Juniors taking ACTion in being a part of Saturday ACT sessions. 

To be better prepared for the standardized test, juniors had a chance to attend one or both Saturday sessions. 

Two Saturday sessions were provided for juniors to use to their advantage to help them with skills needed for the ACT the junior class is taking on Mar. 10. Juniors who attended gained the help they needed to become prepared. The incentives that came along with the attendance of the sessions were a plus for juniors. 

The first session was Feb. 1. It began at 9 a.m. and ended at noon. Beforehand students attending filled out a google form with their scores so they could get placed in the classes catered towards them. Each student’s class focused on improving different skills based on their score. The four ‘classes’ that students attended were math, English, reading, and science. The second session differed from the first. Each session lasted 45 minutes.

The second session occurred on Feb. 22 and was the same time, 9 to noon. But instead of four classes students attended there were only three. Beforehand students filled out a google form based on the sections they wanted to go. The form listed the subject and what each class would be focusing on under that subject. Students then got to choose what skills they wanted to focus on for three out of the four subjects (math, English, science, reading) instead of being assigned the sessions they attended catered to their scores and having to attend all four. These sessions lasted 55 minutes each, instead of 45 like they were in the first session.

AP English 3 teacher, Leo Craven, spent multiple hours of his own time preparing for these sessions and creating lesson plans to help the juniors get a better score. “For me prepping it and organizing it, five or six hours. The changes from the first to the second session came from the feedback on the google form after the first session. More or less students were happy they just wanted extra time and that’s why we made the sessions longer on the second Saturday,” said Craven.

The incentives that were available for students that attended the sessions were encouraging. Both sessions juniors attended were eligible to turn into hours you can leave school early the  Fri. before prom on March 20. With this, if you attended both sessions for the full time is 6 hours which turns into leaving school 6 hours early, almost right after first period. Other incentives for scoring a 26+ on the test are a promised parking pass next school year. And by scoring a 28+ you get another excused absence from school to use on a college visit. Many current seniors are upset that the incentives offered to juniors this year weren’t offered to them as juniors last year. These incentives were mainly used to pull people into the sessions or to score good on the test. 

The annual ACT pep rally for the junior class is March 2 and the juniors are taking the ACT schoolwide on March 10.