Everett: On the Front Lines of RTI

Neat article in the Seattle Times yesterday about some good things going on in the Everett School District:

No school likes to publicize the number of students who are failing, but in the Everett School District, focusing on students with a single F grade has allowed teachers and counselors to get more teenagers on track to graduate.

Last year, district administrators presented each high school with lists of students failing a single class. Principals and teachers were surprised to learn that 60 percent of students with F grades were failing only one subject.

"The staff was shocked when they looked at the data," said Terry Cheshire, principal of H.M. Jackson High School in Mill Creek.

The reasons for student failure are often complex and include poor attendance, lack of academic skills, a family crisis or drug or alcohol abuse. With most high-school teachers seeing as many as 150 students a day, trying to solve any of those problems for even a single student can seem overwhelming.

But Cheshire said that when teachers saw that their failing students were succeeding in their other five classes, they saw a chance to make a difference.

"Suddenly teachers with 150 students could take ownership. They said, 'I'm going to do everything in my power to get these kids to graduate,' " Cheshire said.

And that's when the data becomes actual information: when it's used for the good of the kids.