Critical Supports and Interventions Will Enhance the Learning of ALL High School Students

Studies show that students are more likely to pass high-level than low-level high school courses. However, some high school students are going to need support to meet more rigorous high school graduation requirements.

In developing the new graduation requirements, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) established several teams comprised of education stakeholders from across the state to review and make recommendations on various aspects of the reform.

These teams suggested strategies for students, professionals, and for the culture within school buildings, which could enhance the likelihood of success for all students, particularly those most at risk of failure. The following includes some recommended strategies and supports from the Student Support and Intervention Action Team.

Relationship Building

The following strategies and supports are recommended for teachers and other school personnel to ensure that each student will be known, respected, and supported and that the following needs will be met:

• Each student needs and deserves a concerned, accepting educational community that supports learners, in all of their diversity, who come from a variety of backgrounds and life situations that may pose barriers to their access to, experience with, and progress in public education.
• Each student needs a meaningful relationship with caring adults at school.
• Each student needs opportunities to make meaningful contributions that impact school and community culture.

School personnel should:

• Develop a system that matches students with a coach who will connect with that student’s specific needs and personality.
• Serve as designated coaches who regularly meet individually with a student (e.g. during homeroom); being responsive to individual needs, learning styles, and available family support.
• Routinely use strategies to foster a sense of belonging and affiliation (e.g. in classrooms, support groups).
• Frequently assess students’ perceptions of educational relevance and school climate.
• Explore with students their emerging attendance problems with the goal of re-engaging students promptly in the learning environment.

Support for Transition Through High School

The following strategies and supports are recommended for teachers and other school personnel to ensure that students receive transitional support to be successful in a rigorous course of study as they enter high school, progress through high school, move across schools and districts, and graduate to their identified post-secondary options:

• Provide orientation and peer-to-peer systems for new students, particularly during students’ first days in the school.
• Provide opportunities in which students can learn and demonstrate:
  • Learning strategies to facilitate success in meeting unfamiliar expectations (e.g. Strategic Instruction Model).
  • Self-determination, “the ability to identify and achieve goals based on a foundation of knowing and valuing oneself” (Field & Hoffman).
  • Use of their individual learning plan and life situations for reflection and to see how it can help inform their own thinking and decisions.
  • Decision making based on their individual learning plan and life situations.
• Develop learning profiles with each student that are easily available to each of the student’s new teachers through a central communication system.
• Review student assessments annually to determine if additional or different supports or adjustments need to be offered to achieve the goals in the student’s plan.
• Consider summer supports for students to help social and academic readiness for the next year.
• Establish and maintain community connections that help build student, family, and staff capacity to access and utilize needed resources.
• Link students and families with needed post-school services, supports, or programs well before the student exits the school system.
• Provide resources and time for students to investigate relevant post-school outcomes such as post-secondary education, job training, or employment.

Academic Support for Reading and Mathematics

The following strategies and supports are recommended for teachers and other school personnel to ensure that students receive literacy and mathematics instruction to attain grade level performance:

• Proactively identify and address student learning gaps, beginning in early childhood.
• Assure equity of human, time, and technology resources in middle school and high school to support student learning in reading and mathematics.
• Incorporate reading, writing, speaking and listening, and math across the curriculum.
• Provide students an opportunity to explore and utilize assistive technology that will enhance their access to literacy and numeracy learning and application.
• Connect literacy and numeracy learning to real world applications.

Goal Planning

The following strategies and supports are recommended for teachers and other school personnel to ensure that students identify their interests, competencies, and aptitudes in a written plan that is performance based and prepares them for post-secondary education, employment, and independent living goals:

• Develop and implement with each student and the supporting adults in their lives, an outcome-based, individual learning plan that includes courses and experiences that help the student reach her/his post-school vision.
• The student regularly reviews and updates the plan with coaches and the supporting adults in their lives.
• School personnel integrate experiences that are individually meaningful to each student within all curriculum and instruction.

The Michigan Department of Education’s (MDE) High School Initiative includes six action teams: Course Content Standards, Professional Development, Promising Practices, Assessment, Student Support and Intervention, and Outreach and Communication. To read more about action team recommendations, including additional recommendations for professional development and success among students with cultural differences, visit www.michigan.gov/highschool.

For more information related to this action team report, see the Related Resources above or contact: Diane McMillan, High School Redesign Consultant, Office of the State Superintendent, (517) 335-4739, McMillanDj@michigan.gov.

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