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POSTED: Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009

Meridian High class teaches on-the-job math skills

LAUREL - People normally associate math classes with textbooks and solving problem after problem, but in Ted Goeres' math class at Meridian High School, students use construction tools and their hands to learn the subject.

Goeres teaches Construction and Occupational Math, a new class this school year designed to reach students who haven't passed the math portion of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning test.

"This is another attempt to reach kids where they are with their math skills," said Dave Shockley, Meridian's principal. "This is another way to give them the math skills they need to survive in the real world."

The curriculum, which was developed by the Association of General Contractors Washington Education Foundation, through a grant from the Transition Math Project, gives students real-life construction problems that require math skills to solve.

For example, students in a recent class were given wooden molds of various shapes and sizes. Their task was to determine the volume of a mold and to figure out how much concrete would be needed to fill it. The assignment required students to use geometry, conversions and ratios.

After Goeres checked the students' math, they got the hands-on experience of mixing the concrete, filling the mold and smoothing the surface, just like on a real job.

Students call the class "legit," grateful for the practical application of math concepts.

Meridian High is the first school in the state to offer the curriculum through the AGC foundation, and at least three other schools are interested in adopting the class, Shockley said.

The class might eventually become a pre-requisite for enrolling in the Construction Careers Academy, which is housed at Meridian but is offered to students throughout Whatcom County.

Under state law, students who don't pass the WASL math test, or the test it's replaced with this school year, must keep taking math classes in order to graduate.

This year, the Construction and Occupational Math class helps those students, but in the future it might help many more students meet proposed changes in graduation requirements.

State education officials have proposed that by the class of 2013 - this year's freshmen - students across the state would have to earn three math credits instead of two in order to graduate from high school.

Three credits for graduation would require students to take algebra, geometry and algebra 2. At Meridian, Construction and Occupational Math could substitute for algebra 2.

"Some kids just can't do algebra 2," Shockley said, adding that the school used to offer a remedial math program with the help of state funding. "The state took away the funding for it, so we had to find something to fill the void."