LEAP LS 305
(Lasallian Education Assistance Program)




INTRODUCTION


As I observed my LS 305 students during the first quarter of school year 2008-2009, I noticed that while some of them are achievers, a number of them seemed academically challenged. In fact, at the end of the first quarter—students incurred failure in subjects such as Social Studies, Filipino, and Math.
Driven by the example of St. John Baptist De La Salle of helping academically challenged children to excel by providing quality education, I was motivated to conceptualize a similar endeavor—a homeroom based program which will respond to the need of the Level 9 students especially in class LS 305 to do well in their academic performance since this year is the most difficult period for them due to moral, physical, and social development and personal issues they need to deal with.
The program is called LEAP which stands for Lasallian Education Assistance Program. This is intended to motivate students to “leap” higher from where they were previously in their academic performance. Likewise, the said program aims to achieve the following objectives:



1. to assist the academically challenged students in their daily assignments and other academic requirements
2. to provide opportunity for the achieving students to share their time and skills in helping academically challenged classmates
3. to build school environment that fosters academic excellence
4. to instill in them the value of being a sharer of God’s gift and the importance of helping one another in the class
5. to achieve 100 percent passing rate for all students in the class at the end of S.Y. 2008-2009

Methodology

The Adviser, together with the class officers, brainstormed and put their ideas together to design a program, and then the program was presented to the class, who in turn gave positive feedbacks about its details. To ensure the smooth implementation of LEAP, the following procedure were set and presented to the class.
The adviser informed everyone in the class especially the students with failures to attend the said sessions.
There were at least 3 review sessions a week held in LS 305.
The subjects to be reviewed for the day were determined by the class.
A minimum of 30 minutes was allotted for each session that starts at 12:10 to 12:40.


The student who is the best in the each subject area facilitated the review session. The adviser and the class officers took turns in monitoring each review session.
The Adviser informed the subject teachers about the program so that they could help in providing feedbacks on the students’ performance in their subject.

RESULTS

The first and second quarter grades of academically challenged students in Math, Filipino, and Social Studies are presented in Table 1.

Table1 Comparison of the 1st and 2nd Quarter grades of LS 305 students with failures



-------------------------------Math --------Filipino ----------Social Studies
Names -----------------------1st -2nd -------1st 2nd -------------1st --2nd
1 Student 1-------------- -------------------------------------------73 --76
2 Student 2---------------------------------------------------------73 --78
3 Student 3--------------- ------------------------------------------73 --78
4 Student 4---------------------------------------------------------73 --79
5 Student 5----------------------------------------------------------73 --76
6 Student 6------------ ------73-- 78 ----------74 --75 ----------73 --77
7 Student 7-------------------74---75 ----------74 --79 ----------73---77

Table 2

------------------------------------------MATH-------- Social Studies
-----------Names----------------------1st-------2nd-----1st-----2nd
1 Dimaano, Dane Kezia D. ----------92-------95-------83------85
2 Fesalvo, Milca T. -------------------85-------84-------86------90
3 Hernandez, Joanna ----------------86-------87-------82------86
4 Lasig, Pamela O. -------------------83-------89--------81------85
5 Leycano, Dane Aira D. -------------88------93-------82--------87
6 Sangalang, Joyce Ann M. ----------87------92------81-------87
7 Jaurigue, Inaki ---------------------93-------96-------86------83


The tables show that the academically-challenged students’ grades in the three identified subjects have tremendously improved since they started to attend the program regularly and the failures in the first quarter were eliminated totally in the second quarter. Likewise, the grades of achieving students who facilitated the review session for each subject showed a great improvement.

However, some students in my class incurred failing grades in other subjects due to the following factors: neglect of students in passing the requirements and too many activities in one particular subject.


DISCUSSION

Based on the data presented, it could be said that indeed, the program that was monitored effectively by the teacher and the class officers resulted in the improvement of academic performance of both the academically challenged and achieving students in class LS 305. The determination of the students to excel in academics and their positive attitudes contributed to the success of the program. Other positive factors should be identified so that they can be used to improve the said program.

However, there is a need to look into the grading system, the academic policy of not releasing the grades of students with failures week after a quarterly examinations, and the requirements of some subjects as factors for getting a lower grades or failures of many students. The need to identify the negative factors would be very essential in modifying the academic policy in order to address the situation of the academically challenged students in the Integrated School.