Sixth-grader Jenna Martin was still wiping sleep from her eyes as she shuffled through the halls of Marley Middle School. It was a Saturday morning after all, and she could have spent it in bed or watching Hannah Montana or fiddling around online, caring for her virtual Webkinz pet.
Her usual Saturday morning schedule, however, is on hiatus for seven weeks.
Jenna and dozens of schoolmates are using that time to prepare for the Maryland School Assessments, to be given to third- to eighth-graders April 1-10.
Marley's teachers and principal Kevin Buckley have invited all of the more than 830 students to attend Saturday School - 1 1/2 hours of intensive tutoring and help in reading, math, social studies and science in order to boost the school's performance under No Child Left Behind.
Saturday school has been used in this district and others in the region for years to offer extra help, but it's new to some schools, including Marley. The initiative is paid for by federal grant money and staffed by a handful of teachers and, sometimes, a principal or assistant principal.
"We're making progress in a lot of ways ... trying to help students in any way possible with afterschool tutoring on Tuesdays and Wednesdays," said Buckley, a first-year principal at the school. "We're just not moving as fast as I'd like. I think the extra Saturday school will help."
The Glen Burnie school is among 15 Anne Arundel County schools on the state's watch list for missing benchmarks under the high-stakes federal law, and many of them are on a sprint to offer extra tutoring before the state tests hit students' desks this spring. None of the schools wants to risk remaining on the state's list. If they do, NCLB authorizes the state or school district to levy sanctions that can range from a complete staff turnover to longer school days and even a state takeover.
Like Marley, Brooklyn Park Middle is offering Saturday school for the next several weeks, and others, including Lindale and Annapolis middle schools, are offering extra help periods during the school day. In each tutoring session, whether after school, during the school day or on Saturdays, students struggling with certain subjects are placed in small groups to work closely with teachers for extra help.
In reading, they practice comprehension and writing the short essays required on the state tests called "brief constructed responses" or BCRs. In math, students drill through dozens of sample problems similar to the ones they'll see on the MSAs until the concepts stick, and they're also given test-taking strategies that help them narrow multiple-choice options to the most likely answers.
On a recent Saturday, Marley eighth-grader Darien Edwards-Heyward, 13, brushed up on multiple-step equations in algebra. He has studied the unit in class but often gets distracted by talking to friends.
"It's Saturday. My friends aren't all around me, so I can really focus and get help," Darien said.
Marley Middle, where one in three students come from low-income families, has focused heavily on improving literacy.
The school was placed on the state's watch list in 2006 for missing the bar for reading performance, with particularly weak scores among black and low-income students. The school also didn't meet standards in math among its special needs students.
Marley made moderate gains in those areas last year, but it has to register another consecutive year of gains before getting off the state watch list.
Saturday school is part of a broader effort to help Marley get off the list. Since joining the school last fall, Buckley has made literacy a focus in every classroom, not just in language arts. He has encouraged science and social studies teachers to drill students on comprehension by asking them to underline key words and evaluate visual cues in textbooks, skills that can help students better analyze the passages they'll be asked to read on state tests.
Buckley has also worked to reduce the disciplinary problems that get in the way of academic success. He reduced the school's reliance on suspensions that force students to miss classes, and instead created a Saturday detention hall.
He said he also encouraged teachers to counsel students on making better choices. Those efforts, Buckley said, have cut disciplinary referrals by a third.
ruma.kumar@baltsun.com