Ronald E. McNair Student Success Class Lodi Unified School District May 3, 2011

McNair 9th grade Statistics We need to find a way for our 9th grade students to be successful during the 9th grade.

New Student Success Class In 2009/2010 McNair Staff was introduced to the book “Whatever it Takes” by Rick Dufour. In 2011 Jim Davis took 1 additional administrator and 8 teachers to the Professional Learning Community (PLC) conference in Monterey where Rick Dufour was the speaker. Ideas were bounced around by the team of teachers and administrators on how McNair could implement a smaller PLC in order to help retain our 9th grade students success.

In the works McNair has seen the tremendous positive effects that our AVID classes have had and wanted to find a way to model AVID in this Student Success Class. Therefore.. As a 4X4 block schedule, we have the opportunity to allow this 9th grade Student Success class continue as a traditional year long class that we have attached to our English 9 classes. We have incorporated personal, social and academic skills within this class. The class will model AVID strategies with organizational skills, test taking, critical thinking, reading, writing, community involvement, communication skills.

Development Working with a voluntary team of teachers and counselors to help develop the content of the class. Working with AVID (Cindy Mettler (AVID District Coordinator) and Anna Lotti (AVID Regional Coordinator)) on how to incorporate AVID strategies into this class and still continue with an AVID 9 elective class. Developing the lessons from the course outline with a group of counselors and teachers from different disciplines.

What does Student Success class look like? All of McNair’s English 9 classes will have the student success class attached. Daily Students will have 45 minutes of English 9 and then 45 minutes of the Student Success Class. The class will run from August 1 – May 27.

The Results McNair’s intention of this class that we will find at the end of the year more 9th grade students who have successfully completed their 9th grade. We want to be able to show at least a 10% decline in the numbers of D’s and F’s that our Freshman had from this year’s statistics.

McNair’s Implementation Teachers that will be teaching the English 9 /Student Success class will attend AVID Summer Institute in July to receive additional training. McNair will provide the supplemental workbooks for the teachers to use. Course begins with McNair’s 9th grade class of 2011-2012 course). Each English 9/Student Success class will have a counselor attached in order to work more effectively and efficiently in dealing with academic and personal issues.