I am looking forward to working with your student this semester. This class is designed to help your students succeed in school by helping them improve their organizational and working skills. Please encourage your student to be prepared every day for school. Students must come prepared with work to do or a book to read daily. This means students should have their Chromebooks charged and ready to go. If we work together, we can help them have a successful school year.

Objective:

To meet students' individual needs and improve their study and social skills needed to succeed in academic classes.

Tracker:

All students are required to track their homework assignments in their online tracker. If they need to, they may also use another planner of their choosing. I also have a behavior and preparedness tracker that is kept at my desk to go through. Those points will be added to the weekly tracker.

Behavior:

Students are expected to show respect to the teacher as well as to other students. They need to contribute to a positive atmosphere that allows everyone to learn and study in a quiet environment. If class rules are not followed, the discipline policy for Sand Ridge Jr. High will be followed. This class is only for students that really want to do better and will work in class. Playing games on Chromebooks is not allowed and cell phones should be put away during class time.

Citizenship:

The Sand Ridge Options Department insists that students obey school and classroom rules to maintain satisfactory citizenship. Failure to do so will result in a drop in citizenship. The following guidelines will be used to decide citizenship:

Four tardies = N, Five tardies = U It is the responsibility of the student to get to class on time.
Any student causing classroom disruptions will receive a U.
Students who are removed from the classroom will receive a U.

Removal from Options:

If a student does not follow the rules in the Options class, (inappropriate language or behavior, not working and continuously disrupting other students, refusing to use the online tracker) the student may be removed from the Options program permanently. I will first try to speak with the student about their behavior, then if there is no improvement, I will email or call home. If the behavior persists after this point, the counselors will be involved and they may be removed.

Hall Passes:

I do not have a limit on hall passes. However, if the hall pass is being abused, that student will lose their hall pass privilege and only receive 5 hall passes to use in the quarter. No extra credit will be given for unused hall passes.

Options Grade:

In a normal 5 day week, each student has the opportunity to earn 200 points. Students can earn up to 30 points every day. 10 for filling out their tracker, 10 for being prepared, and 10 for staying on task. Students also earn up to 50 points for not having missing assignments in their other classes.

The following is a breakdown of how points are earned:

Prepared for Class: Chromebook to access Canvas and homework, writing utensil, and a book to read. I do allow students to charge their Chromebooks in class, but they will lose a point or two if it isn’t charged before class. (10 points)

Staying on Task: Students are expected to work quietly on homework or missing work. They may do an activity if they are done with all other work. If a student is doing anything that prevents others from doing their work or is working on an activity when they have homework or missing work, points will be lost. (10 points)

Online Trackers: These are found on my Canvas page. I only require 35 minutes of work to be documented in their daily work. This means, if a student is at home or unable to attend my class for the day, they can still obtain points for the day if they fill out 35 minutes of work. If for whatever reason, your student is unable to work for a day, either sick or at a doctor's appointment, just email me to let me know and I'll excuse the day on the tracker. These are turned in at the end of the week. (10 points)

Missing Work: Students will have the opportunity to receive up to 50 points a week based on the number of missing assignments in their other classes. I do email home if a student reaches 10 missing assignments. When midterms lock assignments, I stop counting those locked assignments against their grades.

Less than 5 missing assignments total: 50 points

5-9 missing assignments total: 40 points

10-14 missing assignments total: 30 points

15-19 missing assignments total: 20 points

20-24 missing assignments total: 10 points

25 or more missing assignments total: 0 points

If you need to reach out to me for any concerns, my email is sawilliamson@wsd.net. I try to be available until about 3PM Monday through Friday and try to respond within 24 hours.