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Making Middle Grades Work: Planning Successful Transitions

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Title: Making Middle Grades Work: Planning Successful Transitions


1
Making Middle Grades Work Planning Successful
Transitions
  • Presented by
  • Barbara Moore, Associate Director
  • Toni Eubank, Director

2
Rationale for transition
  • School Improvement has identified effective
    transition as a best practice to increase
    graduation rate!
  • More students fail the 9th grade than any other
    grade level.
  • What is your 9th grade retention rate?
  • Georgia has one of the highest drop-out rates in
    the nation.
  • What is your drop-out rate?

3
Rationale for transition
  • Adolescence is a confusing time for students due
    to the many emotional and physical changes that
    occur at this age.
  • Transition has always been important to middle
    school educators however, it is obvious better
    and/or more effective processes are needed.
  • 8th grade in middle school is NOTHING like 9th
    grade in high school.

4
According to the Center for Educational
Statistics
  • In 2005, approximately 488,000 students dropped
    out of American high schools

5
Other Studies
  • In schools in which transition programs are fully
    operational, researchers saw a dropout rate of
    8, while schools without transition programs
    averaged 24 (Reents, 2002)
  • Difficult ninth-grade transitions can result in
  • flagging academic performance
  • increased dropout rates
  • reduced on-time graduation
  • (problems particularly commonplace in large
    urban settings)

6
Educators are looking backwards to see where
students falter as they move through school
  • The bottom line
  • The transition from middle grades to high
    school represents the biggest challenge for
    Americas students.
  • Student Retention Rates

7
Other Studies
  • The dip in the number of students in tenth grade
    reflects both the large number of students not
    promoted to tenth grade as well as those students
    that drop out after ninth grade and before tenth
    grade. National High School Center
  • Ninth grade attrition is far more pronounced in
    urban, high-poverty schools 40 of dropouts in
    low-income high schools left after ninth grade,
    compared to 27 in low poverty districts (EPE
    Research Center, 2006).

8
Other Studies
  • Racial disparities highlight the ninth grade
    bulge and tenth grade dip (Wheelock Miao, 2005)
  • most pronounced for African American and Latino
    students.
  • grade nine enrollment is 2327 higher than
    grade eight for AA and Latino 68 higher for
    whites
  • attrition between grades nine and ten hovers
    around 20 for African American students is
    stable around 7 for Caucasian students

9
Other Studies
  • More than one semester F in core subjects and
    fewer than five full course credits by the end of
    freshman year are key indicators that a student
    is not on track to graduate (Allensworth
    Easton, 2005).
  • Low attendance during the first 30 days of the
    ninth grade year is a stronger indicator that a
    student will drop out than any other eighth grade
    predictor, including test scores, other academic
    achievement, and age (Jerald, 2006).

10
When Asked How Much Education I Will Complete by
Age 30
Source HSTW Student Survey
11
The Education Pipeline
Source The Bridge Project Stanford University
11
11
12
Student vs. Parent Expectations Study conducted
by Education Trust
  • Post high school plans for students
  • 71 planned to attend a 4-year college
  • 5 thought they would be working full time
  • Parents did not have the same expectations
  • 52 of parents expected their students to attend
    a 4-year college
  • 11 thought students would be working full time

13
Fastest Growing Jobs Require Some Education
Beyond High School
14
Business-Higher Education Forum
  • In 1950, 80 percent of the jobs were classified
    as unskilled.
  • Now, an estimated 85 percent are classified as
    skilled, requiring education beyond high
    school.
  • 60 percent of future jobs will require training
    that only 20 percent of todays workers possess.

14
14
15
Goals of a Transition Program
  • Decrease the dropout rate in ninth and tenth
    grade
  • Increase the high school graduation rate
  • Increase the number of students prepared for
    college-preparatory courses in grades 9 and 10

16
Successful Transition Programs
  • Bring middle grades and high school personnel
    together to examine each others curriculum and
    requirements
  • Require all students to have a five-year
    educational plan by the end of eighth grade
  • Provide information on the new school for
    students and parents
  • Provide social support for students
  • Focus on increasing parental involvement

17
Strategies that Ensure Successful Transitions
  • Middle Grades Curriculum that ensures readiness
    for high school
  • Extra Help Gearing Up, Catching Up, Staying On
    Course
  • Summer Bridge program in reading and math to help
    selected 8th-graders get ready for high school.
  • Catch-up Course in 8th or 9th grades that will
    take students who are seriously below grade level
    and accelerate their learning in English and
    mathematics.
  • Support Class - separate course for identified
    students incorporated school-wide for all
    students

18
Strategies that Ensure Successful Transitions
  • A Personalized Learning Environment that assigns
    a caring adult to mentor each students in grades
    six through eight.
  • Examine Transition Activities that prepare
    students, involve parents and build relationships
    between teachers and schools.

