Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT April

Welcome to our monthly gallery of best practices and tools from your Center for High School Success partner schools in Oregon and Washington. Below, your coaches have collected timely tools and featured practices from across our region to help support you, your team, and your 9th graders! Please reach out to your coach if you have any questions, feedback, on input.

April 2024

As we return from our spring breaks, many schools see a small reduction in on-track rates during 3rd quarter, as the end-of-year urgency has yet to fully kick in. In addition to these research-based strategies to combat the 3rd quarter slump, we recommend that schools intervene early and often to proactively teach students the essential skills and competencies as covered in our Interventions 201 series.

We are also eager to see you all at our upcoming CHSS Spring Collaboratives! Almost all schools have already registered, and if your team has yet to do so, please do so here ASAP to help us finalize our logistics.

Content will include:

  • Share and celebrate which elements of your Interventions 201 work were most effective this year
  • Review updated resources for planning for 8-9th transitions (bring any data on current 8th graders)
  • Collaborate with peers across schools by departments and roles

Spring sports are in full swing at Mt Vernon HS in Skagit County, WA, where “Bulldog Broadcast” student journalist Jenna interviews track athlete Amare and Coach K!

Planning for welcoming next year’s 9th graders? Prosser HS in Benton County, WA helps create a welcoming culture for all 9th graders with some Mustang swag!

CHSS News: 

Take a look at this freshly released video from Poudre High School in CO – please feel free to share with your team members, staff, students, and families! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1e8WqncN0c

Washington State OSPI Update: 

Reminder about billing and budget: Budgets are handled differently at every school and district, but we want to share a couple of reminders:

  • Please bill monthly so that your 9GS spending is reflected in your current expense reports from OSPI; ask your CHSS coach for current expense updates if you need this info!
  • As you plan your end of year interventions, work with your principal and budget office to make sure that you have the needed resources
  • We anticipate sharing updates from OSPI on the grant application process for 24-25 in our May addition of Snapshot

Calendar

Washington Spring Collaboratives: Register here 

SW Washington: Wednesday, April 24 8:00-2:30pm. Exact Location TBD

Skagit County: Thursday, April 25, 8:00-2:30pm. Exact Location TBD

Moses Lake: Wednesday, May 1, 8:30-3:00pm. Exact Location TBD

Yakima, ESD 105: Thursday, May 2, 8:30-3:00pm. Location: ESD 105  

Virtual Session A: Tuesday, May 7 & Wednesday, May 8, 3:30-5:00 pm each day. Open to all. Participants will receive a link to the zoom session.

Whatcom County: Wednesday, May 15, 8:00-2:30pm. Exact Location TBD

Puget Sound: Thursday, May 16, 8:00-2:30pm. Exact Location TBD

Oregon Spring Collaboratives:  

Portland Region: Wednesday, April 24, 8:00-2:30 pm, Exact Location TBD

Southern Oregon: Friday, May 10, 8:30am-3:30pm, Location Seven Feathers Casino Registration Link

Lincoln County: Wednesday, May 22, 8:30 – 3:30pm, Location: Teaching and Learning Center Newport  Registration Link

Linn-Benton Lincoln County ESDand Albany School District:  April 30th 8:30- 3:30 Linn Benton ESD  Registration Link

Timely Tools

Competency Prioritization Tool

To help schools determine which CCC competencies they should prioritize for instruction, this assessment is for staff to share their input, and this version is student-facing. Each are linked to these free and low-cost CCC lesson plans.

Poudre Goal Setting and Prioritization Tracker

 This tool is used by both advisory and homeroom teachers to support students to develop self regulation through goal setting and asset based feedback. Students review success in each class and through a highlighting routine, prioritize high-leverage classwork. A monthly reflection and weekly social and emotional check-ins are built. This tracker also represents network learning and sharing as it has grown and developed from our Estacada Oregon team to our Vancouver Washington teams to our Poudre Colorado teams!

9th Grade Academic Success Plan

This work prioritization planning tool and is available in English and Spanish. It helps students and staff learn and practice the routine (weekly) of reviewing grades, prioritizing missing work, goal setting, and reflection.

Featured Practice

Identify and respond to root cause and provide explicit instruction and ongoing supports to 9th graders on how to “do school” well. 

While we have spent this year learning and implementing our work in Interventions 201, we want to acknowledge the powerful work of creating space for interventions during the school day at this time of year.  Many schools are creatively providing opportunities for students to practice self-regulation as they prioritize their academic workload, get work done in a supervised environment with academic support. These proactive (or upstream) interventions reduce the number of students who will need credit repair moving forward and build better, faster, stronger self-regulators. Here are some examples of network schools who are creatively building in-school opportunities for their 9th graders:

Grandview HS:  GHS is building in skill development into their daily learning targets. They are using the CCC Framework to help support this work and are doing it school wide.  Each content(PLC)  is choosing a skill to focus on for a designated amount of time. The practice, feedback, and support is all happening within class time.  All 9th grade classes are focusing on the same skill/skill focus. 

Jenkins HS uses a 6-week process for teachers and students to use the Priority Planning Tools (available in English and Spanish) for reflection and planning work with students before interventions, and to reflect upon the effectiveness afterwards.

Klamath Union is redesigning two school days to flood support to students who are failing and need support to pass. 

Meridian’s Mountain Do Day:  4 weeks before the end of S1, Meridian HS ran a very successful tier 1 intervention called “Mountain Do” and all 9th graders had a full day to complete targeted make up work OR extension activities (the MOUNTAIN), and then were able to participate in fun activities (the DO)! Here are some key docs they used with students and staff.

Mt Baker Intervention During Testing Days: Utilizing the 10-12 testing days as a huge intervention opportunity, MBHS is spreading interventions across 3 days to support 9th graders with proactive work completion to finish Tri 3 strong.

During SAT testing time, Renton High School used the gymnasium to design a space where 9th graders got supervised work time with academic support from core content teachers.

South Albany uses a dedicated period called “Build The Nest” which 1) provides credit recovery and 2) proactively matches teachers and students to provide support on current learning and assignments. The 9th Grade Team and lead establishes a strong community culture so that the structure is positive and students want to be there.  This structure is partnered with an after school support option that is well attended by students. Here is an example of the tracking system staff use to track what students need to complete.

Previous SNAPTSHOTS

  • Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT DECEMBER
    As we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
  • Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT November
    As we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
  • Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT October
    As we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
  • Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT September
    As we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
  • Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT August
    As we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share: