Boring, whose students are free to call him at home if they have trouble with their homework, said he passed up a chance to retire to stay and teach on a team. But each team has a different approach. Some teachers remain with their ninth-grade students as they move on to 10th grade. Other teachers coordinate their lessons. And the teachers give the lessons in nontraditional ways.
Students work in groups, do projects and engage in discussions.
According to data on student achievement at the school, the house program works. For example, a 1998-99 study of one teaching team found that students in the house program had an absentee rate of 3.7 percent in their core classes, versus students in the same grade who weren't in the program who had an absentee rate of 5.7 percent. Students in the program also improved their grades significantly during the two-year period. Patricia McNeil, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, said creating a house program was not easy. It really does change the whole nature of the school.