Paola's questions were:
Paola KiselOctober 29, 2012 6:37 PM
I
am a little confused about your goal. Is your goal is to retention of
students between 9th and 10th grade who do not pass? Your second
action step is repeated on your blog. For “Student and Parent Exit
Interviews of students who have already left” do you mean you are going
to interview student who graduated last year (how are you going to find
them to interview) or are you going to interview students who will be
gradating this year (maybe interview them a week before graduation)?
To help clarify, I responded:
(I hope it clarifies for everyone...if not let me know because I value your comments and feedback!)
Thank you for your comment! It lead me to realize that I need to add some clarification about my plan. The Academy is an optional program to which students apply and are selected. They follow a more rigorous curriculum requirement than your average student would. In addition, they have several extra-curricular commitments that they must fulfill. We are only allowed to select 100 students per generation, so careful selection and retention is a must. Students must maintain an academic standard of 75 in core cores (ELA and SS are honors level) and an 80 in their foreign language course. Academy retention will deal with those who are academically successful and the peer support/inclusion. I want to ensure that I select students who are academically capable. I also need to ensure that I am providing students with peer support as most are coming from across the district and will not know anyone in the new school. Students leave for various reasons: removed due to falling below the 75/80 standard, miss their friends, can meet standard but feel it is too much work/stress, cannot complete the extra-curricular activities, etc. The goal is to increase retention between 9th and 10th grade (the greatest time of attrition) by examining the various reasons for students leaving and find better ways to meet their needs.
The student/parent exit interviews are for those who leave from here on out (voluntarily or removals) to find out what needs were not being met. Students from the class of 2015 or 2016 who left prior to the start of this project (voluntarily or removed) will be contacted and asked to participate as well for more data. Most have stayed within the district and will be easy to find. Students in the classes of 2012, 2013, and 2014 will not be considered in the study because their academy requirements differ from the current.
Also, the second and third action step differ only in one is geared towards the class of 2015 (current mentors who were mentees last year and have seen the program evolution) and the other towards the class of 2016 (current mentees). I separated them to remember to vary the surveys slightly since 2015 has seen the growth of the program first hand.
