NICHOLE CAVADA
STAFF WRITER
Despite a push from the school through a “No CAP, no cap” campaign, the number of students who failed CAP in grades 9-12 last quarter was still almost 140 students. It was not a statistical difference from the 160 failures from the first quarter.
“This number is just too high,” Moanalua High School Principal Robin Martin said. “The students should be completing their CAP assignments and doing so in a timely manner,” she said. “It is not the college and career counselors’ job to have to track down these students, as they have done in the past.”
The Career and Academic Planning (CAP) class assuredly streamlines a student’s experience from day one of high school to graduation. Moanalua teachers serve as CAP advisers, with the intent to mentor students as they try to identify a career that best suits their strengths, skills, and goals. Even considering that the class plays a significant role in shaping a student’s future choices, students are not turning in their assignments, forcing teachers to give students a U, or unsatisfactory.
Though the class is pass/fail, the fact that it does not count toward a student’s cumulative grade point average sometimes factors into a students decision to put in the effort or not to pass. The class offers students a half elective credit each year, but that does not seem to be a factor in motivating students.
The administrators have encouraged teachers to emphasize the importance of CAP, a curriculum that leads towards the completion of the senior year Personal Transition Plan, which is a graduation requirement.
“It’s a course that we value,” Martin said. “We need the students to understand that.”
Part of the challenge is that many students are working under the mistaken belief that if they wait until their senior year to make up work that the number of assignments is fewer. In addition, students who believe they are leaving the school before graduation often do not feel they need to make up any work.
College and Career Counselor Alyson Nakagawa told teachers that they have the final say in determining if the work the students make up is sufficient to meet the goals of each grade level.
The administration is considering various options to increase the sense of urgency in students to complete their CAP lesson during the appropriate year. One might be to change the third quarter exam week schedule to include a CAP period for students who need to make up CAP work.
“I don’t think [changing the Exam Week schedule] will work,” math teacher Janice Deliz said. “Instead, it will make them more irresponsible.”
She worried that giving extra time during the day to do the work will not solve the problem of not doing the work when the teacher first assigns it.
“If they know that there is going be a CAP class at the end of the quarter, then they’re not going to be motivated to do their work [on time] and be like, ‘Oh, I’m just gonna do it at the end of the quarter’. That’s going to put so much time on me, grading all those work while I’m grading my other classes too,” Deliz said.
Students fear that adding an extra period would only increase the amount of stress they will face on the week of the exams.
“We have seven exams to take and CAP will only add to the pressure,” junior Trisha Puyaoan said.
In view of the fact that the Career and Academic Planning class’ lessons aren’t as complex as the ones in the school’s core subjects, CAP teachers and school administrators are left wondering why so many students are failing the class.
“I have no idea why students aren’t doing their work. That’s what we’re trying to figure out right now,” Moanalua High School Registrar Erik Kubota said.
“We’re talking to all the other teachers and we’re exploring different options. I have ideas on why they aren’t doing it, but I have nothing that is substantiated by research,” Kubota added.
A widespread lack of motivation is certainly one of the causes of the substandard student engagement in the class, nonetheless, teachers notice that students do their work from other classes instead.
“I wait until the end of the quarter to do my Personal Data Sheet,” junior Kiyoko Ysawa said.
The PDS is a quarterly assessment at some quarter in each grade.
“I do my homework from other classes in CAP instead, because I feel like they’re more urgent,” Ysawa added.
The fact that the Career and Academic Planning class does not affect a student’s overall GPA seems to be one of the reasons why students are not motivated enough to do their work, as they think that it will not affect their grades as much as the core subjects.
“I think people aren’t doing their work because it’s not a letter grade and isn’t affecting people’s GPA. So then it leads students into think that the work we do in CAP doesn’t really matter,” senior Britney Cabuhat said.
“I actually enjoy how CAP is right now. It allowed me figure out what I want to do and do not like for the future. Maybe I would want to do more action than just planning activities,” Cabuhat added.
A handful of Moanalua High School students, who asked to not be identified, stated that their CAP teachers do not interact with the class regularly, which caused the students to engage in activities that are unrelated to the class. However, CAP teachers have reported that, in most cases, the students simply decided not to their work, disregarding the teachers’ continual reminders.
“Some people are little bit confused as to what they needed to do,” senior CAP and US history teacher Belinda Toyama said. “Some students just decide not to do their work.”
“I have conferences with my CAP students a lot... I always tell them what they have to do and we go through [the assignments] together. I make sure that they have all their assignments done,” Toyama added.
Another worrisome issue is the lack of resources in class such as computers, which make it challenging for CAP students to finalize their work for the quarter, considering that some of them do not have a working computer at home nor the time to go to the school library during recess. Several lessons in the grade 11 require research.
“They have to type final versions of certain things. I don’t have a computer or a printer in my class, so if the school were to give me a computer or a printer, my students can use that as a resource-- maybe we can get more done that way. Everyone, I think, will probably pass because I can force them to do it,” CAP and English teacher Matthew Pounds said.
Moanalua High School aims to boost its students’ productivity with the additional CAP period, regardless of its mixed feedback. Students are required to complete their missing or incomplete work by the end of the quarter, in order to secure a clear path to graduation.