Check and Connect

We have finished the first semester. Which is very difficult to believe that the year has gone by so quickly. We have reviewed attendance, grades and discipline referrals for our students with mentors. 80% of the students passed all of their course work. 90% had no office referrals. We are struggling with absences with 2 of the students but their attendance has improved since last quarter. I believe the mentors are still struggling with finding time in their schedule to meet for a lengthy meeting with their mentee. I'm not certain that we are following the program but it is working for us. I think that is what is important about all this, finding a program and modifing it to fit your needs. The students who passed all of their courses will have pizza during lunch with their mentor.

We have reviewed the attendance data for the junior high and high school. Our attendance has improved since last quarter. We had 90 students last quarter who had 1 verified absence or less for the quarter. We have 115 students this quarter who had 1 verified absence or less. The attendance secretary is reporting that the number of students bringing back a doctor note to verify an absence has increased. We will be holding the district incentive reward this week for those students during mid day. (Our school has 300 students in the 7-12 grade.)

We have also reviewed the the discipline referrals for the semester. We had over 200 students who did not receive a warning or an office referral. The staff is trying to determine an appropriate reward for these students.

As of today, we have had no students drop out of school. Semester grades went out last week and everyone continued to come to school. We have a couple parent meetings set up with students who are lacking a credit or two to graduate and the team is going to try to develop a plan for graduation. All of the teachers and staff are working cooperatively to make sure that every student graduates. I believe this shared vision may be the greatest thing to come out of this program.

Check and Connect

We have been meeting with our students on a daily basis for some time now. However, the high school principal has not yet been able to rework our midday schedule to allow for the teacher and mentor to meet for more than 5 minutes each week. It is difficult to get teachers and students together if there isn't time during the day planned for it. The teachers have been unable to complete weekly check-in sheets.

We had our first incentive programs for students who had missed no more than one verified day the first quarter. We had 90 students who had missed no days or had one verified absence. The junior high students went to the track and played around. It was raining on the day the high school was scheduled so they ended up in the field house. We gave away a $20.00 gift card to Walmart and a $10.00 gift card to Walmart. We gave away free passes to the ball games to multiple students.

The next incentive will be at the end of first semester. We will reward attendance. We are also planning on rewarding all of those students who did not have a discipline referral first semester.

The majority of our mentor students had a positive increase in grades. We have one student who isn't making a positive improvement but he is also working with counselor. We have not had a drop-out as of this date on December 1. I hope I haven't jinxed that by mentioning it. The staff is working very hard to prevent any student from feeling like dropping out is the only solution. We are trying to work with social services to provide additional support to the family.

Check and Connect for the Whole Staff

We held our first whole staff training for Check and Connect. 90% of the high school and junior high teachers were open to the program. They were polite and listened to the presentation that was conducted by a special education presenter from the Regional Professional Development Center. They were given their manuals for the program and some "homework" to complete before the next training in October.

We scheduled the assignment of mentors to students for the following week. I think it is harder for them to tell me no they won't participate if they have to look me in the eyes and basically indicate they don't want to help a student stay in school......

Committee Meeting

We held an evening committee meeting to review data to determine which characteristics we would decide were the most "at risk" for drop out. We determined that we would look at student data in the areas of: attendance (more than 20 days absent last year), grade point average (lower than 2.0), grades (more than 2 D's or 1 F in a semester) and missing credits for graduation. We also determined if there were environmental issues that should also be looked at: siblings who dropped out, depression, parents in prison. We ended up with a list of about 10 students with 5 who we will monitor until 1st quarter ends. I feel like things went well and the committee came to some good conclusions about who should be on the list. Up next will be a meeting with the RPDC to review the professional development we want to offer the teachers this school year.

Check and Connect

Our high school received a grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to implement a program called Check and Connect for the upcoming school year. It is designed to assign students who are at risk of dropping out with a mentor. The intent of this blog is to document the implementation.