Nikki Greene is a math interventionist at Holliman Elementary School, a job that has her working one-on-one with students and teachers. She is one of 13 full-time math interventionists in all elementary schools.

Now, by her own choice, she is back in the classroom twice a week although, as she tells 4th grade students, it’s not like school.

Greene is one of 38 teachers in 11 of the city’s 13 elementary schools working two hours a week with 288 students who have been identified as needing a boost in math or English Language Arts. After polling parents of the ten students she works with, Greene chose a morning academy that runs for an hour before school starts. Greene found the parents in her group were more comfortable doing an early drop off rather than a late pickup. Transportation has emerged as an impediment to academy enrollment with the majority of the academies conducted for an hour after school when parent make pickups.

But it’s not like “regular” class, Greene says. She has the flexibility to shape the curriculum and weave in material that may not seem directly related to math or English, such as having students plant seeds, seeing them sprout and taking care of them.

It’s such innovation that excites Patricia Cousineau, director of elementary education and an architect of the academy program that started last month. The academies are a response to the Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System tests administered last fall. Since 2019 when last administered, the percent of students in grades 3 to 8 proficient in math fell from 26.5 to 14.5 percent. Those proficient in ELA were higher with the rate dropping from 37.9 to 30.1 percent. Warwick scores are below the statewide average of 33.2 percent proficient in ELA and 20 percent in math.

Cousineau and district director of curriculum Lisa Schultz looked on as Greene opened the academy, dubbed “the breakfast club,” telling the kids to sit where they liked and to nibble on bagels, donuts or whatever else they had brought along. Greene wasn’t watching the clock and since Cousineau and Shultz were present she focused on the books she is using. Greene learned of a Twitter program where companies and individuals outright give or match teacher grant requests for books, furniture and teaching materials. She held up “Math by the Book,” saying it has been especially helpful. Greene has been in contact with the author, Susan O’Connell, who was interested to hear what she is doing and requested progress reports.

The fourth graders were quite content to dig into their breakfast bags as Greene turned to them to ask about Wangari, the young Kenyan woman they had been reading about. She questioned them on what Wangari found on returning to her village after attending school in a distant city. The students answered describing how the trees had been cut down, resulting in the villagers having to travel farther to find wood for cooking fires and how the stream had become murky because of the erosion of surrounding lands.

Greene held up the book –“Maura Miti” – and started reading aloud.

Greene is hopeful students will relate to Wangari’s passion for her village and on a larger scale the environment.

“You have to love to do what you do. I hope that comes across,” she said.

This hardly seemed like math and, as Cousineau explained, the hour is not rigidly structured between math and ELA although academy teachers could elect to run it that way.

Greene engaged the students in the story then shifted to the seedlings they had planted and to the math cards they had in Ziploc bags featuring groups of blocks resembling dominoes illustrating, for example how one can arrive at an answer to a multiplication problem by doubling a know number. She held up a card with three blocks of eight dots – 24 – and then asked what would be six times eight. Hands flew up. They had the answer.

“We have found the retention rate is so much greater (when there is a visual component than rote memorization of the multiplication tables),” she said.

Greene and her academy colleagues also work closely with parents. Greene, who has a masters degree in reading from Providence College and taken graduate level courses in math at Rhode Island College, has folders for the parents with material they can use at home.

Greene has not been in front of a classroom for the past six or seven years, and her work has taken her away from kids and into test diagnostics and outcomes. She’s encouraged by what she’s seen, saying, “I’ve seen growth it’s a tribute to the teachers and parents.” She is upbeat about Warwick schools.

“A lot of good happens in Warwick schools,” she said.

Cousineau said fall diagnostics (diagnostics are completed three times during the academic year) are used to establish a baseline from which to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The first round of elementary school academies (a limited number of academies are being held at Veterans Middle School) come in the next couple of weeks. Surveys have been taken of the parents, students and teachers asking what they like and don’t like about the extended school day along with suggestions on how the academies could be improved. Cousineau was positive yesterday about the program and the probability that it would be extended, but she didn’t make any commitments.

Federal school funding aimed at coping with the impact of the pandemic pays for the program. Teachers are paid for the additional two hours of classroom work plus an hour for planning and preparation.

Greene is ready to sign up for another round of the breakfast club. Fact is, she is looking forward to it.