19
Think About
  • What are one or two essential elements that
    need to be considered for effective transition
    efforts?

20
Essential Questions
  • What evidence of readiness for high school is
    required of every student by the end of the
    eighth grade?
  • Do grade level performance criteria describe the
    skills and qualities needed to do challenging
    work?
  • How has the school changed what is taught, how
    teachers teach, and how student performance is
    measured to better prepare students for high
    school?

21
Essential Questions
  • Is student work evaluated consistently according
    to known criteria across classrooms and subjects?
  • Do all teachers expect essentially the same
    quality work? Do teachers facilitate this
    consistency through commonly created assessments?
  • How does the school help students who are having
    difficulty achieving the standards?
  • How does the school monitor progress for student
    achievement?

22
Goals of Successful Transitions
  • Students will
  • complete college-preparatory English and Algebra
    I.
  • declare a goal beyond high school that they can
    visualize and commit to achieve.
  • establish a connection with an adult who will
    assist and support them throughout high school.
  • develop effective study, relationship and time
    management skills and other habits of success.
  • develop an understanding that, through smart
    effort, they can improve their achievement.

23
Readiness for High School Where Do We Stand?
  • Middle Grades Students in 2008
  • 92 plan further study after high school.
  • 30 had intensive literacy experiences.
  • 26 had intensive numeracy experiences.

24
Readiness for High School Where Do We Stand?
  • Middle Grades Students in 2008
  • 22 of students did not talk to teachers or other
    adults about 9th grade until 8th grade
  • 52 had no written plan for courses to take in
    high school
  • 59 of students read 10 or less pages a day both
    in and out of school

25
What does it mean to improve student
transitions from middle grades to high school?
  • Increasing the percentage of ninth-graders who
    have the knowledge and skills necessary for
    success in an academically rigorous high school
    curriculum.

26
What does it mean to improve student
transitions from middle grades to high school?
  • Increasing the level of RIGOR in assignments and
    assessments in middle grades classrooms.
  • Vertical articulation between elementary, middle
    and high school teachers
  • Reducing the amount of review of elementary
    school content in middle grades

27
What does it mean to improve student
transitions from middle grades to high school?
  • Developing more assignments at the proficient and
    advanced levels
  • Limiting basic level assignments to 25-35
  • Increasing proficient and advanced assignments to
    65-75
  • Adding far more assignments that require students
    to analyze, apply, synthesize and evaluate
    content, not just memorize content

28
Defining Proficient
  • Below Basic denotes performance that is below
    grade level.
  • Basic Denotes partial mastery of prerequisite
    knowledge and skills that are fundamental for
    proficient work at each grade level.

29
Defining Proficient
  • Proficient Represents solid academic
    performance for each grade assessed. Students
    reaching this level have demonstrated competency
    over challenging subject matter, including
    subject-matter knowledge, application of such
    knowledge to real world-situations, and
    analytical skills appropriate to the subject
    matter.
  • Advanced Signifies superior performance.

30
Lets Practice!
Using the handout and the definitions of basic,
proficient, advanced, identify whether each item
will elicit responses at the basic, proficient,
or advanced level.
30
30
31
What Do Rigorous Activities Look Like
  • In English/language arts and reading
  • short writing assignments
  • major research paper
  • oral presentations
  • reading outside of school each day (30 minutes)
  • reading 25 books (or the equivalent) across the
    curriculum (8-10 in English class)
  • word processing (sometimes) and
  • revise essays or written work to meet the
    standard (sometimes).

32
What Do Rigorous Activities Look Like
  • In Mathematics
  • Use the SREB publication Getting Students Ready
    for College-preparatory/Honors English What
    Middle Grades Students Need to Know and Be Able
    to Do to assess student preparedness for
    Algebra I and to guide curriculum and
    instructional revisions and end-of-course/end-of-g
    rade assessments. Content from this publication
    may also be used as a guide when selecting
    textbooks.

