PRIME program in place in Morrison

By Sarah Thorndike
Herald Correspondent

October 05, 2005 09:45 am

— MORRISON, Ill. — The Morrison School District spent about $10 per week in the spring 2005 semester to keep from flunking most of the at risk kids at the junior high. It was done through the PRIME program.
“We feel it is a program that doesn’t cost very much, but does have a big impact on students,” MJHS Counselor Kaye Obalil told the Morrison School Board on Sept. 27 when asking them to continue to fund the program.
PRIME is a voluntary program with students and their parents signing a contract to abide by the rules. PRIME stands for “Preparing responsible individuals to meet expectations.” There are three requirements students must meet for each class, every day.
1. Be in class on time.
2. Have all materials (text, notebook, pencil, etc.).
3. Have the assignment for that day finished.
Each student carries a PRIME card that is signed by teachers if the requirements are met. The last hour teachers check the cards; those students who have not met requirements that day go on a list and they stay after school.
“We have PRIME four days a week,” Obalil explained. “Monday through Thursday; nobody wants to stay after school on Friday,” she added with a laugh.
Students spend 45 minutes after school, from 3:10 to 3:55 p.m., with a teacher from their grade level. They can get help with that day’s homework or work that is due the next day. If the student doesn’t stay, it means a detention.
PRIME was started at MJHS in January 1998 and the first three semesters, several teachers volunteered to administer the program. The district funded PRIME for the next three years, 1999 to 2002. It was discontinued between 2002 and 2004 because of the district’s dire financial situation.
When reinstituted last year, there were 21 MJHS students in danger of retention. Of those, according to Obalil, 19 enrolled in PRIME; 18 went on to the next grade with their classmates. A total of 45 MJHS students were enrolled in the program.
One of those was Dillon Huycke, who is now in eighth grade. He didn’t much like the program, he said, because he didn’t like staying after school, but Dillon did admit that PRIME gave him motivation to get his work done.
Obalil provided even more data proving PRIME’s effectiveness. In 2004, without the program, 15 sixth- and seventh-grade students were retained; in 2005 only two sixth-graders and two seventh-graders failed to be promoted.
From the end of first semester, without PRIME, for the 2004-2005 school year to the end of second semester, with the program, the grade point averages for the sixth-graders went from 1.91 to 2.3, seventh-graders went from 1.88 to 2.1, and eighth-graders went from 1.87 to 2.32.
“This helps kids two ways,” Obalil noted. “For the kids who are lazy, it motivates them to get their daily work done so they don’t have to stay after school and it gives those students who are struggling help after school, essentially free tutoring.”
According to Obalil, junior high staff wants the program to begin now, not wait until second semester. It costs $14 per teacher, per day, to administer the program, with one teacher per grade level. That comes to $42 per day, or less than $170 week to keep the at risk kids on track.
The school board approved beginning the program next week. Funding is to come from the state of Illinois School Improvement grant.