OHS will continue to offer two-year Algebra I option

NEWMAN – A proposal to restructure a beginning algebra course at Orestimba sparked extensive debate recently, but ultimately resulted in the school board deciding to stick with the status quo.

That means algebra will remain a two-year course for students identified as needing additional support to pass the class. Superintendent Rick Fauss had recommended instead that OHS offer only traditional Algebra I – the one-year course – with an additional period of remediation for students who need that support and additional instruction.

Instead Orestimba High will continue to offer Algebra I, the one-year course, and Algebra IA/IB, the two-year alternative.

A presentation from a Stanislaus County Office of Education representative before the discussion outlined the various advantages of going to the single-year option as other high schools in the county have done.

Fauss said schools such as Waterford have made huge strides under the single-year algebra model.

“Why has everyone eliminated the two-year class?” he asked. “For some reason these other high schools are making it work.”

Teachers, though, voiced concern about the proposed change.

Scott Felber, chairman of the school’s math department, said the two-year format allows teachers more time to deliver the materials and do more one-on-one work with students.

Felber conceded that the school can be more pro-active in placing students in the Algebra I rather than the Algebra IA/IB option, but questioned whether all students could succeed in the Algebra I setting.

“I can think of some students who wouldn’t make it,” Felber told the board. “I can’t see getting rid of (IA/IB) altogether. I can see at least one class of students who need it.”

Felber also said that few IA/IB students fail the two-year course.

“I don’t think they repeat,” he stated. “We expect them to pass and then move into geometry.”

Fauss said he believes the students, given appropriate support, can accomplish in one year what now takes them two.

“If two of your four years are spent in algebra, your opportunities to take higher level math are very limited,” the superintendent told Mattos Newspapers. “(With Algebra IA//IB) you slow the curriculum down so that two years of work make up one year of credit.”

If the IA/IB program were ended, he stressed, interventions would still be in in place to help students having difficulty with Algebra I.

Although the two-year program will continue, Fauss said, Orestimba will be placing fewer students in the two-year course in coming years.

And the discussion between staff and administration will continue as school officials seek the proper formula to success in the classroom.

“We have been talking with the math department for some time, and we knew that this proposal would not be completely embraced,” Fauss said. “We think we need to abandon the two-year program and were working toward that. We will try to come back with a better-defined math pathway that is acceptable to the board.

“I hope we can come back with a solution that we’re all in agreement with, but it is possible it will not be a 100 percent consensus,” he told the school board.

No formal action was taken by the board, essentially leaving the two-year algebra program intact.

Had the board endorsed the change, OHS would have offered an Algebra IB course next year for students midway through the two-year program before transitioning completely to an Algebra I format the following year.