CREDIT & GRADE RECOVERY PLAN
In accordance with the guidelines of the Alabama Department of Education, the Choctaw County School System will offer students who have received failing grades in courses that are required for graduation an opportunity to recover the lost credit through a standards-based approach that will target specific knowledge and skill deficits instead of requiring the student to repeat the entire course. Such students must meet eligibility requirements to apply, and the Credit Recovery Program must be operated under the guidelines established by this document.
STUDENT FAILURE REPORTS
Teachers who assign failing grades to students in courses that are necessary for graduation will be required to submit a student-specific report which identifies course standards that were met, not met, or not covered in the applicable grading term (Attachment A). These reports may be used in combination with course and skill-specific diagnostic tools provided through software vendors and/or school or school-system assessments, all of which must be aligned with the Alabama Course of Study content standards for the course being pursued through Credit Recovery.
STUDENT ELIGIBILITY, ADMISSION, AND REMOVAL
Students are eligible to apply for Credit Recovery if the final grade earned in a course required for graduation was between 40% and 59%. Alternatively, such a student can choose to repeat a course in its entirety during the next regular school term.
Students must complete an application (Attachment B) to request placement in a Credit Recovery Program. The student and parent/guardian must sign the application to consent to placement in the program and to acknowledge agreement with the terms of admission and program requirements.
Students may be removed from a Credit Recovery Program at the discretion of the administrator supervising the program for circumstances involving serious or repeated misbehavior, failure to adhere to program attendance requirements, or failure to make adequate progress towards meeting remediation requirements.
CREDIT RECOVERY PROGRAM AUTHORIZATION AND OPERATION
Tuition for credit and grade recovery during the school year will not have a tuition charge. Students needing summer school to complete courses will adhere to the current summer school guidelines for Choctaw County in order to recover credit during the summer.
Each school will add two additional periods, Period 0 and Period 8, to the current school day for students needing partial credit recovery. The system will designate a specified time for credit recovery to occur during the second semester. All course credit must be recovered during the time allowed by the district for partial recovery. This specified time will be determined based on the number of standards needed for partial recovery per course per student. The district will determine how many weeks of credit recovery are needed based on current need in each school for the 2008-2009 school year. If an entire course is needed, the students will be placed in ACCESS courses or recommended for summer school in the district.
Credit Recovery programs operating during the summer term or outside the normal school hours must be supervised by an administrator.
Teachers working with students in Credit Recovery programs must be certified and highly qualified in the content area they are teaching or in one content area if they are facilitating a software-based program. In situations where online courses are being utilized, a facilitator may be used who is an approved adult employee of the school system.
Credit Recovery Program offerings may be limited by the availability of space, teachers, or appropriate computer-based content for specific courses.
GRADE RECOVERY
During the second semester, students will be allowed to recover grades from the previous semester using the same process and guidelines as credit recovery. Each school determine the students who will qualify (have at least 40% for the first semester) for grade recovery. The students will be to show master of all necessary standards for first semester in addition to passing second semester. The grading policy for Grade Recivery will be identical to the grading policy for credit recovery.
INSTRUCTIONAL CONTENT AND CURRICULUM
Instruction will be delivered through a combination of computer-based instructional (CBI) software and targeted small-group instruction supervised and managed by a certified and highly qualified teacher in the subject area or through direct instruction from a teacher who is certified and highly qualified in the subject/course recovered. Credit Recovery teachers will receive training pertaining to effective course organization and operational management of the applicable computer-based instructional software. In lieu of time constraints for the 2008-2009 school year, highly qualified teachers will be responsible for content even though some CBI may be used.
An individual student prescription will be developed by the Credit Recovery teacher based on failure reports completed by the students' teacher of record and skill-specific diagnostic tools which are offered by the computer-based instructional software (STIAssessment and teacher-made assessments). The Credit Recovery teacher will use his or her professional judgment of this data along with any further diagnostic device deemed necessary to develop a precriptive plan for specific standards for remediation targeted to individual students.
The student must complete his or her individual remediation plan within the published operating dates and hours of the Credit Recovery Program. Students may attempt to recover multiple credits, but one credit must be completed before attempting the next.
Instructional assignments, whether computer-based or teacher-based will be aligned with the Alabama academic content standards approved by the State Board of Education.
Students will be released from the Credit Recovery Program upon successful completion of individual remediation plans regardless of the number of hours of instruction.
GRADES AND CREDIT
A maximum grade of 70 may be awarded in a Credit Recovery course.
The Credit Recovery grade will be calculated as an average of the failed grade with the Credit Recovery grade, up to a 70 average.
Grade forgiveness will be used, whereby the original failing grade is replaced by the Credit Recovery grade for computing grade-point averages.
A maximum of ten (10) credits may be earned by a student in a school year which includes subsequent summer-school terms.
