“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” — Plutarch

Retention Connections in the News

Asheville (NC) High School Partners with Business Community to Curb Drop Out Rate – Asheville Citizen-Times, 12/21/07

Large and small local businesses are working with Asheville High School as part of the Freshman eXperience (FX), one the school’s dropout initiatives, and liking the results. Implemented in 2005, the program’s goal is to ease the transition from middle to high school. By keeping all ninth graders in the same area of the school and slowly integrating them into the school’s general population, Asheville has improved retention and attendance. Each business involved adopts a student group, which meets with its advisory teacher for 10 minutes each day and 30 minutes once a month. Business representatives come during the 30-minute sessions. The businessmen and women lead lessons on personal goal-setting, job-seeking, résumé-building, and personal finance. Read more about FX here.

Study at Fayetteville (AR) High School to Review Minimum GPA and Retention – Northwest Arkansas Times, 12/20/07

A 19-member district committee has convened to review the school's requirement that students maintain at least a 2.0 GPA to graduate, and whether that is contributing to dropout rates. A 2.0 GPA amounts to a C average in Fayetteville schools. There is no minimum GPA set by the Arkansas Department of Education.

Improving the Transition from Middle Grades to High Schools: The Role of Early Warning Indicators, January 25, 2008 – Washington, DC

Organized by the American Youth Policy Forum, a nonprofit, nonpartisan professional development organization based in Washington, DC, this is the first in a series of lunch forums (11:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.) examining various aspects of improving the transition from middle grades to high school and preparing students for success. This session will focus on early warning indicators in Chicago and Philadelphia, and address key lessons for building an early warning data system.

Resiliency Resources

Fine Network @ Harvard Family Research Project Release Family Involvement Report

Research links family involvement in middle and high school to students’ positive academic and social outcomes. This article focuses on three categories of effective family involvement processes that have been identified through a comprehensive review. The article was originally published in the National Association of Secondary School Principals', Principals' Research Review.

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