BARSTOW • The Barstow Unified School District will be piloting a new intervention program aimed at helping students two or more grade levels below their reading level starting next school year.

The program, called California Gateways, was included into the district’s master plan this week and will be BUSD’s first district-wide intervention program, according to Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Teresa Healy.

If the pilot year is successful, the district will officially adopt Gateways for the 2010-11 year, Healy said.

The program will focus on students in grades four through eight, with parts of the program specifically geared towards non-native English speakers who have difficulty keeping up with grade-level reading while learning English, according to Henderson Elementary School teacher Margie Najera.

“They have a double struggle,” said Najera. Henderson has a 14 percent non-native English speaking student population, and is second to Hinkley School, where almost 37 percent are non-native speakers, according to a report by the California Department of Education.

According to Healy, students in intensive intervention will spend two-and-a-half to three hours a day with a teacher working on reading, vocabulary and writing skills, and will be monitored under the program for two school years.

Currently, Henderson students who read below grade level spend between 30 to 40 minutes per day with a reading specialist, according to Principal Jan Rhoads.

The students will work in small groups with teachers but will also interact with their peers as part of lessons learning vocabulary or reading comprehension, said Healy.

“The kids are very active throughout all of it,” said Healy, who expects to see improvements in standardized test scores after the second year, if the program is adopted.

Middle and high school students who are below grade level reading and placed in the program will lose their elective classes to make time, she said.

Teachers will be receiving training for Gateways this summer, said Healy.

About 90 percent of elementary students who are below grade-level reading and 50 percent of middle and high school students will be included during the program’s trial run next year, she said.

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