Anamosa Community School District

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Anamosa Community School District

• Success for At-Risk Incoming 9th Graders

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We were noticing

• High number of office referrals
• Constant behavior concerns
• Difficulty finding subs
• Poor attendance
• Low grades
• Increased number of students on GSP
• Alarming dropout rate for class of 2009

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(No Transcript)
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Indicators of Potential High School Dropouts
(Heppen Bowles Therriault, 1998)

• Absenteeism rate
• Course Performance
• - Course failures
• - GPA
• - On-track indicator

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We asked ourselves

• How do we turn things around for these kids
  before they come to our high school?
• What can we do to improve grades, attendance,
  behavior?
• How can we help these kids to be more successful?

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We considered

• Trimester 1 grades
• Trimester 2 grades in progress
• ITBS scores
• Attendance
• Office Referrals
• Bullying Referrals
• Counseling Referrals

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• Middle School Counselor, Principal, and AEA
  Representative identified 16 (20 students) of
  8th grade students needing intervention

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Action to be taken

• Individual student/parent meetings 1. Initial
  in February
• 2. Follow-up in April
• Reconnecting Youth class
• 4-year planning with all 8th grade students

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Initial Meeting

• Held at Middle School
• Middle High School counseling staff
  Administrators
• Collected background information from
  Kindergarten- present time
• - special services, academics, ITBS scores,
  attendance, behavior

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• Do you want to graduate from high school?
• What is getting in the way of your success?
• What are your career plans?
• What are your interests?
• What are your strengths?
• What do you know about high school? Are you
  excited?

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• What needs to be improved for you to continue on
  to high school be successful there?
• What are your goals over the next 2 months?
• How will we measure these goals?

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Reconnecting Youth

• 7 students selected for daily RY class
• Selection criteria
• RY replaced a core class
• RY Curriculum used
• Facilitated by Middle School Counselor and School
  Liaison

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2nd Individual Meetings

• Held in High School Counseling office
• Students had 2 months to work toward goals
• Reviewed student goals
• How do you think you did?
• -Strengths?
• -Struggles?
• What were your obstacles?
• Review teacher feedback

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• Review data Attendance, Office Referrals, 8th
  grade ITBS results, Trimester 2 grades, Trimester
  3 in progress grades
• What are your goals for the rest of the year?

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Our Results

• 15 students improved grades from February to
  April
• 2 students had declining grades
• 3 students grades did not change
• Overall fewer office referrals
• 1 student who had not ever been on time to school
  was not late once from February to April
• Established clear goals for high school

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Timeline

• January- Identify At-Risk students
• February
• - 4-year planning pre-register all 8th grade
  students
• - 1st round of individual meetings
• March
• -RY class begins
• -4 year planning for all 8th grade parents
• April- 2nd round of individual meetings
• May- 8th Grade Switch Day
• August
• - All 9th grade individual meetings _at_ AHS
• - 9th grade orientation

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Whats next?

• Barriers To Success
• Pre- and Post-Assessments
• Identify Earlier
• Begin RY Earlier
• Proactive vs. Reactive

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Resources

• Heppen, J. B. Bowles Therriault, S. (1998,
  July). Developing Early Warning Systems to
  Identify Potential High School Dropouts. National
  High School Center, 1-13.
• http//www.betterhighschools.org/pubs/ews_guide.as
  p
• Eggert, L.L. Nicholas, L.J. (2004).
  Reconnecting Youth. Bloomington, IN tNational
  Educational Service.