Promising Practices

The 22 students were identified at the end of the first semester as failing one or more subjects.

Through study skills awareness, tutoring, academic counseling, goal setting, personal connection, and facilitating the student role in accepting responsibility for his/her own academic success and promotion to the 8th grade, the goal was to get all students to a passing grade in all their courses by the end of the 2nd semester.

Students participated in the program two days per week for the duration of the 2nd semester.

The students chose additional incentives including a pizza party for all students with a C or better average and a trip to the University of Louisville for students with a B or better average.

By the end of the 3rd quarter, 13 of the 22 students were passing all courses through a combination of classroom performance and participation in R&R; 14 students were passing based upon academic performance alone.

Six of the remaining 9 students were within 1-2 points of passing all courses.

Nineteen of the 22 students were promoted to the 8th grade.

By the end of the 3rd quarter, one student missed the all A Honor Roll by 2 points; however, this student was on the all A Honor Roll by the end of the 4th quarter.

Based upon behaviors within the classroom, it appeared that the confidence level of students and attitude towards academic performance improved significantly.

Two students had improved their grades sufficiently to try out for the cheerleading squad; historically, these students have not been involved in any sport or extracurricular program.

Staff attributed the program's success to the level of individual accountability, guidance, and support that each student received and not to special curriculum or teaching methods.