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.