Around the turn of the century, most Santa Ana Unified high schools had graduation rates in the mid 70s.  As with most large urban school districts, Santa Ana struggled tremendously to meet the needs of students on the brink of dropping out.  Fast forward to today and you see most schools with 4-year cohort graduation rates in the mid 90s, with a district-wide average over 90% that is on par with other Orange County districts.  Of course we celebrate this dramatic shift.  A major component of that shift has been the investment in our EdOptions schools.  These programs, commonly referred to elsewhere as continuation or alternative schools, provide students with access to non-traditional pathways to a high school diploma.  At one point, one in every six graduates in the district had been serviced by an EdOptions program, whether via a formal transfer of schools or through picking up credits through an Independent Studies or Credit Recovery course.

But our past success is not enough, and our Board of Education has challenged us to develop and implement a graduation support plan that will ensure 100% of our students make it to graduation.  90% is not acceptable.  We don’t want to lose a single student along the way.

  

With that planning in mind, members of our leadership team recently visited Columbus High School in Downey Unified, a school that has been dubbed a model continuation school by the state of California.  While we believe we have already developed some tremendous EdOptions programs and pathways, we are always eager to learn from colleagues across schools and districts who are doing great work in this area.  While there were many features at Columbus that caught my attention, there were a few that struck me as particularly essential:

Assessment Periods

For a student struggling to find meaning and purpose at school, a semester can be an eternity.  Often, poor performance during the first few weeks of the semester can lock students into the nearly impossible statistical task of raising a grade to passing.  With a dim hope of passing the class, students may sit for weeks, if not months, with little incentive to participate and engage.   

The hallmark innovation at Columbus, in my opinion, is their practice of shortening the semester into much more manageable month assessment periods.  Instead of 2 semesters during the academic year, or even four quarter-length assessment blocks like we use in Santa Ana, students at Columbus are assessed for credit every month.  The impact of this structural change cannot be overstated.  Students can set shorter term goals, as well as bounce back more quickly from a tough couple of weeks at school.  At Columbus, each month students have the opportunity to earn credit and see their progress.  The school has gone to great lengths to build culture and tradition around these month-long blocks, with monthly excellence assemblies and transfer opportunities.  The school uses a practice of granting partial credit for students transferring into the school, allowing them to maintain credit in classes they were passing at the time of transfer while reducing unnecessary waiting at home schools for students to finish out a semester so they can secure credit in those classes that they are passing.

Getting Progress Data into Student Hands

One critical element of student-centered learning is trusting that students can and will make decisions that are in their best educational interest.  While we all know that human beings are not always rational actors – especially in adolescence – good decision-making at any stage is dependent on having good information.  Columbus goes to great lengths to provide students with clarity about their academic standing and what is required to either transfer back to their home school and/or graduate.  This democratization of progress data is essential, helping students take control of their trajectory, as opposed to relying completely on the adults in the school to continually report and interpret students’ progress and current standing.  The school has developed a customized monthly report card and credit report that students are taught to interpret.  In addition, the school has a tiered “step” system that clearly communicates to each student whether they are on track and eligible to transfer back to their home school and/or graduate from Columbus.  This system integrates each student’s attendance patterns into their current status.  Students are always aware of where they stand, with updates on a monthly basis.

Flexibility and Instructional Skill

Master schedules are a beast.  Trying to match together the needs and interests of students with graduation requirements, teacher credentials and staff preferences is a major endeavor where it often seems nobody wins, including the administrators tasked with building the schedule.  In many schools, master schedule decisions are driven by a subtle hierarchy of power, where requests for courses and prep periods flow to those with more influence.  The goal for many teachers is to reduce variability – both in the number of different subjects being taught as well as the variation in student skill within those classes.  This is an understandable request given the challenge of planning to teach multiple subjects while addressing diverse learning needs.

At Columbus, the master schedule is clearly designed with flexibility for students in mind.  Teachers may have students in different courses during the same period.  For example, a social studies teacher may be teaching some students Economics, while other class members are taking a Government class.   Many EdOptions schools are small, and this type of flexibility allows students more opportunities to get the classes they need the most.  With students constantly switching classes as they gain credits due to the monthly assessment periods, it is essential that the master schedule maintain tremendous flexibility to facilitate student course needs.  While I might argue that hosting multiple subjects and courses in the same classroom is not always the ideal scenario, for a continuation school trying to help students get back on track with credits, it is essential.

Language and Stigma

The way we talk about alternative pathways to a diploma is critical.  In many districts, the way students, teachers, and counselors have historically talked about EdOptions schools is highly critical.  Sometimes, the threat of a transfer is used as a strategy to motivate or scare a student into turning things around at the home school.  Not only do we know that threats of this nature are typically not effective, it has the negative side effect of reinforcing a negative stigma around some of our most innovative and student-centered schools and programs in the district.

As students see our EdOptions programs as a legitimate and even desirable pathway to a diploma, more students and parents will be willing to give it a try.  Our staff spend a tremendous amount of time and energy working with the student and parents who are hesitant to make a switch, only to later realize that the smaller, more personalized learning space was exactly what the student needed.  While many of our students do want to transfer back to their home school, just as many decide they want to stay and finish out high school at the EdOptions site.

The structural differences at Columbus are augmented by ongoing efforts to celebrate students at the school.  Students soon realize that any hesitancy to come to the school was unfounded, and they quickly learn to appreciate the additional supports, enhanced communication, and often more personalized relationships at the school.