Bookmark & share:

E-mail this page E-mail a letter to the editor Reader Comments (below)

BY COLIN HICKEY 12/16/2008

Third in a three-part series.

BY COLIN HICKEY

Staff Writer

Carrabec High School in North Anson had a high rate of students failing classes four years ago.

Principal Kenneth Coville took steps to address the problem when he arrived in 2004, including one that some might find puzzling: He raised graduation standards.

The strategy worked.

Carrabec went from 45 percent of students failing one or more classes, in 2004; to 28 percent last school year.

"Standards increased and the failure rate decreased," Coville said, "not the other way around."

And failure rate, Coville said, is a statistic that matters -- greatly.

"Course failure," he said, "is highly predictive of students dropping out of school. One of the things we targeted is reducing course failure as a strategy for reducing dropouts."

Every high school in the state has strategies in place for preventing dropouts -- some more than others, some more effective than others.

Most educators say the keys to a successful program are forming relationships with at-risk students and offering a curriculum that is flexible, creative and supportive to a student body with needs that often vary widely.

At Carrabec, Coville said, the mindset from Day 1 of the initiative was that greater student success is a byproduct of higher expectations.

Within that philosophy, he said, was an understanding that high expectations need to be coupled with flexibility, creativity and support.

Thus the high school devised a multi-pronged approach that included offering "bridge" courses aimed at addressing deficiencies in students so they are better prepared to succeed at core-curriculum courses.

Thus a student might have to complete a pre-algebra class before taking Algebra I, Coville said.

Moreover, that same student, once enrolled in algebra, might have the class every school day as opposed to the more common every-other-day schedule.

The expectations in terms of tests and mastery of the subject, Coville said, are the same, whatever the track. The only difference is one pathway -- by meeting daily -- provides more time for academic reinforcement.

"At the end of the year, all the kids will get to the finish line together," Coville said.

Every Carrabec graduate has to pass Algebra I, Geometry and either Algebra II or a college-level math -- the only exception is when a student has a documented significant disability in mathematics.

Flexible schedules

Flexibility in programming is a major component to the Carrabec strategy -- both in regard to class schedules and the ability for students to get academic support.

Carrabec, for example, offers an alternative-education program, and not just for students who are failing classes.

Coville said some in the program were succeeding academically before switching to alternative education but finding it difficult to balance work and home responsibilities with a traditional school day.

In alternative education, students can come to school every other day or attend just morning or afternoon sessions, Coville said.

Such a malleable schedule is possible, Coville said, because the instruction is largely computer-based. Students come into school to complete various academic modules with guidance provided by the alternative education teacher.

Coville said the program proved invaluable to a 19-year-old transfer student from California who enrolled in Carrabec last fall.

Had she been limited to the traditional day school, the student would have needed to attend Carrabec for a year and a half to complete the courses she was missing. Most likely, he said, she would have dropped out.

Through alternative education, however, she was able to meet the requirements in seven months, Coville said.

For those in the mainstream program, Carrabec has specific academic-assistance programs available before and after school, as well as mathematics support twice a week at lunchtime.

The idea, Coville said, is to make sure a student can get help, whatever his or her schedule or transportation issues are.

Starting early

James Anastasio, principal of Cony High School in Augusta, deals with the same high dropout rate that Carrabec has battled.

Like Carrabec, the Augusta school system has implemented various initiatives to deal with the problem.

"We've looked at the statistics for kids who don't graduate," Anastasio said, "and a lot of the research shows that success in the earlier grades determines if students are successful when they reach high school."

A vital component of success, whatever the grade level, is literacy level.

Thus, in the effort to reduce dropout numbers, the Augusta school system started a major literacy program several years ago -- at the elementary school level.

Anastasio said that program has expanded since then to include middle school and high school students, with the objective of getting every student to read at grade level.

"We've had the literacy initiative at the high school for two years," he said, "and we're trying to build on that on a yearly basis to make it more an integral part of our program."

Messalonskee High School in Oakland has identified the transition from middle to high school as one the biggest challenges students face in the quest to graduation.

To help smooth this passage, Messalonskee established a Freshman Academy.

Messalonskee principal Gwen Bacon said fellow principal Paula Callan works closely with ninth-grade and eighth-grade teachers to foster communication between the two.

"They focus on a variety of things," Bacon said. "They look to see if students are doing well in class and, if not, they try to find reasons that is so. All the transition issues are looked at."

Those issues can range from academic to social to emotional well-being.

Whatever the specific problem, one of the best ways to help students is to make sure they have connections with teachers or administrators.

Thus Cony has an advisor-advisee program that links students to specific teachers for four years, while Messalonskee has each of its top administrators form relationships with a specific class of students. Bacon, for example, works closely with seniors.

S. Nash Callahan, a junior at Cony, agrees that relationships between students and staff are at the heart of keeping young people in school.

"The kids who drop out get pushed away," he said. "Nobody is there to say, 'Here's a hand to help you out,' so if they start falling, they keep falling."

Colin Hickey -- 861-9205

chickey@centralmaine.com

Bookmark and share this story: