TAP (Time for Academic Progress): A B-CC HS Educational Foundation Signature Program
Program Description
History
Data
TAP, Time for Academic Progress, is B-CC’s academic support program, offered after school from 2:15pm to 3:15pm each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at B-CC, and in the evening from 5:30pm to 7:30pm each Tuesday and Thursday at the Gwendolyn Coffield Community Center in Silver Spring. Its objective is to provide an instructional environment where teachers reinforce what is covered in class, especially prior to a test, or provide assistance with homework.
TAP works to address the needs of students from the on-level classes to those in the most advanced classes. It offers a structure under which students in need of extra help can find that help after school (and, unlike with private tutoring, at no cost to the students or their parents.)
There are also secondary benefits to attending TAP. Students not only work with teachers to advance their knowledge, but they also use TAP as an opportunity to work together and help each other, building a support network with the other students who are attending. The program is a valuable resource to students and their families. More than half of B-CC students use TAP each year.
TAP at B-CC
Four math teachers, two English teachers and three science teachers share the responsibility for staffing TAP at B-CC, offering sessions on English, math, and science. In addition, a TAP coordinator is in place to monitor attendance and determine appropriate staffing. Prior to significant tests, additional staff and classrooms are made available to assist larger numbers of students. It is also an ongoing effort by the coordinator to make sure that the message is received by all students that this program is available for everyone and that student needs are being addressed.
Students of all grades and class levels are welcome to attend TAP where they can review course material and get help preparing for tests. Approximately one-fourth of the students who attend TAP are struggling to maintain a GPA above 2.0. During the 2010-11 school year, over 2,000 visits were made to TAP at B-CC.
Like each of the other Signature Programs, TAP remains a work in progress as the staff works to identify how to most effectively assist the greatest number of students. This year the staffing has been increased to respond to the need for specific help with Calculus and Physics.
TAP at Coffield
TAP at Coffield serves the same purpose as TAP at B-CC yet offers students a different environment, a more relaxed setting outside of B-CC. It is easy for students to get to, particularly those who live in the Rosemary Hills area; and being a neighborhood meeting place, it is a natural location for the academic tutoring program. The evening hours also make it more convenient for students who work after school or have other family responsibilities that prohibit them from staying after school for TAP at B-CC. Fewer students attend the program at the Coffield location, which enables the tutors to work more closely with students and tailor the sessions to their individual needs. Computers are available on site for students who need to use them but may not have them available at home, and snacks are often available to students while they study and work with the tutors.
The tutors who work directly with the students at the Coffield location include a current and a retired B-CC teacher as well as B-CC seniors who tutor in the subjects for which they have taken the most advanced classes. The tutors provide academic support in many subjects but most frequently in math (calculus, geometry, and algebra), science (chemistry and biology), English, and history.
Just as TAP at B-CC, the Coffield site is open to all B-CC students. Students taking on-level or advanced classes as well as students in all grades are welcome. Students often come in to prepare for an upcoming test, to get a better understanding of concepts, to learn something that they did not grasp in class, or to get help with their homework.
While in the past the Coffield site has its own program coordinator, starting with the 2011-2012 school year, to tighten coordination between the B-CC and Coffield sites, there is now one coordinator for the two sites. TAP at Coffield staff would like to increase the number of students who use this location and understand that this may also require an increase in the number of tutors to work with the students.
In 2003, the B-CC math department submitted a grant request to the B-CC High School Educational Foundation to fund an after-school program to provide support for math students. The Foundation agreed to fund $2,000 that fall to initiate the program called TAP (Time for Academic Progress). After positive results that first semester, the Foundation renewed the grant in the Spring 2004. Data collected by the after-school math support program indicated a 15% overall improvement in test scores among students who used the program that year.
At the start of the 2004-2005 school year, in a meeting with then interim principal Sean Bulson, B-CC student leaders listed the student body’s number one priority – among academics, technology, sports, the arts, extracurricular activities, and others – as having extra time and more focused support to succeed in their academic courses. The need existed at all levels.
