Best Practices: Building relationships
Success Drives Success: Building IAP opportunities
Post-Summer returns
Student Engagement Conference
- What are you doing to promote retention, engage students, and push them toward meeting their goals?
- How many of your students are staying enrolled and actively participating in your program until they earn their high school diploma, AA degree - or after they've earned high school equivalency, or workplace certifications?
- Are students showing up in the fall after a summer off?
Best Practices: Building relationships
Orientation
Many programs choose to use an orientation model for engaging students at enrollment. This may take the form of week- to month-long sessions that include assessment, relationship building, study skills, pre-college or life skills, a focus on high school and beyond plans.
The greatest benefit to orientation sessions is that is creates an immersion in the culture of your program, and provides an opportunity for the students and staff members to get to know each other, establishing relationships that make ties that keep the student connected. Encourage returning students to step into leadership roles as peer mentors or ambassadors for their program. Make use of student accountability partners (mentors, tutors, local experts) to support student engagement beyond orientation.
A benefit is that your orientation can be set up to provide 0.25 high school credit and/or a developed high school and beyond plan, which puts the student on the path toward regular Indicators of Academic Progress (IAPs).
Weekly attendance requirements
Requiring students to attend in person on a weekly basis puts them in the habit of school. The more a student attends, the more they will be working directly with a staff member (case manager, instructor) who can get to know them and their skills and needs, flexing the student's educational plan to best help them be successful, and building a positive relationship with the staff members, as well as other students.
Some programs will have assigned weekly times for the student to meet with their case manager or instructor, to use the computers, or to complete non-digital assignments. This can allow for group projects, thus building positive, productive peer relationships.
Other programs will ask the student to sign up for their next weekly attendance date before they leave, and will phone within 5 minutes of a student's absence to check on arrival time or to reschedule the week's appointment.
Still others will schedule weekly resource days, where students not only check in with their case managers, but also receive bus passes, food resources, tutoring, and more.
A benefit is that regular attendance assures the required two hours of face-to-face time per month are met quickly and your program is not scrambling to get students in at the end of the month. [WAC 392-700-015(3)]
Success Drives Success: Building IAP opportunities
Frequent IAP options
There are many options for building IAP opportunities, and students who are successful want to continue being successful. [WAC 392-700-015(15)]
- One course per month = frequent earning of credit
- Re-testing every other month using the intake assessment = improved scores, and when used with the assessment publisher's guide, can mean bi-monthly IAPs
- Focus quarterly on district graduation requirements: HS & Beyond Plan, district-required senior capstone projects, Washington State History (for those who did not complete this requirement in middle school).
- Focus quarterly on broader skill sets: college prep, job skills, industry certifications - all generally documented at about 45 hours' work.
- Make use of engaging curriculum that builds on student interests, including project-based and competency-based learning options.
Moving beyond a completion level
Earning the high school equivalency GED does not have to be an endpoint!
Remember: Each subject matter test counts as up to a full credit in a the core subject matter and may move a student close enough in credit accumulation to see earning a high school diploma as a viable option.
Engage the student in job skills, college prep courses, or additional studies that can lead to a high school diploma or AA degree.
First time enrollment in a college course counts as an IAP, as well.
Broaden their employability by engaging them in additional industry certifications, or by helping them enroll in a trades program to earn an AA degree.
A benefit is that the students leave your program with a job skill, college degree, and/or a life direction.
Post-Summer returns
No summer program?
Before students leave for the summer, set goals with them for the fall. Give them something to look forward to upon their return. Plan a return-to-school event to bring them back.
Yes, we have a summer program!
Great! Keep consistent with your regular attendance requirements to best maintain their engagement throughout the summer. Change up your instructional practices to incorporate fun activities and sunshine so that students have even more reason to come to school.
Returning in September
Reach out to students well before their expected return date - send texts, emails, make phone calls to personally invite them back. Take advantage of the relationships you build the previous spring. Bring in those student leaders and ambassadors to promote the positive outcomes of your program.
Schedule times for returning student orientations to re-establish relationships, provide IAP opportunities, celebrate the new school year with a social event that includes an activity (such as goal-setting) related to instruction, academic counseling, career counseling, or case management. This can also count as the "participation" requirement for returning September enrollment for programs without a summer session [WAC 392-700-015(3)].
OSPI Student Support Conference
- May 23-24, Wenatchee. Additional information here.
All this will help build a stronger program in which students engage and succeed!
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