33
What Do Rigorous Activities Look Like
  • In Mathematics
  • Use common end-of-grading-period exams to assess
    progress.
  • Provide graphing calculators for all pre-algebra
    and algebra classes, and frequent opportunities
    to use them.
  • Increase the number of students completing
    Algebra I each year.

34
What Do Rigorous Activities Look Like
  • In Mathematics
  • Require students to discuss strategies and
    solutions to problems
  • Require students to write short answer
    explanations of how they solved problems
  • Encourage students to create/share their own
    mathematics problems, and find examples of
    real-world problems and applications for recently
    learned concepts.

35
What Do Rigorous Activities Look Like
  • In Mathematics
  • Use SREBs publication, Essential Competencies
    for Middle Grades Mathematics Teachers as a
    resource to assess the professional development
    needs of mathematics teachers. SREB offers four
    online courses that address specific content and
    pedagogical skills needed by all middle grades
    mathematics teachers.

36
What Do Rigorous Activities Look Like
  • In Science
  • Process Indicators
  • design a scientific investigation
  • conduct a scientific investigation
  • analyze the finding of a scientific investigation
  • communicate and defend findings
  • evaluation other scientific investigations and
    apply results

37
What Do Rigorous Activities Look Like
  • In Science
  • Use SREBs guide, Getting Students Ready for
    College-preparatory/Honors Science What Middle
    Grades Students Need to Know and Be Able to Do to
    assess student preparedness and to guide
    curriculum and instructional revisions.
  • Organize each unit around an essential question
    and lab experience in which students formulate a
    hypothesis, design and carry out a study, present
    and analyze information, write a report and
    present it to the class.

38
What Do Rigorous Activities Look Like
  • In Science
  • Require students to demonstrate understanding by
    using concepts to explain observations, make
    predictions and present information in multiple
    ways.
  • Ensure that students frequently read science
    articles and analyze, discuss and write about
    them.

39
What Do Rigorous Activities Look Like
  • In social studies
  • Have students analyze events and write for a
    variety of purposes including written histories
    relative to multicultural, generational and
    gender perspectives.
  • Require students to draw conclusions, make
    predictions and determine cause/effect
    relationships.
  • Expand use of instructional strategies, including
    integration of technology, oral presentations,
    cooperative learning, project-based learning,
    student portfolios, analysis of primary sources
    and conflicts/current events, and the Socratic
    method of questioning.

40
What Do Rigorous Activities Look Like
  • In social studies
  • Use a variety of materials including maps, globes
    and other geographic and primary source materials
    to build on core content provided in the text.
  • Examine a A History of Us by Joy Hakim. Written
    by a historian and journalist, this curriculum is
    highly engaging for adolescents and equally well
    received by students, parents and educators.
  • Teaching Tolerance, the Southern Poverty Law
    Center magazine, provides a national forum for
    sharing techniques and exploring new ideas for
    teaching tolerance, diversity and justice.

41
What Do Rigorous Activities Look Like
  • In social studies
  • Require an annual research project that is
    increasingly challenging. Each year can feature a
    different focus.
  • Use a variety of assessment methods that align
    with national/state standards and measure student
    understanding of concepts and ability to apply
    skills.
  • Civic education experts promote authentic,
    performance-based, integrative assessments.
  • Use debates, simulations, mock elections,
    interviews with individuals for/against a
    relevant topic, and student demonstrations to
    assess student understanding of complex issues
    and situations.

42
Successful Transition Programs
  • Identify students at the end of grade six who may
    need help in making a successful transition
  • Get more students to complete at least one
    semester of college-preparatory Algebra 1 before
    grade nine
  • Require more reading
  • Help students aspire to education beyond high
    school

43
Site Specific Strategies Preparing Students
Middle to High
  • Eighth Graders
  • Organize an annual Career Fair
  • Every year students learn about different
    careers, requisite skills, future opportunities,
    etc.
  • Complete a College Research Project
  • Complete research on career
  • Combined book selection and research
  • Complete Kuder or other inventory
  • Process results with counselor or adviser to
    determine interests, strengths, etc.

