Pelham High School began requiring SAT practice for all students in 2017 in order to help students improve their scores. Other school districts may wish to use Pelham's story as a model for launching their own SAT initiative.
Every Pelham student is part of an advisory group that meets every day during a 45-minute "Snake Break" period. This time frame is an opportunity for students to complete homework, study, seek help from teachers, attend club meetings, or seek guidance from their peers or advisor. In 2017, Pelham began requiring students to participate in SAT Practice via Khan Academy during Monday Snake Break. Students and teachers were assisted by a group of seniors in following the steps of the following guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VXxR7YCWCStD-iugBdNpq7DM_kAGVtaiDH2sLfr1Ur4/edit?usp=sharing.
The group of seniors (Pelham's "SAT SGroup") continue to assist teachers and students who experience technological difficulties in using the Khan Academy practice and frequently visit Snake Breaks to check in with students and teachers. This system has worked well to ensure that all students have the opportunity to both practice SAT skills and request help. Prior to Monday SAT practice, many students were unsure of how exactly they might go about raising their SAT scores.
The SAT Group further worked to develop an SAT Strategy Guide for the Math section of the SAT. The guide can be found at this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yygxMPg1-xDsewx4KrwXGpf3Rw6h3NO1tHuqwOmZZms/edit?usp=sharing. This guide was distributed to Pelham math teachers and implemented into the 2018 curriculum The guide breaks up components of the SAT into the classes that use those skills, allowing teachers to see what material they should be covering in their respective course in order to best prepare their students for the SAT.
Finally, Pelham students have formed an SAT study group that meets during every Friday Snake Break. The group goes through practice SAT Math tests and has students share the processes they used to solve certain problems. This strategy has been effective in helping students to identify the most efficient ways to solve certain types of problems and helps students to identify and prepare for problems that frequently appear on the SAT. Larger schools (and likely Pelham in the future) may wish to host several of these groups for interested students. The one-on-one mentorship that students can provide each other in such a group (especially if seniors who have already taken the SAT multiple times are involved in leadership for the group) has proven to be invaluable for Pelham students.