It really does always come back to the classroom and the teacher.

We talk about a lot of things when we look at success in school and they all are very important.  The most important, though, is what happens in the classroom, and the relationship between teacher and student.

This week, Principal Matters! has been highlighting the Freshman Experience.  We’ve looked at the four pillars of building an effective ninth-grade program:  Design, Support, Culture, and today Instruction. 

Here’s a look at ten highlights of an effective ninth-grade instructional program that defines and guides academic success. 

1. Instructional Strategies that work for ninth-graders  We need teachers who like ninth-graders to be the ones who teach them.  It really matters.  Beyond that, we need teachers who employ instructional strategies that are going to support the learning styles of freshmen.  We need to change what we do to fit them, not the other way around.  Too often, we want freshmen to “learn to adapt” to our way of doing things.  What if we met them where they are?  More than anything, if teachers of ninth-graders are leading engaging, hands-on, active learning that encourages creativity, curiosity, and creation students are going to do well.  Build an exciting classroom experience and you’ll have learning happen and students will succeed.  That simple.
2. Homework  If making “zeroes” on homework takes freshman students down a path that leaves them failing classes, and by failing those classes they end up dropping out of school and not graduating, then those homework assignments must be really really important!  So, we can debate homework at another time.  It has its place, but it really doesn’t need to be the determining factor for a young person’s financial destiny.  Again, that would have to be some really important homework to do that!  Instead, what if you insisted that students complete the work rather than give them a ‘0’   More on this later, but think about the value of zeroes vs. “Not Yet” or “Missing.”  Is it really about the work and about the learning?  Then the grade book should reflect so.
3. Academic Rigor  Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  Not too hot; not too cold; just right.  We should be focused on a continual quest for ‘just right’ in the level of work we ask our ninth-grade students to do.  We should always be stretching their reach, getting them to do more than they’d done on their most recent attempt but not as much as they will do on the one to follow.  The level of rigor should be differentiated for the student, but the culture of the Freshman Experience should be on having serious students doing quality work.
4. Study Skills; Organizational Skills  Your freshman program can be enhanced with the addition of instruction on organization and in how to study.  These are best done, in my opinion, as a part of the work you do in your academic courses rather than as a separate event.  Imagine the powerful learning that takes place when all the academic teachers are focused on the same note-taking skills on the same day.  Learning in context like that?  It can help your freshmen become excellent students.  Organization is also an area in which many ninth-graders struggle.  Rather than their disorganization adversely affect their grades, what if we spent time working with them to become more organized?  We can use the Freshman Year as a months-long orientation into the skills of a good student.  Wouldn’t that be valuable?
5. Life Skills; School Survival Skills  We can help our ninth-grade students become more successful academically if we help them with direct, explicit direction and support in areas critical to surviving school.  How to get along with others? How credits work?  What to do if you miss an assignment?  Where things are?  Taking time to process through the concrete pieces of one of life’s most angst-filled transitions?  That’s time well spent.
6. Developing Appropriate School Behaviors  We need to instruct our ninth-graders in what is okay and what isn’t.  Getting some of the upperclassmen to lead the instruction in small groups would be very impactful.  Sometimes they don’t know.. what they don’t know.  Being intentional is always a good thing.
7. Successful Strategies to lead ninth-graders to do quality work  As part of your instructional strategy for the ninth grade, what will you do to move your students out of the mindset of compliance and into one of personal pride in performance?  How can you leverage their peer relationships to support an overall culture of excellence in academics?  How will you connect your freshmen to their peers in other places to help them see a broader picture of the world?
8. Project-Based Learning  If you want active instruction, focus on learning that ends with a presentation, a product, a performance, or a publication (publishing to a blog or YouTube, for example).  If we can hook students when they’re in the ninth-grade, we stand a greater chance of keeping them moving forward academically throughout their high school years.  If we bore them to sleep with what looks like a remake from the Economics class in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?  That’s on us.  Let’s reshape learning with engaging assignments and tasks that mean something.
9. Using Data to Design Delivery   Instructionally, we need to use data to design what we do.  Too often, ninth-grade becomes a place of sorting and separating.  We roll out an instructional program and figure that some students will make it and others won’t. That’s not good enough.  We need to track progress, use what we find to drive what we do, and shape our work to meet our students’ needs.
10. Grading and Growth  Our goal at the Freshman Academies that I was a part of was pretty simple, instructionally.  Every student pass every class.  What does it mean to ‘pass a class’?  We focused on mastery of the standards, which meant that our grades reflected both growth and learning.  During freshman year, if we can work to get our students in the right habits of learning we will have done a good thing.  If they’re almost 1/3 of the way to a diploma while we do it?  That’s even better.