44
Site Specific Strategies Preparing Students
Middle to High
  • Transition Days when students attend school one
    day early at the start of the school year for
    special orientation activities.
  • Students to get to know the faculty and the
    logistics of the school day
  • Host a Reality Fair
  • Booths representing realities Buying a
    Car/House, Insuring house/car, Healthcare,
    Opening a checking account, Taxes, etc.
  • Students are engaged in different activities at
    each booth

45
Site Specific Strategies Preparing Students
Middle to High
  • Implement a job shadowing day for 8th/9th graders
  • Students develop interview questions
  • Students responsible for finding individual to
    shadow
  • Parents/students responsible for providing
    transportation
  • Teachers develop follow-up activities
  • Have eighth graders shadow ninth graders for a
    day
  • eat lunch in the cafeteria
  • meet with ninth grade teachers and club
    sponsors/coaches

46
Site Specific Strategies Preparing Students
Middle to High
  • Small-group sessions with high school counselors
    at the middle school
  • Provide a three-ring notebook about high school
    for each 8th grader (Student Survival Guide)
  • Establish a web site that provides information to
    incoming students
  • Schedule presentation about clubs, service
    organizations and athletics that students in
    which students can participate
  • Students talk with students in these activities
  • Students meet faculty sponsors

47
Site Specific Strategies Preparing Students
Middle to High
  • Passes or invitations to social/athletic events
    at the high school
  • High School 101 Class (mandatory)
  • Can be taught at 8th or 9th or both grade
  • Topics that address differences between middle
    grades and high school credits, GPA, programs of
    study, diploma tracks, etc.
  • Incorporates study and organizational skills

48
Site Specific Strategies Preparing Students
Elementary to Middle
  • Jump Start program for all rising sixth-graders
    (ride the bus, get locker assignments, tour
    building, meet teachers, wear school T-shirt,
    receive schedule, etc.)
  • Sixth graders prepare a Middle School A-Z Book
    for all fifth graders.
  • Create Traveling Trunks that counselors use with
    rising sixth-graders.
  • Assign Buddies upper class students to
    support new students or students experiencing
    problems transitioning

49
Site Specific Personalized Strategies
  • Have sixth- and ninth graders answer incoming
    students questions in writing
  • Establish Student Ambassadors that provide tours
    and answer questions for any student new to the
    school
  • Have student hosts meet with rising students in
    small groups
  • Develop a PowerPoint entitled Meet Your
    Teachers and send to the teachers of rising
    sixth and ninth graders.

50
Johns Hopkins Research Findings on High School
Dropouts
  • Although the study was on high school dropouts,
    the findings point to the middle grades
    particularly sixth grade
  • We know that most middle grades students fail
    because they dont do their work
  • Utility (the extent to which students believed
    that the mathematics they were studying would be
    useful in life) was the strongest determinant of
    student effort.
  • Intrinsic Interest (the extent to which students
    found mathematics classes interesting and
    exciting) had a significant effect upon students
    level of effort.

51
Four Risk Factors of Study
  • Course Failure (Failing English or Math)
  • Course failure was a better predictor of not
    graduating than were low test scores. Students
    who failed either a math or English/language arts
    course in the sixth grade rarely graduated from
    the school district. Ninth graders who fail
    rarely graduate and most often drop out before
    end of tenth grade.
  • More than one semester F in core subjects and
    fewer than five full course credits by the end of
    freshman year are key indicators that a student
    is not on track to graduate (Allensworth
    Easton, 2005).

52
Four Risk Factors of Study
  • Course Failure (Failing English or Math) cont.
  • Students who fail math or ELA and also have a
    poor final behavior mark fall off the graduation
    track at even greater rates than students who
    fail math and English but receive good behavior
    marks
  • The students in the JH study were from
    Philadelphia and their district had a separate
    grade for behaviors.

53
Four Risk Factors of Study
  • Attending school 80 or less of the time
  • Attending school less than 90 of the time in
    sixth grade increases the chance that students
    will fall off the graduation track.
  • Intrinsic interest also had a significant effect
    upon students attendance.
  • Supporting study showed that attendance during
    the first 30 days of the ninth grade year is a
    stronger indicator that a student will drop out
    than any other eighth grade predictor, including
    test scores, other academic achievement, and age
    (Jerald, 2006).

