Redo program eliminates failure as option in Dothan middle schools

Getting an education is a lot like building a house.

Cut corners or skip key items and you end up with a shoddy, substandard product that will cause problems later.

With this in mind, Girard Middle School is adopting a policy that will make students adhere to the old saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

The school is requiring students failing any test in their core academic classes—reading, language arts, math, science and social studies—to cover the material again, and then retake the test. The score of the first test and second test will be averaged together to reflect the student’s final grade on the material.

Greg Yance, Girard Middle School Principal, said the purpose of the redo tests and classes is to make sure students don’t have any gaps in their learning that could lead to future problems. Yance said students who fail to master material in middle school often struggle in high school, get frustrated and eventually drop out.

“If they feel like they’re not going to be successful, it could lead to a snowball effect,” said Pam Hardy, a Girard teacher.

Hardy will lead the redo class at Girard, helping students master material they may have missed the first time around. In the classes, Hardy or a teacher’s aide will teach the material again, and then give the students a second test.

Students will be sent to the redo classes during their art and music course time.

“If you really like to be in art, that’s going to be an incentive to put more effort into math, because you really want to be in art,” Yance said.

The redo plan is a suggestion taken from the Making Middle Grades Work program.

Making Middle Grades Work is a program designed to improve academics, foster relationships between school staff and students, ease the transition between middle school and high school and coordinate teacher training with an overall school improvement plan.

Making Middle Grades Work is currently in more than 90 Alabama schools and will soon be implemented in all of the state’s middle schools.

The redo plan is catching on too. Other middle schools in the Dothan City School system are either implementing or considering implementing a similar program.

“We are striving for mastery,” said Carver Magnet School principal James Kelley. “We are going to make sure the students are mastering the work.”