To: Bureau Directors
Regional Directors
Schools Division/City Superintendents
Heads, Public Elementary and Secondary Schools

1. The results of the most recent national achievement tests for Grade 6 students indicate that a very large portion of those who enter high school have not yet mastered most of the elementary education curriculum and are unprepared for learning the secondary level curriculum. Need for remedial instruction early in the high school cycle for the least ready entrants remains substantial, urgent and essential. The Department of Education is therefore mandating that all public high schools organize and provide the following remedial instruction programs to increase the chances that all their students complete high school with sufficient mastery of its coverage.
   1. For incoming first year students, the High School Bridge Program will continue to be an optional program. High schools shall strongly recommend that incoming first year students who scored below 30% in the Grade 6 National Achievement Test should enter the Bridge Program subject to the concurrence of their parents.
   2. For incoming first year students who do not enter the Bridge Program and who meet the diagnostic criteria to be set by each school as requiring remedial instruction in Science, English and Math, mandatory remedial classes in addition to regular classes in these two critical subjects shall be organized and provided.
   3. For the nearly 150,000 first year students who opted to enter the high school Bridge Program last year and have had the benefit of intensive instruction in English, Science and Math, assessment results showed significant improvement in their scores in these three subjects. They are now much more prepared to start learning the high school curriculum and are therefore moving on to the first year of what is expected to be an eventually successful high school education.
   4. For the nearly 250,000 first year students who should have entered the Bridge Program but opted instead to enter the regular first year, their English, Science and Math scores have improved but at levels insufficient for the level of second year high school to which most of them are entering this year. For incoming second year students who meet the diagnostic criteria set by each school as requiring remedial instruction in English and Math, mandatory remedial classes in addition to regular classes in these two critical subjects shall be organized and provided.
2. Division/City Superintendents are instructed to make sure that each high school takes the appropriate measure to establish the necessary remedial instruction programs based on the above guidelines. Principals of high schools and superintendents are advised that a national test shall be administered in February 2006 that all second year high school students must pass in order to progress to third year.
3. Immediate dissemination of this Memorandum is desired.

Reference:
None
Allotment: 1— (D.O. 50-97)

To be indicated in the Perpetual Index under the following subjects:
PROGRAMS
SCHOOLS
STUDENTS

DO_s2005_027