54
Four Risk Factors of Study
  • Out of school suspension
  • Students in the cohort who were suspended in 6th
    grade fell off the graduation track in large
    numbers.
  • Academic press (the extent to which students felt
    both teachers and peers expected them to work
    hard and do their best) had a large effect upon
    student behavior

55
Four Risk Factors of Study
  • High Suspension Rates
  • 845 (6) of 6th graders received one or more out
    of school suspensions
  • 20 of those graduated within one year of on-time
    graduation
  • 222 6th graders received in-school suspensions
    and
  • Only 17 of those remained on the graduation
    track (the odds decreased even further for the
    136 sixth graders who had two suspensions and the
    74 students who had three or more.

56
Four Risk Factors of Study
  • Early manifestation of academic and behavioral
    problems at the start of the middle grades do not
    self-correct, at least within the context of
    middle grades schools that serve high-poverty
    populations.
  • Schools must have strong intervention programs.

57
Four Risk Factors of Study
  • Parental involvement (how often parents helped
    with homework and the degree to which they felt
    welcome in the school), and intrinsic interest
    had significant effects upon students level of
    effort and their attendance.

58
Four Risk Factors of Study
  • Course failure was a better predictor of not
    graduation than were low test scores.
  • Students who failed either a math or ELA/reading
    course in grade six rarely graduated from the
    school district.

59
A System of Extra Help
  • Develop a continuum of supports from elementary
    through grade twelve.

60
Why Extra Help?
  • reduce the failure rate
  • reduce the middle grades retention rate
  • increase the high school graduation rate
  • encourage students to stretch themselves
  • convince parents that the school cares
  • achieving high standards builds student confidence

61
What Works in Extra Help?
  • Identify students early.
  • Modify schedules for re-teaching opportunities.
  • Provide examples of high quality work.
  • Provide guidelines that help students produce
    quality work.
  • Emphasize the importance of attendance, readiness
    to learn, and effort.
  • Allow students to redo work until it meets
    standards.
  • Provide time for teams of teachers to work
    together.

62
Extra Help is NOT
  • remedial classes
  • pullout sessions
  • just slowing things down
  • endless drill sheets

63
Strategies for Extra Help
  • A schedule that allows extra periods in the
    regular school day in reading and mathematics.
  • Extra help and extra time for every student
    performing below grade level provided during the
    school day.
  • Connect extra help and time to clear
    expectations.
  • Develop criteria for placement into and out of
    required extra-help programs.

64
Strategies for Extra Help
  • Offer assistance before, during and after school.
  • Create Small Learning Community or ninth grade
    academy
  • Ensure teacher teams are interdisciplinary
  • Vertically team with feeder or receiving school.

65
Gearing Up
  • Identify sixth, seventh and eighth grade
    students who need extra preparation for
    challenging high school work, and provide them an
    enhanced middle grades program of reading,
    language arts and mathematics.

66
Strategies for Gearing Up
  • Identify students who need additional enrichment
    experiences in grades 7 and 8.
  • Prepare all teachers to engage students in
    reading and writing for learning.
  • Make learning more intellectual, engaging, and
    connected.
  • Help students find purpose and meaning in their
    studies.

67
Strategies for Gearing Up
  • Incorporate real world connections and
    applications how will students use this
    skill/knowledge in the future
  • Develop high-level exploratory courses in grades
    7 and 8 that give students more time to read,
    write and do mathematics.
  • Utilize the career/education plan students have
    to help them see the need for working hard.
  • Include a parent orientation.

68
Whats happening in your district?
  • When does your school/district begin to prepare
    students for success in high school?
  • What strategies are in place?

69
Building a Bridge
  • Students exiting grade eight who are performing
    at the 40th percentile or lower, or who perform
    below grade level, attend a four to six week
    summer program.

70
Strategies for Summer Bridge
  • four- to six-week program for entering
    ninth-graders who need further study to succeed
    in high school
  • focus on reading, mathematics, computer and study
    skills
  • include career education components
  • include high-interest, challenging activities
  • strongest teachers teach this program

71
Whats happening in your district?
  • How do you ensure that students continue to
    learn in the summer?
  • What strategies are in place?

72
Catching Up
  • Eighth- and ninth-grade students not ready to
    take college-preparatory courses are enrolled in
    a catch-up course.
  • Curriculum includes double doses of language
    arts/reading and mathematics.