#Leadership365

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This week, we’ve been looking at how to develop a successful program for ninth-graders.  While the focus has been on the freshmen, if you don’t work in a high school don’t feel like you’re left out of this conversation:  the same efforts can support your work at any grade band.

Yesterday, we looked at the importance of designing your school for success.  Some schools are built for student engagement and success while others don’t quite get there.

The second pillar of success for a ninth-grade program is Supporting Students In Their Journey to Success.

So, let’s say you design and roll out the best of programs for the ninth grade, a Freshman Academy.  You do it the right way with interdisciplinary teams of teachers, exclusively dedicated to working with groups of ninth grade students. Let’s say that you find a space in your school.. a wing, a building, a portion of the campus to house your students and teachers.  You have the framework, the design, of what your ninth-graders need to be successful.

If, even with those resources, you don’t fully support students according to their needs, your outcomes will fall short of what you had intended.  To really transform what you do to serve your ninth-grade students, you need to have a place, have a team of teachers, and then build ongoing systems of support to help the students reach their goals. 

What does that support look like?  Here is a list of ten things to focus on to effectively support students in their journey to success.

1. Understanding the needs of individual students:   This is the foundation of all of the work.  We need to know our students, know what they need, and get it for them.  If you try to package a one-size-fits-all approach to your ninth-grade students, you will find that one-size often fits none!  Support begins with a needs assessment, and this is only reached through relationships.
2. Academic Enhancement (Extended Learning Time)  Nearly every school has some form or “Extended Learning Time.”  You can call it what you’d like:  Tiger Time, ELT, Academic Enhancement.  If you want to make a difference in the academic lives of your students, you’ll need to make their progress a priority by setting aside time during the day for academic assistance.  If time is constant, learning will be variable; if we instead make time variable, we can meet the standards of learning we seek.
3. Advisory (Strategic Planning for Graduation)  A thriving advisory program that addresses topics from freshman transition to how credits work is essential.  Longer topic for another time, but if you don’t have a noteworthy advisory program for your ninth grade students, you have some work to do.
4. Counseling Support  Freshmen need a counselor who understands them, wants to support them, and is proactive in their development.
5. CAB (Caring Adult in the Building)  Every ninth-grade student (and all of the other grades too!) needs at least one caring adult in the building.  They all need someone they can trust, rely on, and who will support them in their progress.   If everything else is great but students don’t think their teachers care about them, all of this work is really not going anywhere.  It REALLY does come down to teachers and their relationships with their students.
6. Roots and Wings  Our work with ninth-graders is important in helping them establish themselves as a part of the school.  We want to build a special place for them, but we also always want it to be a transitional part into a great overall experience.
7. Love for Learning  While there are SO many things that are important in developing a successful transition for our students as they enter high school, none is more important than what happens on a daily basis in the classroom.  In short, if teachers love learning, and their love for learning is contagious, then our freshmen will engage into work in a meaningful way.  If we can have our students finish the ninth-grade with a pocketful of credits and a love for learning, we will have created a wining foundation for school.
8. Balance: A Just-Right Approach for Freshmen Students  Freshmen are different than Seniors.  I’m guessing you already know that, but they are actually very different. We need to treat them differently.  Too often, we’d like to have “ready-made” students join us in the ninth grade.  That doesn’t always happen. We need to focus on balance and spend time with our students to strike the right balance.
9. The Administrator’s Role  A big part of supporting your freshman students is having an administrator who is dedicated to working with them as her/his primary job.  Having an administrator who is “embedded” with the Freshmen is critical in having a successful program.
10. Professional Development of the Teachers  As mentioned earlier, teaching freshmen is different than teaching seniors.  Your teachers need professional learning as you begin a Freshman Academy, but it also needs to be ongoing.

