By Julia Hunter

LOVES PARK — Harlem Middle School Principal John Cusimano will ask the School Board on Monday to consider a proposal that would require underachieving students to participate in an enrichment class in place of an elective.

The recommendations are part of plans designed to help the school meet requirements outlined in No Child Left Behind, as the middle school hasn’t consistently met adequate yearly progress.

Students at the school take one elective each, with the exception of those with a fine-arts emphasis who take two electives. Electives offered to non fine-arts students include art, foods, technology concepts, technical education, writing lab, woods, band and choir. Fine-arts students are offered art, band, choir, drama and piano lab.

Under the proposal, if a student doesn’t meet or exceed standards determined from the Illinois Standards Achievement Test and the local Discovery Education Assessment, he or she will be required to take a reading or math enrichment class instead of one elective. Cusimano said he isn’t sure where the cutoff will be — whether all students who don’t meet or exceed standards will be required to take the course or just those who score the poorest. “We’re going to have to see what the numbers tell us,” he said.

Students will take the ISAT next week, and results will be provided to the school in the summer. The Discover assessment is taken four times a year, and the results are immediate.

If approved by the School Board, the changes would go into effect at the beginning of the 2011-12 school year.

Reading is priority
If a student scores poorly in both math and reading, administrators will look at where the greater area of need is. They won’t be required to take two enrichment classes, Cusimano said.

“We’re proposing having two reading enrichment sections,” he said. “We’re thinking we want to focus on reading, because if you have a deficit in reading that usually carries over into other areas.”

Cusimano said he hopes the classes will have about 10 students each.

“We don’t want it to be a great big class because then it gets away from what we’re trying to do, which is meet the individual needs of the students,” he said. “ … Our vision for this class is to be very individualized.”

If a student improves with an enrichment class, he or she will have the opportunity to return to an elective class the following semester.

Academic Academy
Included in Cusimano’s proposal is changes to Harlem’s Academic Academy, or its accelerated learning program.

Previously, the academy program has been set up to offer accelerated classes to students who have exceptional scores across the board. But, not for a student who only excels in just one area.

“A kid, just this year, scored in the 99th percentile in reading, but he was not good in math,” Cusimano said. “So, he didn’t get into the academy. So what we want to do is we want to have accelerated sections for those students. So, if you just excel in math, but not reading we want to give you the opportunity to take an accelerated math class. If you excel in reading but not math, we want to give you the opportunity to take accelerated reading.”

Also, Cusimano wants all students to take the test that helps determine whether they are to be enrolled in Academic Academy — the Otis-Lennon Scholastic Ability Test.

Previously, only students who were interested tested for the academy, and about 100 came for testing a year, he said.

“We want to test all kids to get a truer picture of who the gifted students are,” Cusimano said.

The proposal will be presented to the board at its meeting Monday. The meeting, which begins at 6 p.m., is at the Harlem Administration Center, 8605 N. Second St., Machesney Park.