Student Learning Assistants

Today I will discuss Student Learning Assistants (SLA's).  SLA's were created for two reasons.  First, the school district needed to "clean up" the different roles and responsibilities of non-teachers in the system.  In the past the school district has various job titles for a host of people doing work within our school.  There were long-term subs, Burst teachers, Risk teachers and tutors.  SLA's will undertake many of the responsibilities and duties of these different titles and place them under one job description. Since SLA's will not be tied to a specific program it will give the principals more felxibility to schedule the SLA's.  SLA's are not teachers (although they are all certified); rather they were created to help students in their learning.  This is where the second reason for their creation comes into play.  SLA's are there to help students learn; thus their name.  By not being ties to a specific program, the SLA's will be able to step in where needed in the schools to help students.  The majority of SLA's are in the elementary schools.  The school district is committed to make sure all of our students (especially the ones in the primary grades) get all of the help possible to make sure they can read.  Reading is a gatekeeper skill that will impact the student's learning for the rest of their lives.  The elementary principals will make sure that the SLA's concentrate a lot of their time in the early grades helping in basic reading.  There are also a few SLA's in the middle schools and high school where they will help students in all areas of the curriculum.  I look forward to reviewing achievement data of students (a nd schools) to judge the effectiveness of the SLA's.