As students stretched themselves, they often needed extra time and one-on-one attention from teachers that were very hard to provide during the regular class periods. According to the students, if they had that extra help, more of them would try advanced courses and more of them would succeed. To help these students, and those who were struggling to pass grade-level courses, the Foundation launched a special fundraising effort to expand academic support and mentoring for all B-CC students.
In the fall of 2004, with an $18,500 grants from the Foundation, TAP expanded from covering just math to include English, Foreign Language, Science, and Social Studies. These TAP sessions were staffed by B-CC teachers and were open to students at all levels. Since then, the program has become a mainstay of academic support programs at B-CC, and commands an increasingly significant part of the Foundation’s annual budget.
The TAP program at the Gwendolyn Coffield Community Center began during the spring semester of the 2005–2006 school year as an extension of TAP at B-CC. Funding began with a start-up grant of $12,000. This amount has remained relatively consistent over the years.
In FY2012, the B-CC HS Educational Foundation has budgeted $32,295 for TAP at B-CC and $10,000 for TAP at Coffield. Together the TAP program at the two sites accounts for 29% of the Foundation’s grant budget for FY2012.
The Foundation has been funding relatively small grant requests since its inception. TAP began as one of those small requests that started with the desire to provide assistance to struggling math students. Now, almost a decade later, most students at B-CC can say that, during their high school years, they have benefited from TAP.
In the spring of 2009, the Foundation undertook a small study to assess student use and opinion of the TAP program. The first thing we learned was that 99% of students surveyed have heard of TAP and that 90% of those who attend find it helpful.
We explored why students do and don’t come to TAP. The charts below provide the responses from two separate surveys, one of TAP participants and one of students in the general population. The results from the first survey indicate that students use TAP as intended: they go to TAP for extra help with course material, particularly before a test, but also in normal homework and class assignments. The results from the second survey support the need for an evening TAP as provided at the Coffield Center.
In addition to the positive feedback we received, we also learned that there are some issues that deserve our attention. First and foremost is a problem of overcrowding on the days before math tests. Forty-five respondents commented that they had not received the help they needed because there were too many students in the class. Overcrowding does not appear to be a deterrent to attending TAP (only 7% of students reported that they had not returned to TAP because it was too crowded). An additional section of Math TAP put in place this school year should reduce the overcrowding.
The second most frequent comment was a request for foreign language TAP. Ten percent of respondents wrote they would like foreign language TAP. Fifty percent of these students mentioned Spanish in particular. B-CC historically provided TAP for foreign languages; however that was stopped in 2007 when it could not find the resources needed to serve all six languages that are offered at the school. The Foundation will add foreign language support to its agenda this year.
Finally, the surveys, along with staff interviews, confirmed that TAP is a helpful resource for participants who are having occasional difficulties with mainstream classes. TAP is less useful for students in the highest level math and science classes*, or those who are facing more significant or ongoing academic challenges. The B-CC HS Educational Foundation is committed to facilitating the success of every B-CC student. As such, the Foundation will continue to explore ways to ensure that all B-CC students receive the academic support they need to achieve their highest potential.
*note: This may be changing in school year 2011-2012 when TAP starts offering academic support in Physics and calculus in response to student needs.
Data collected on TAP attendees for the 2008-2009 school year show that 807 students made 2,764 visits to TAP at B-CC and by March 2009, 39 students had made 410 visits to TAP at the Coffield Center. The program was used consistently more by underclassmen than upperclassmen, and in math and science than English and Social Studies. The charts below show the visits disaggregated by subject and grade.
The data also shows that TAP attendees’ ethnic makeup roughly mirrors that of the general student population: 48% white, 28% black, 15% Hispanic, and 9% Asian.
(Copies of the full TAP report are available for those who are interested).
