The Importance Of Credit Recovery Programs For Students

For the past 8 years, I have worked with at-risk students in nontraditional schools. Often, over ninety percent of my students qualified for free or reduced lunch, and they were all at my school for failing classes. Credit recovery programs became their last chance to graduate in a timely manner. My primary objective was to figure out how to help learners who struggle with significant educational deficits and push them through all the standards at double the pace of a regular classroom. Until recently, my schools have had no sports programs, no music programs, no journalism programs, and precious few electives. I am in year 9 of my teaching career and am only now working at my first comprehensive high school. Until recently, my students have struggled academically and personally. Since beginning my career, I have realized that the process by which schools adjust and refine curriculum needs improvement. Knowing I was working with a challenging educational model, I volunteered to participate in the district cadre to develop the AZCCRS curriculum and found that this was only the beginning. The experience with my cadre team proved to me that we need to change how schools approach curriculum at the district and school level in order to ensure that educators are providing the best quality education to our children.

Despite a less than exceptional undergraduate GPA, in my post-baccalaureate program, I earned a 4.0 and realized that I have the mettle to pursue a higher degree. Soon after I began my career, it became clear that going back to school for my Master’s degree would further improve my teaching skills. In my first year teaching with a district based alternative school, I volunteered to join the cadre team that was charged ...

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...students from falling irrevocably behind. Curriculum development can be the key. If educators know how to reach every student, if schools tailor instruction to include these diverse learners, if we master the art of engagement and gradually increasing complexity, providing these students with the education that they deserve will be a possibility. Today’s classroom is not the same as the classroom of the past. New ways to teach are being developed every day as a result of brain-based research. I plan to become a driving force of innovation, helping direct learning in a positive way. I plan to be a voice for positive change in my career. Teaching isn’t just a job. Teaching is a calling. Compelled by more than just a career path or a paycheck, I am thrust forward by the light in the eyes of my students, looking to me for guidance, support, and ultimately, education.