The
Placing first at state
Tiger HI-LINE
Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012
For the first time in CF history the pom routine received first/page 3 Follow us on Twitter @ tigerhiline, Facebook at TigerHilineOnline and on our website at www.hiline.cfschools.org
Volume 53 Edition 12
Changes in study hall options hope to help raise CF students’ grades While students enjoy sleeping in on Tuesday mornings and sipping at their warm Starbucks lattes, teachers and administrators have been working to try to increase the rate of student success. A dramatic problem teachers and administrators have taken notice of at Cedar Falls High School is the growing amount of students on failing lists. The root of this problem lies not with students being incapable or lacking the skills to pass, but in students neglecting their work. Associate Principal Dana Deines has been working to help solve this problem by finding a way to get students to complete work during the day to achieve the goal of seeing more students pass. “As you may be aware from our late start Tuesdays, our school has taken on a professional de-
velopment initiative to create a PLC ( Professional Learning Communities) at CFHS. With this initiative we have a focus on learning, collaboration and results. Our overall goal is to help all students learn at high levels. It would be disingenuous for us to set this goal without creating a system of interventions to give struggling learners additional time and support for learning during the school day,” Deines said. “We have been looking to find additional intervention time during the school day to help all our students be successful. Each grading period we see many students failing to complete assignments and as a result under perform and/or fail classes.” To solve this problem, students will be placed in larger study halls during the school day and only students failing a
class with teacher recommendation will be required to do their work in smaller study halls with more individualized attention until they receive passing grades. “Teachers will use this support time to assist students with their academic requirements. Our idea is to have small study halls available each period to focus our academic support with students that may be failing class(es) due to incomplete assignments. We have set a goal to decrease the number of failing grades at our school,” Deines said. Susan Langan, department head of guidance at Cedar Falls High School expects positive results from this new intervention program. “I think it’ll be really good for the kids once they realize they can get the extra help and we have really great teachers to work with them,” Langan said. “We’re just trying
to get students extra support and more motivation to get some of their work done to increase their achievement.” Math teacher Ron Hoofnagle said he believes the new study halls will benefit many students, including the ones that are already passing who take the initiative to get extra help. “This change is being done because many students within the school who are in trouble academically are having that trouble due to not doing their school or homework. We are trying to give them additional assistance and attention to help them get that work done. Rather than the penalty for skipping your homework being a zero, the penalty will be that you do your homework,” Hoofnagle said. He doesn’t see a problem with the new study hall arrangements.“Students who
need extra help will still be able to get it. I do think we need to ensure it’s clear for these students how to get help during their study halls, and that it’s simple, so they’re not likely to get frustrated and skip the help,” Hoofnagle said. Starting this week, the new study hall program will begin. This innovative change may seem sudden to students, but the idea has been in the making for the past year. “We have been looking to pilot this large /small study hall process for the past year. Our building leadership team has worked to move this concept forward. We are now ready to try this intervention and to see if there are benefits to continue and/or expand this intervention in the future,” Deines said. By Staff Writer Amanda
HARWOOD
Blue Zone Project hits Cedar Falls Cedar Falls High School hosted Cedar Falls Blue Zones community kick off on Wednesday, Nov. 28. About 450 people were at the event. It featured music, food and a lecture to introduce the project and its goals to the city. The Blue Zones Project is a world-wide intention to improve the quality of life through stimulating healthy ways of life. The collaboration between the sponsors Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shields and Healthway is an attempt to make Iowa the most healthy state in the country. National Geographic author and researcher, Dan Buettner, who came to talk about it last Wednesday, studied the longest-lived cultures in the world and brought together all the aspects that make such difference in those communities, trying to apply it to daily life. According to Blues Zones
effort for Cedar Falls Community Schools coordinator Troy Becker, who had been involved with physical activities before, the goals to the community are very broad. The intention “is to get several different areas like schools, work places and grocery stores to help improving the wellness and well being of the community.” To achieve those goals he said he believes that nine things should help. They include being physically active and having the right out look. “Usually people who live a long happy life know their purpose. They understand the importance of slowing down and enjoying life” he said. Other things include eating wisely. For example, when older people drink a glass of red wine each day, it brings a lot of benefits like reducing risks of cancer. Building strong rela-
have a sum that shows healthy impacts in the community, then the place that applied gets certified. So far Lincoln Elementary and North Cedar have become certified, and other elementaries are on the way. He said the real key to the Blue Zones being successful is to not approach it as a timeline. “It is our new way of life; it is long term. If we want long term impacts what we are doing here has to be sustainable. We don’t want to do it for a year, become Associate Principal Troy certified and stop. We want to make sure that this is not something that is not going area establishment needs to go away,” Becker said. through a check list that adds Everybody working on points for each term accomthe project is a volunteer. The plished. When those points tionships and prioritizing family are also very important. A short term goal for the project in the community is to get the city certified in different areas. To be certified, each
“Usually people who live a long happy life know their purpose. They understand the importance of slowing down and enjoying life”
BECKER
sponsors picked six communities in Iowa to be their test cities, including Cedar Falls and Waterloo. With success, it will be possible to start Blue Zones in another communities. Becker said he believes that the biggest challenge for Cedar Falls is “to get the word out to the entire community. The people that are involved know about Blue Zones, but we need to get other people [involvement], and have them start to live the Blue Zones style of life.” He added that the kick off was a good opportunity to bring the Project out and have the community start to know about it and sign up. The committee intends to get more establishments and people in the community as members of the Blue Zone work. By Staff Writer Ana
CUNHA