On Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester, we are piloting a new initiative called Targeted Seminar. 

Targeted Seminar is a building-wide approach to providing intervention opportunities for all students in our building. This provides students with an opportunity to receive academic support in the forms of intervention, reteaching, and enrichment. 

The Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) requires that all school districts have a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework in place in order to provide the best education for all students within a district. Furthermore, our district has designed our model to align with proven research for how often to meet in order to monitor the progress of all of our students. 

Targeted Seminar has been going extremely well. We have a number of different options that provide opportunities for students to learn — whether that be relearning essential skills within their English or Math classes, or learning a new skill that may be transferable to other high school classes, or even applicable after their high school career. 

This semester has been our “pilot” of the Targeted Seminar model, with over 60 different seminars being offered during third and fourth quarter.The seminars take place during 5 - 6 session rotations, so each student has 3 different rotations they attend during an academic quarter. These sessions are focused on academic support, enrichment, or extension. Examples of seminars focused on essential skills include targeted intervention groups for Algebra or Biology, content-specific guided study halls or skills practice for Spanish. Other students choose a session to better prepare themselves for life outside of high school like Healthy Smoothies, Cooking Basics, Military Careers, Resume Writing, Budgeting 101, or Mobility for Athletes. Or, they might opt for a rotation related to a class in which they are enrolled, like AP/Honors classes, Composition classes, or Chamber Orchestra.

As students and teachers explore areas of interest, we expect to offer even more opportunities in the fall. 

"We believe that we are on the leading edge of offering academic opportunities for all of our students. We are confident that Targeted Seminar is going to help all of our students find the academic support they need to be able to succeed throughout high school and in the real world,” says Mr. Alix Kunkle, MTSS coordinator.