73
Catch-Up Course
  • Develop a semester or year-long course focusing
    on six key goals
  • Build positive relationships that support
    academic success
  • Develop effective study, time management and
    organization skills - Habits of Success
  • Practice communication and mathematics skills
  • Help students set goals and develop a plan for
    high school and beyond
  • Learn about school and community resources
    available to assist students

74
Support Class Goals
  • Give students the extra assistance they will need
    to succeed with a rigorous curriculum.
  • Raise the overall achievement of participants,
    especially in reading, language arts, mathematics
    and science.
  • Help students attain grade-level proficiency in
    their courses.
  • Get students to accept responsibility for their
    own learning and success.

75
Course Design
  • focus on 8th or 9th-graders who are not ready to
    take college-preparatory English and Algebra I
  • designed to get students back on track by the
    end of the year
  • uses a mastery learning approach in pacing
    instruction

76
Considerations for Support and Catch-Up Courses
  • How often will the class meet and how long is the
    class period?
  • Meet every day
  • Meet every other day
  • Alternate between reading and math
  • Alternate with a computer class
  • Alternate with a career/technical class
  • Alternate with another course
  • Other...

77
Considerations for Support and Catch-Up Courses
  • How many students will be enrolled in the support
    class?
  • What will be the focus of the class?
  • Both language arts and mathematics?
  • Different class to focus on language arts and one
    to focus on mathematics?
  • How will habits of success be integrated?

78
Considerations for Support and Catch-Up Courses
  • Coordinating with the regular academic team
  • Lesson planning
  • Avoiding duplication and overlap
  • Common daily planning
  • Weekly team meetings
  • Coordinating with the transition team
  • Weekly team meetings

79
Considerations for Support and Catch-Up Courses
  • Who teaches the support/catch-up class?
  • Master teacher with mathematics and/or language
    arts content certification
  • Math or language arts teacher who teaches daily
    English and math classes
  • Other possibilities
  • How to expand staff/support staff
  • volunteers, tutors, etc.

80
Whats happening in your district?
  • What opportunities are available to students who
    need to catch up in eighth or ninth grade?

81
Provide Appropriate Guidance and Support for All
Students
  • The school helps parents and students understand
    high school graduation requirements and knowledge
    and skills needed for success in postsecondary
    education and/or employment.

82
What does provide guidance and support to all
students mean?
  • The school helps parents and students understand
    high school graduation requirements and knowledge
    and skills needed for success in postsecondary
    education and/or employment.

83
Why Guidance and Advisement?
  • Every student needs help in setting an education
    goal and a tentative career goal.
  • Every student needs a plan aligned to his or her
    education and career goal.
  • Every student needs to have his or her parents
    involved in helping set goals.
  • Every student needs to feel a sense of personal
    belonging in school that comes from the
    teacher-adviser relationship.

84
Indicators of an Intensive Emphasis on Guidance
  • When students report
  • being encouraged by a counselor or teacher to
    take Algebra in 6th, 7th or 8th grade.
  • having a written plan for courses they plan to
    take in high school.
  • their parents and someone at school helped them
    write their plan for courses they will take in
    high school.

85
Indicators of Guidance and Advisement
86
Indicators of GuidanceTeacher Survey
87
Additional Indicatorsin the 2008 Assessment
  • Teachers or other adults at school talked to
    students about what they will need to know and be
    able to do in 9th grade.
  • Students take part in a parent-teacher-student
    conference about school work at least once a year.

88
Additional Indicatorsin the 2008 Assessment
  • Students report being able to easily talk with an
    adult at school about any problems.
  • Students and their parents or guardians met with
    a counselor, teacher, or another school rep. to
    plan their HS program of studies.

89
What does it mean to improve student
transitions from middle grades to high school?
  • Improving school-student-family connections
    through regularly scheduled conferences and
    frequent communication
  • A required parent-student conference to develop a
    5- to 6- year plan for high school at least one
    or two years of post secondary education prior to
    the student leaving eighth grade.
  • Communications about this plan should begin in
    grade six.

90
What does it mean to improve student
transitions from middle grades to high school?
  • Making parents partners in getting students to
    complete assignments
  • Providing and requiring extra help for students
    whose work is below proficient
  • Stop letting students off the hook for learning
    and completing assignments
  • Requiring students to complete all assignments
    (Power of I) in grades 6-9

91
Site Specific Strategies Involving Parents
  • Sneak Peek Preview Night for Parents
  • Schedule in Spring for parents of rising sixth
    graders
  • Orientation on unique characteristics of young
    adolescents
  • Description of middle school teaming
  • Opportunities for parent involvement at the
    middle school
  • Sixth-grade teachers serve as guides for tour of
    building
  • Charting Your Childs Future program to
    increase parent awareness and interest in
    planning for their childrens future.

