sends assignments to students’ phones.

Anderson said the failures are across all grades: 150 freshmen, 122 sophomores, 155 juniors and 116 seniors.

Last school year, H-F gave out 527 ‘F’ grades. This year that number is 840. Of those, 10.4% of students are failing one class. They are classified as Level 1. The 29.6% of students failing two or more classes are Level 2, and the 72% that struggle with all work are Level 3. Recovery gives different assistance to students depending on their level of need.

Students in Level 1 have the option of working with their teachers to complete the missing assignments by Jan. 8, or they can use the Acellus computer program to show their proficiency. The program tests a student on work throughout the semester, not just the select portion where the student may be deficient. The failing grade will be updated once class work and re-testing are done.

Level 2 students will use Acellus to relearn course materials and take the proficiency test by Jan. 8 to earn credit and earn a better grade.

Level 3 assistance gives students time to work with their counselor to review and update their course plan. They, too, can use Acellus to complete work, or repeat the course in summer school. Students repeating the course will be able to use the new grade.

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