Reflection

**Observations**

 I was assigned three students who were all at risk of not completing high school on time. These three students were either in the 9th or the 10th grade. All three students had an Individual Education Plans (IEPs). After looking at the students' data, the school's data and talking with several teachers at the school it became apparent to me that these three students all shared one other similarity – all had poor school attendance. One teacher posed an interested question to me, was poor attendance a problem or a symptom. This question really made me think about what was going on in each student's life that could cause poor attendance. Looking at the data it seemed that one student, Student B, had a lot going on at home that was causing her poor attendance. During Student B's first semester, she had lost both of her parents and missed a lot of school taking care of her siblings. Student B’s attendance had improved dramatically second semester and, consequently, so had her grades. The other two students were often in the building for parts of the day but absent for other parts. There was a high correlation between the classes that Student A was failing and classes with the most absences. This stayed consistent between the two semesters. Student C had many absences, although most of his absences were excused. Again, there was a high correlation between the classes that Student C's was failing and his classes with the most absences (excused or unexcused).

The other thing that I noticed was during my observations. All of the students on my case study were engaged in the classroom activities and completed all of the assignments. None of the students displayed any behavior issues in classes. All of his/her teachers reported that the students were respectful and completed assignments when present. This suggests that the students did not have an engagement issue or misunderstanding. The issue was getting the students into the classroom. The main issue for my three students was attendance.

Looking at these three students made me look at the bigger picture of school attendance at Arvada High School. It seemed that these three cases were not the only instances of students being at risk of not completing high school and having poor attendance. The other two Teacher Candidates noticed the same trend while completing their case studies. After talking with staff and students at Arvada High School it seemed that attendance was not strictly enforced and there were few consequences, both within the school and the court system. Furthermore, the attendance counselor mentioned that last school year 1/3 of the school had truancy issues. It appears that attendance is an issue at AHS. There are several intervention programs in place at AHS that are working, including behavior supports, intervention math and assisted reading programs. I would like to pull strategies from these programs that are working and implement an attendance intervention.


 * Proposal **

My proposal revolves around creating an attendance team and an attendance plan for Arvada High School. I would use the Response to Intervention Model to help shape this attendance plan. First, I propose that attendance become more strictly enforced at AHS. The school should designate one person to monitor attendance and figure out which students need to be targeted. This person would then form a committee at the school to help make decisions. Ideally this committee would have a range of teachers, students, and members from the community. This committee would create a plan to address attendance. The committee would also set up a time to discuss the new attendance policy with staff and the community. The committee would propose that Parent Portal, which is where parents can check student's grades, should now include students attendance and tardies. Currently, when a student is absent an authomic phone call is sent out. After four absences then a letter is sent home. This current system does not seem to be enough to decrease poor attendance at AHS.

In addition to the more strictly enforced attendance policy, the committee would create a rubric with clear consequences for absences and tardies. Within this rubric a range of severity of consequences would be decided upon. If it were a student’s first offense, then he/she would receive a less severe consequence and vice versa. These consequences would be school centered and focused on making the school and community a safer and more enjoyable place, such as cleaning the building on a Saturday. This would bring some consistency and fairness to the consequences given to truant students.

The last thing that I would address is the open campus at AHS. The open campus has created issues with staff knowing if a student is skipping class or on an off period. I propose that off periods would be make to only 1st and 7th periods (first and last periods). This way there was less roaming the halls during the main chunk of the day. For the students with off periods those students would need to be in the cafeteria or in the library. There should be a list of students that have 1st and 7th off so it would be easy to determine if a student was ditching. Ideally there could be someone monitoring students in the cafeteria or library (maybe a rotation) to make sure the students in those locations were the correct ones.

To address all of these changes, the committee would hold a community meeting for parents and families to learn about the new policy. I would try to have some sort of food available for families to encourage parent participation. Getting the community behind this new policy would really help with the implementation. I would also encourage parents to find community projects that students who have truancy issues could work on. I would really like to make the new attendance policy as transparent to the students, their families and the community as possible.

My proposals directly relate to the Colorado Department of Education's (CDE) recommendations for increasing graduation. The Colorado Department of Education has seven steps to improve graduation rates.These steps are as follows:


 * 1) Establishing an early warning system to determine who is at risk of dropping out of school.
 * 2) Establishing transition programs in elementary to middle, middle and high school, high school to post secondary grades to provide students additional supports preparing them for the upcoming year.
 * 3) Evaluating and changing current policies and practices at the state, district, and school level that may be hindering students from graduating.
 * 4) Building family, school, community engagement in an effort to prevent students from dropping out of school.
 * 5) Employing a rigorous and relevant curriculum to engage students and facilitate links between curriculum and real life.
 * 6) Developing school and teacher leadership (as discussed in rigorous and relevant curriculum section of the guide).
 * 7) Developing systems for data collection, tracking of process and results, evaluation and use of evaluation to make adjustments and corrections as applicable (as discussed in early warning system section of the guide).

 Specifically, my proposals are focusing on building community support and developing systems for data collection and tracking of attendance. I believe making these changes would create a new atmosphere in the school. These changes focus on the school-wide level, which according to the RtI model would impact the 85% of the student body (RtI picture below). For the other 15% of students that need more intense interventions the attendance committee would make decisions based on the need of the student. Some of tehse students could be referred to the counselors or a school social worker to help determine a plan of action for that student. The attendance committee would follow-up regularly with these individuals to check on student's progress. Furthermore, the attendance committee would present the data and answer questions/concerns at least once a month during staff meetings.

The ultimate goal of this attendance intervention program would be to create a safe and supportive environment for ALL students. As Sherry (2006) from the Denver Post stated, “Psychologist believe human needs begin with the physiological, such as hunger. Then comes safety, then love, then esteem” (p4). My goal would be for students to feel the value of education, the support to gain an education and an understanding that it is important to 'show up and show out'. I want students to feel safe, supported and valued at AHS. I feel that my proposed attendance intervention program would help create a this atmosphere. 

//RtI Model Image Taken From: http://www.cde.state.co.us/RtI/LearnAboutRtI.htm//


 * Reflection **

 I learned that some issues that two or three students are having could be a larger issue. This seemed to be the case with poor attendance at Arvada High School. The students that I looked at did not seem to be extreme cases. Poor attendance issues seemed a whole school problem, not an isolated problem. With this in mind, I think that creating a whole school strategy would be the best solution to decrease poor attendance. The whole school strategy would impact the students I completed my case study on and hopefully the entire school. My proposal for AHS is based on the RtI model. I believe that this model would help change the climate of the school and impact the entire student body. As Orfield et al (2004) state, “Woven throughout this report are narratives about students from a sampling of states … who have either dropped or felt “pushed” out of school” (p.3). My proposal for AHS would aim to decrease a student’s belief that dropping out is an option and instead focus on the importance of school for all students.


 * References **:

//Colorado Department of Education: http://www.cde.state.co.us/DropoutPrevention/bestpractices/IncreasingGraduation.html//

Orfield, G., Losen, D., Wald, J., & Swanson, C. (2004) //Losing Our Future: How Minority Youth are Being Left Behind by the Graduation Rate Crisis//. Cambridge, MA.

Sherry, A. (2006). Reaching out to dropouts: //The Denver Post.// Retrieved December 18, 2006, from [].