92
Site Specific Strategies Involving Parents
  • Host a Data Dinner (or Dessert Night) to help
    parents review student progress and understand
    how their children are progressing in meeting
    standards.
  • Parent workshops regarding high school programs,
    career development, high school procedures,
    athletic eligibility, high school curriculum,
    extracurricular activities, college admission
    criteria

93
Site Specific Strategies Involving Parents
  • Plan special occasions such as Take Your Parent
    to School Day and the Family Day Picnic
  • Culminating Celebrations Crossing the Bridge
    Ceremony
  • Develop a 9th grade newsletter that parents begin
    to receive when their child is in the second
    semester of the 8th grade
  • Create a parent brochure from the surveys on
    Moving to High School to help relieve parent
    anxieties

94
Whats happening in your district?
  • What strategies are in place to provide guidance
    and advisement for students in your district?

95
Why Should Teachers Work Together?
  • Learn goals in other classes
  • Teacher sharing
  • Joint teacher planning
  • Connections among classes
  • Teacher leadership

96
Effective Transition programs
  • Schedule meetings between collaborative groups
    from sending and receiving schools both
    students and adults
  • Assess the human and financial resources
    available for support
  • Identify student and adult leaders from all
    schools to help with the transition
  • Establish a transition protocol that can be
    easily replicated and updated annually with
    little effort.

97
Effective Transition programs
  • Building a sense of community between the two
    levels.
  • Many meetings between teachers, administrators,
    transportation, and central office to
    organize/sign-off on plan
  • Responding to the needs and concerns of students,
    parents/guardians and staff.
  • Parents must be involved in every stage of
    process to keep parents coming to school with
    their children
  • Providing appropriate, developmental strategies
    to facilitate the transition process no later
    than the 8th grade
  • 9th grade is too late to help students with
    transition.

98
Ideas for establishing a program
  • Create activities that will involve students,
    parents, and staff from both schools in the
    transition process.
  • Develop opportunities for students and parents to
    receive information regarding high school
    programs and procedures
  • web site, parent workshops, newsletters, emails,
    brochures, career fairs, teacher-as-advisor
    activities senior led seminars for 8th graders
    peer mentoring for freshmen
  • Back at your school, visit with teachers during
    their planning to help create these activities
    and pick their brains for information.

99
Site Specific Strategies Building Relationships
between Schools
  • Create a transition team of teachers, counselors,
    parents and students from the middle and high
    school that meets regularly to identify issues
    and propose transition activities and
    improvements based on annual evaluations
  • Professional development on the development of
    young adolescents to high school teachers
  • Establish a timeline (6th-8th grade) for the
    transition process.

100
Site Specific Strategies Building Relationships
between Schools
  • Organize Teacher Swap Days
  • Elementary/Middle
  • Middle/High
  • Between Grade Levels
  • Strong teacher-as-advisor program or mentoring
    program to focus on personal/social issues,
    academic issues, and career development
  • Annual joint faculty meeting to identify common
    concerns and opportunities
  • Establish Teacher Shadowing/Peer Observation
    Program

101
Site Specific Strategies Building Relationships
between Schools
  • Schedule regular collaborative meetings between
    groups from sending and receiving schools to
    discuss transition issues (vertical teaming
    vertical curriculum alignment)
  • Create a transition team with representatives
    from sending and receiving schools.
  • Charge Develop Transitions Plan that ensures a
    continuum of information and activities
  • Plan specifies the what, when, who, and how
  • District and school teams
  • Include administrator(s), counselors, teachers,
    students, parents, district personnel,
    community/business partners
  • Teams determine resources needed

102
Next Steps Planning
  • Complete Transition Team Process Planning form
  • Refer to SREBs Conditions for Successful
    Transitions as a guide
  • What is taught
  • What is expected
  • How we teach
  • How we transition
  • How we support students
  • How we relate to each other
  • How we relate to families

103
Contact Information
  • Toni Eubank
  • 404-879-5610
  • toni.eubank_at_sreb.org
  • Barbara Moore
  • 404-879-5596
  • barbara.moore_at_sreb.org
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