STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU-WAOW) – As the school year ends, educators in Stevens Point are already looking to next year to address academic intervention.
“Students who are struggling in a certain area, either mathematically, in terms of language arts or even emotionally/behaviorally have an additional intervention put in,” said Amanda Zanchetti-Mayo, principal at McKinley Elementary.
Under the current system, those interventions are done either by classroom teachers or reading teachers. “It takes away from that universal tier of instruction in terms of the amount of time that they have to prepare and deliver that,” Zanchetti-Mayo said.
They’re looking to devote one position at each elementary school to academic intervention. The district wants to hire within to fill those positions, so some classes could have a few more students next year. “Right now the bigger concern for a lot of our staff isn’t necessarily whether their class sizes get bigger, it’s whether they have enough time and whether they have enough support to teach the kids that are in the class,” Zanchetti-Mayo said.
She says rather than overload teachers, it’ll give them more breathing room to teach. “When they have the headspace to do that, to really focus on who their learners are and what their classroom makeup is, that empowers their instruction,” she said.
The changes will go into effect in the 2022-23 school year.
