Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page.

High School Success Nuggets

February 20, 2020

District Kudos!

Beaverton School District

Beaverton School District's (BSD) work around 9th Grade On-Track is supported by a strong partnership between team lead teachers, their IT department and the Northwest Regional ESD (NWRESD). They began by looking at what tools they had available and offered extended training in BSD's Early Warning System for team leads, school administrators and their partners at NWRESD. In these training sessions and in subsequent meetings, they were able to drill down to precisely what their team leads needed. By using this process, the BSD IT team had the feedback needed to design a new 9th Grade Success Team gradebook in Synergy that is easily accessible and supports a NWRESD template for their regional convenings. Communicating and responding to each other was at times clunky, messy and frustrating. However, everyone dug in together and they now have further refined their 9th Grade On-Track tools to ensure the work that they do has a positive impact on all students. 

SHARE WITH US

Do you want to share the good work your district is doing around dropout prevention, developing systems to ensure on-time graduation, or creating equitable access to advanced courses? We want to spread the word! Email us at HSsuccess@ode.state.or.us

This critical work required them to identify who gathers data, how data is gathered, and why data is needed. The meetings between teachers, district administrators, their IT department and NWRESD have helped them develop a strong districtwide system that is continuously improving. Overall, the entire process of communication between the teams doing the work in their schools and their internal and external support teams has been critical to their success.

Instructional Strategy

Positive Phone Calls Home

A positive classroom and school culture make a huge difference in students’ feelings about school, their desire to attend on a regular basis and developing partnerships between families and schools. Instructional coaching guru Elena Aguilar shares her experience incorporating this practice in her classroom in the article, “The Power of the Positive Phone Call Home”.

Equity in Access to Accelerated Learning

Resource

One of the goals around High School Success, as well as one of the eligibility requirements, is establishing systems to increase access to advanced courses to ALL of Oregon’s high school students. This requires an in-depth analysis at the district level and, most likely, a dismantling of our current systems in order to ensure this happens. Data analysis is an important component to see who is actually accessing these courses, what barriers exist, and how various populations are performing. This resource, created by REL Northwest, is a powerful tool to help guide districts and charters in identifying possible barriers and look into some targeted strategies to increase participation.

Trends in Graduation Rates

Best Practice: The Impact of Graduation Coaches

A high school diploma is often the gateway to the future. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, on average, persons with a high school diploma will earn $10,000 more annually than those without a high school diploma. Over a 40 year career, this adds up to an additional $400,000 in earnings. In addition to increased earnings, persons with a high school diploma utilize nearly $45,000 less in social services over their lifetime than those without a high school diploma. Oregon school districts have made increasing the graduation rate a main focus of educational improvement efforts. High School Success funds have allowed districts additional investment for these efforts. Multiple districts utilized these funds to hire graduation coaches who meet with students considered to be at risk of not graduating on time. The coaches assist those students in developing plans to meet graduation requirements and take courses in becoming college and/or career ready and act as a liaison between schools and families to increase the likelihood students will graduate high school. Early results indicate the addition of graduation coaches have improved on-time graduation rates in these districts.

Statewide on-time graduation rates increased by 2% from 2017-18 to 2018-19.  School districts who have added graduation coach personnel saw an even greater increase in their graduation rates, from 77.1% in 2017-18 to 83.4% in 2018-19, while districts who did not add graduation coaches saw their graduation rates, on average, remain relatively unchanged. We will continue to study this trend.

High School Success Site Visits around Oregon

All site visits are already scheduled for the 19-20 school year, and we will reach out as early as possible to begin scheduling for the 20-21 school year!

We asked for some feedback regarding the site visits from those we’ve visited recently, and here is some of what has been said:

• “It is welcoming to finally have a funded mandate like the HSS program to directly engage staff and to help students succeed.” – Ron Osibov, West Lane Technology Center
• “We thoroughly enjoyed having ODE visit our school; spending time learning and understanding about our unique needs serving students. Understanding what we do each and every day, helps provide ODE opportunities to understand how to guide resources and assist us in serving children. We greatly appreciated the time spent and the ability to share our story.” – Brandy Osborn, Phoenix School
• “The visit from the ODE team helped us to look more clearly at what we are doing well and some areas that we can improve upon. Supporting our 9th grades students as they transition into high school has been a priority, ODE gave us some additional tools and supports that will allow us to be more successful in supporting our students.” – Tim Sweeney, Coquille School District
• “I really enjoyed the opportunity we had to visit with members of the ODE team. The conversation that we had on that day and throughout my other communication with ODE staff regarding High School Success have felt very collaborative. There is a real spirit of sharing best practices in schools across the state.” – Brad Berzinski, Molalla River School District

If you’d like more information regarding these site visits, please contact your ODE High School Success Specialist.

Connections

If you're looking for other resources and information, check these out:

• Alternative Education Summit-- March 16, 2020 from 8:00am-4:30pm at Willamette ESD. More information about sessions and the registration link is included here.
• HB 2191 and 2556 Amendment Memo and Feedback Survey Link-- Please feel free to provide your feedback and share this link with other educators, family, students and community members.
• Every Day Matters Public Listening Sessions
  • February 24-- Roseburg Public Library from 5:30pm-6:30pm
  • February 26-- Bandon High School from 4:30pm-7:00pm
    • 4:30pm-5:30pm-- Attendance Discussion
    • 5:30pm-6:00pm-- Reviewing District Data Report Card
    • 6:00pm-7:00pm-- Community Discussion/Questions and Answers
  • March 7-- Newport Public Library from 11:00am-12:00noon
  • More dates to come
• Every Day Matters January Update
• McKinney- Vento Homeless Education February Digest

Shout Out!

We want to acknowledge everyone's work and efforts to improve Oregon's graduation rate. Thank you for your work!

HIGH SCHOOL SUCCESS CONTACTS