This research explores who is at risk of dropping out of high school and how collaborative Student Support Teams can contribute to students staying on track to graduate high school. The issue of student success is important because graduation is positively correlated with important life outcomes and ability to earn an adequate income in the labor…

High school graduation rates gradually increased to 80% until 1968, at which point there was a steady decline until 2002 when the passage of No Child Left Behind required states to measure and increase graduation rates for all students (Kamenetz, 2015). With this greater accountability in place, educators readily identified ninth grade as a…

The purpose of this program evaluation is to examine the effectiveness of one Communities in Schools (CIS) program within a Title 1 Suburban High School in the Southeastern United States. The areas of foci include student attendance, grade level promotion, and graduation rate during the 2016-2017 school year. The program evaluation was designed to…

This study used a qualitative approach to explore a rural school district's freshman academy program through parent and staff member perspectives using Stufflebeam's (2003) CIPP model of program evaluation. Interviews and questionnaire data provided information to answer the following research questions: 1. Context: What is the context within…

The purpose of the current outcome study was to determine the effects of the Ready for Success (RFS) classroom guidance program (Brigman & Webb, 2012) on the social-emotional skills and competence, reading proficiency, and promotion between third-grade students who received the RFS intervention (treatment group; n = 104), and third-grade…

The transition from eighth-grade middle school to ninth-grade in high school can be an extremely challenging experience (Kennelly & Monrad, 2007). According to the Texas Center for Educational Research, more students decide to drop out of school during their ninth-grade year than any other time (Marshall, 2003). According to Fulco (2009), this…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of high school transition strategies for ninth grade students in comparison to the traditional high school experience of first time ninth grade students. This study compared the English End-of-Course (EOC) test scores of first time ninth grade students in a traditional high school setting…

Too many freshmen students remain mired in the ninth grade, presenting a growing problem for America's secondary schools as they struggle to improve high school completion rates. In an effort to stem the tide of high school dropouts, a southeast Texas suburban school district with five comprehensive high schools engaged in a systemic reform effort…