Student Success Systems
High-quality, student success systems combine four essential elements so that secondary schools in an inclusive way are empowered to graduate all students on a pathway to higher education and job training which lead to adult success.
Strong, Supportive Relationships
Supportive relationships in all directions — school adults to students, students to students, staff to staff, school adults to parents/caregivers — provide the foundation for student and school success. High-quality student success systems both build upon and strengthen these relationships.
Real-time, Actionable, Holistic Data
This includes:
• research-based, predictive indicators (such as, attendance, course grades, and grade point average) of key secondary student outcomes, including:
• on-time earned grade promotion
• high school graduation, and
• college and career readiness/attainment
which are continually available at the student and teacher level throughout the school year, in as real time as possible, and actionable by school- and district-level personnel.
• information about student well-being, belonging, school connectedness and experiences in their classrooms, and
• insights from teachers, school staff, students and families/caregivers.
Strategic Improvement Actions
a school-based approach to analyzing and responding to holistic, real time, actionable information that is evidence-based, student centered, adaptive to local context, and involves students, teachers and community members in the co-design of improvement efforts. It is supported by professional learning, frameworks, and/or protocols, that enable teams of adults who know students well to work collectively on a frequent, planned cadence throughout the school year to:
• progress monitor all students using predictive indicators, identify patterns and trends which can inform action
• use additional real-time user-friendly quantitative and qualitative data, including social-emotional metrics (well-being, belonging, and school connectedness indicators) and classroom experience data, and teachers, student, and parent insights to identify underlying causes that school actions can address
• identify, develop, and implement strategic and effective actions and supports to address those causes
• evaluate the use and impact of the actions and supports, and
• use continuous improvement approaches to modify or change them as needed until proven to work.
Actions and supports can be at the district, school, grade, classroom, student sub-group, or individual level.
Student-Centered Mindsets
• Equity rather than injustice and unfairness
• Inclusion rather than separating and stigmatizing
• Empathy rather than judging and blaming
• Strength and asset based rather than deficit framing
• Proactive rather than remedial
• Belief in educator and student agency rather than thinking nothing can be done
• Belief in good outcomes for all can be obtained, rather than thinking only some can be helped
• Improving with and together, rather than alone, improving for, or because
• Acting based on evidence and with shared understanding rather than because of compliance and custom.
