At Watkins Mill High, time is of the essence

Under new principal, school is taking a novel approach to tackling student ineligibility

Ineligibility has been one of Hobbs’ top priorities since taking over at the 1,800-student school this year.

But through the first two grading periods, the rate has lingered at 35 percent, he said, the highest rate for all the county’s 26 high schools.

‘‘This trend is disturbing and unacceptable,” he wrote in a Jan. 24 letter to parents.

After bouncing the idea off a teachers’ committee and the Student Government Association, Watkins Mill had its first ‘‘Village Time” Jan. 28. It will continue on Mondays and Wednesdays until its success can be better measured.

Hobbs is adamant that those 37 minutes are not simply study hall, which is not included in the schedule of any county high school.

‘‘I’m forbidding anybody from saying [study hall] because it means ‘Maybe I study, maybe I don’t,’” Hobbs said. ‘‘No excuses, we all stop what we’re doing and everybody has to make up something or get ahead of something. ... This is one time of the day where we all stop and say, ‘Lets help each other.’”

A variety of causes

Having a high number of students ineligible for the kinds of incentives that keep them interested in school is a issue in and of itself, said PTSA president Lon Hamann.

‘‘But the fundamental concern of kids that are not succeding is what’s more important,” he said.

Watkins Mill’s struggles with ineligibility come from obvious sources, Assistant Principal Robin Lupia explained during a tour of the school on Wednesday. Teachers have reported that attendance, study habits and not completing homework are the primary problem, she said. Ineligibility is higher among ninth-graders who have problems adjusting to the independence and added rigor of high school.

But oftentimes, Lupia said, academic struggles stem from reasons far more profound, especially when it comes to the social conditions many students face at home.

‘‘If there’s a child that needs more love, we send them to the media center,” Lupia said.

Every minute counts

At 10:34 a.m. on Feb. 6, the bell did not ring to mark the end of fourth period. Instead, students stayed in their classes to hit the books even harder than before.

In the second-floor media center, Assistant Principal Charles Feamster and other assistant principals and counselors worked one-on-one with students who have fallen further behind.

And over at the computer carrels, ESOL coordinator Maria Garcia arranged time for a few dozen students to write a 200-word essay for scholarships to Towson University.

The 37 minutes are not a benefit solely for struggling students. IB psychology and AP European history there was the quiet buzz of students hard at work.

For Jim Torrence, whose 9th grade U.S. history class is split among special education students, the added minutes give time to re-teach, to forge better relationships between student and teacher.

IB Biology spent 42 minutes learning from teacher Emily Willard about the human digestive system. Once they had spilled over into Wednesday’s Village Time, most were huddled into groups, many of them furtively cramming for a calculus quiz next period — evidence, Willard said, of how useful the time is proving to be for the higher-end students.

‘‘A lot of our IB students are so busy during the day,” Willard said. ‘‘This gives them a chance to meet with teachers without having to run off the moment the bell rings.”

Administrators plan to wait until the end of this grading period — April 4 — before judging exactly how much 37 minutes can help.

‘‘Almost to a student, almost unanimously, they like it. I have even had some students say ‘I like it, but I wish we had it more,’” Hobbs said. ‘‘I haven’t had anybody come to me and say ‘This is awful, this is terrible.’”

If the numbers come under this grading period, Hamann said it might be enough proof to consider keeping Village Time into the next school year.

‘‘There’s no silver bullet... but if at the end of the third quarter, we can stabilize this a bit, I think we may have hit upon something which works,” Hamann said. ‘‘It takes the parents and it takes the kids and teachers all working together. If any one of those three legs isn’t working, it’s hard for the other two to hold their own.”