#Leadership365

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Why do students dropout of school?  The research of the National Dropout Prevention Center (NDPC) reveals that it’s not just one thing, but typically a combination of factors that lead a student to that life-changing decision.

One of the most effective practices to “stop the drop” and reverse the effect of those factors is a successful freshman year.  If you get off to a strong start, you’re much more likely to have a successful finish. Ninth-grade success most typically leads to graduation; on the other hand, a freshman year full of absences, behavioral issues, and failed classes can lead to dropping out.

If we know that (and we do), what can we do differently to help freshmen get off to a good start?  One exemplary practice is the establishment of a Freshman Academy.   It was my privilege to be a part of starting a Freshman Academy (FA) at two different schools.  It’s also been a privilege to support the work of others in developing their FAs.  When given the necessary resources and structures, a Freshman Academy can be a powerful tool in leading to the success of ninth-grade students.  As we’ve already mentioned, if you get off to a good start, you are usually on the route to graduation, not withdrawal papers.

Just like everything else in schools, things can be different from one school to another.  Even so, there are some elements that make the success that you’re looking for more likely.  Here are the four pillars that make for a good Freshman program.

1.  Designing Your School for Success;
2. Supporting Your Students in Their Journey to Success;
3. School Culture That Fosters Success;
4. Instruction That Guides Academic Success

Truth be told, those same four pillars can lead to success in any school configuration, not just Freshman Academy.  For the purpose of this column, we’ll view them from that lens.

Design:   A Freshman Academy is designed to help transition students into the high school  through a structure that combines the heart of the elementary school, the teaming of middle school and the academic rigor of high school all in one place.  The best configuration of at Freshman Academy?  A separate wing or building on campus with the rest of the high school.  An essential?  Teachers whose class schedules are exclusively dedicated to teaching ninth graders.

Support:  Why do ninth-grade students fail classes? A number of reasons, including these:  1) they get behind in classes through missing assignments and can never catch up; 2)  they’re disorganized (due to lack of experience, due to puberty, due to distractions of being at a different school); 3)  they lack the support systems necessary to assist in the more rigorous work of high school.  It’s not enough to use ninth grade to sort and separate those who are ready and those who aren’t;  if that’s all we’re doing we could get that accomplished in two weeks!  What ninth grade needs to be is a time that we provide enough of the right support to help them get through the year better prepared, more experienced, and with a pocketful of credits towards graduation.  We should gladly give the support to make this happen.

Culture:  If your culture is to use the freshman year as initiation and to weed out the ones who don’t like school, aren’t as good at school, or aren’t performing as well in school, congratulations!  You will be able to easily weed them out, run them off, get them on the path to dropping out.  If you don’t have that as your desired outcome, you have to have a different culture.  If your culture towards freshmen is the same as the US Marines… never leave anyone on the field… then you will have unprecedented success.  That’s a question to begin with as you examine your work with freshmen… what IS your school’s culture in regards to freshmen?  

Instruction:  We need for students to have a full complement of units as they leave the ninth grade, but we don’t need to just hand them over without the student having achieved in the classroom.  Our instructional expectations need to remain high without creating a system that promotes failure.  Do you know how to do that?  Do your teachers know how to do that?  What are the skills as a student that you are teaching in the ninth grade?  If you aren’t happy with their “skills as a learner” when they arrive, what are you doing about in the ninth grade?

So, more to come this week on freshmen, building a Freshman Academy, and helping our students get off to a successful start.  Come back this week and we’ll break down each of those four categories.  If you are a regular reader of Principal Matters! not working at a high school, don’t skip out this week;  you’ll most likely find that the principles discussed in building a FA are things you can use where you are too.  You don’t get off with an excused absence this week!

Thanks for your work! See you back here tomorrow.

#Leadership365

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