Studying Study Skills

A closer look at the study skills class and the education of students with learning disabilities.

BY ALEX PARKER-ROGERS AND ABIGAIL AGUAYO News Editor, Graphics Editor

For students with disabilities or academic struggles, high school comes with a whole host of obstacles to navigate. Whether it’s more support with reading, focus or speaking students require, it is essential Sequoia offer education programs and services equipped to address their needs.

Study skills - a current program available - often flies under the radar, but should be discussed in order for the Sequoia community to achieve its common goal of an accessible high school experience.

What is study skills?

The study skills program is for students who have an Individual Education Plan (IEP) and face challenges or learning disabilities that affect their experience in the classroom. The class serves students with learning disabilities such as, ADHD, autism, dyslexia, speech impairment and more, but also supports students with language barriers or traumatic brain injuries. The goal is to give these students and others with IEPs a class period dedicated to academic support for their general education classes.

Teachers offer this support by providing homework help or reteaching lessons from any of the student’s other classes. For students with executive dysfunction (a common behavioral symptom of ADHD that affects a person’s ability to prioritize and complete tasks) organizational tools for schoolwork are provided.

“The primary thing I try to teach students is to be organized. To keep track of your homework, when you need to turn it in and keep track of when your tests are. So, we do what we call a weekly tracker. Students look up their grades every week so they know what classes to focus on and they write down what homework they have,” Study skills teacher Dayna Danielson said.

Junior study skills student, Scarlett Sandoval Martinez added that along with the teachers, the other students and overall environment of the class also provide academic support.

“Here you get help with your work. They give you any help you need and time to do your work and like, you just go to this really nice environment with other students. In total it’s really nice and helpful. Like even if you don’t want the help you can help other students,” Martinez said.

Upon entering high school, students with IEPs who took study skills in middle school will automatically be placed in the class their freshman year. Some choose to drop it later, while some choose to take it longer into their high school careers, as was the case for junior Kai Roblin.

“I found out about the class and got my schedule changed in eighth grade to a study skills class in place of my sixth period art. It really helped because I had it in sixth period and I would get homework done from different classes or help on assignments so I stuck with it for freshman, sophomore, and junior year,” Roblin said.

Another aim of the class is to make sure students graduate highschool with a plan for their future. Teachers offer information on community or four year college as well as trade school options.

“Sequoia is big on four year colleges after high school but for some kids that’s not always the best… I first encourage looking into two year colleges and a lot of the students are fine with that option. There are also some where they want to go right to work,” Danielson said.

Mainstreaming

Study skills is a part of the mainstream or full inclusion model Sequoia uses to educate students with disabilities. It was implemented recently and is used by the entire district as an alternative to having all students with IEPs attend only a single class in one part of the school for the entire school day.

“This district went to a full mainstream model years ago. Some districts don’t do it that way. Some districts have a self contained, speciality day class where those students just go to one classroom and aren’t mainstreamed in for algebra, or science or social studies classes,” Brand said.

While this may work for some schools, a program like this isolates students with disabilities to one part of the school, cutting them off from the larger community. It also singles these students out and can cement the idea that, because they have a different set

BY RYLAN BUTT & OSCAR NOLF Co Editor-in-chiefs

On paper, the IB diploma seems like a diverse learning opportunity that showcases the best of Sequoia’s academics, but in reality, it has more flaws than expected. A survey of every student in the IB diploma shows that more than 90% of those students don’t think the diploma fairly represents the demographics of Sequoia as a whole.

According to the IB office, the IB diploma is 53.1 percent white, 25 percent Hispanic/ Latino, 16.7 percent Asian, and one percent Black. Students in the diploma were surprised by this fact, many had predicted that the percentage of white and asian students would be higher and that there would be less latino students.

“The amount of Asian and female students in the diploma is not at all proportional to the school’s student body,” senior Vir Shah said.

After further investigating the Sequoia IB database and talking to students about how they were represented, we noticed a discrepancy between the ethnicity the student identified as and the ethnicity they were flagged as by the diploma. Students with mixed ethnicities were only marked down for one of them. This resulted in an inflation of the number of white and Hispanic/Latino while lowering the number of Asian and Black students.

Consisting of the top students in the school, the IB diploma creates a private school environment in a public school. Full diploma students have limited opportunities to interact with students outside of the diploma, even if they are still taking IB classes. Due to the specific classes that the diploma requires, diploma students find themselves in class with mainly other diploma students, even if the class is available to anyone. Theory of Knowledge (TOK) and IB Core are the only classes that are explicitly for students pursuing the diploma or parts of it, but after taking into account that higher level math and language classes may only be offered in one or two periods, it becomes clear that diploma students are being funneled into the same schedules.

This concept is called shadow tracking. Say a diploma student was taking IB french, TOK, multivariable calculus (multi). Since the number of periods each class offers is limited, the students’ 0-2nd period would be forced to be TOK, IB french, then multi. This places restrictions on the rest of the students’ classes, for example, since their second period is taken, they would be forced into fourth period IB english. This is why some class periods are occupied with a lot of diploma students even if it is a standard IB class.

Interacting with non-diploma students even on a social level becomes difficult since full-diploma students are held to such a high standard. Whether this is caused by the diploma program or if it is just these types of people who feel suited for the diploma, it is undeniable that there is elitism in the IB diploma, even among each candidate themselves. The pressure to get into a good university can sometimes even affect friendships when you are directly competing with them.

“This competitiveness can inspire supportiveness as well as toxicity; however, it really depends on the people you encounter,” senior Amanda Swee wrote in a survey.

It becomes harder to diversify the diploma if it is dominated by a majority of students who struggle to interact with non-full diploma students. Whether it be a systematic issue, historical issue or just racism itself, it is discouraging for students who don’t look like those in the diploma to join because they would feel as if they don’t belong in that community. A big part of IB is creating a well rounded, diverse community, yet that is something it struggles to do in the diploma program itself.

All freshmen and sophomores are exposed to the IB diploma through grade level meetings.

“Some staff help us run down a list of students who have every class they would need in order to be eligible to pursue the full diploma. [...] They are invited to what we call a VIP IB diploma meeting and it’s takes place during the school day,” Lisa McCahon, IB Coordinator said.

The diploma however, isn’t completely restricted by one’s academic talent. It’s undeniable that IB classes are significantly harder than regular courses which is why the diploma seems like such a daunting challenge. The diploma is accessible to all academic talent as long as they are willing to put in the time and effort to get everything done. This does not mean that the diploma is accessible to all students. Those who have significant extracurricular commitments, whether that be working a job to support their family or playing sports everyday after school, simply do not have the time that is needed to complete everything the diploma requests.