Improving High School Completion: Alberta School Board Perspective

Improving High School Completion Alberta School Board Perspectives

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This report was written by Sig Schmold for the Alberta School Boards Association.

For more information contact the ASBA office at 1.780.482.7311.

Published June 2010

Contents

Executive Summary 2

I. Introduction and Purpose 7

II. Definition and Trends 8

III. The Alberta Response 17

IV. Identifying At Risk Students 20

V. Barriers to High School Completion 24

VI. Strategies for Improving High School Completion 30

VII. School Board Governance Priorities and Support 47

Conclusion 55

Appendix A 56

Reference List 58

Acknowledgements 60

Execut ive SummaryThis report examines the issues related to high school completion in Alberta and summarizes the results of a recent (2009) ASBA survey of Alberta’s school boards that asked boards to identify barriers to success as well as factors that contribute to improved high school completion for students. As such, this report captures many of the promising practices used by Alberta’s school boards that support students to complete their schooling.

Definition and Trends

Alberta Education annually tracks provincial and individual school jurisdiction dropout rates for Alberta students aged 14 to 18. Students who are registered in the education system one year but not the next (K-12 school, post secondary institution or apprenticeship program in Alberta) or have not completed high school are deemed to be a dropout. In this, an adjustment for attrition (e.g., moving out of province, mortality) is applied.

Dropout rates, on their own, do not factor in the number of students who return to school in subsequent years. For this reason, Alberta Education uses a completion rate calculation that includes students who re-enter the education system after dropping out. In that approximately 20% of students re-enter the education system after they have dropped out, the completion rate calculation presents perhaps a more accurate picture of a student’s success with high school.

The Alberta Education high school completion calculation tracks grade ten students for three, four and five years and determines the percentages of students who have completed high school in each time frame. Statistics Canada, on the other hand, defines a high school dropout as someone who is 20-24 years old, who is not attending and who has not graduated from high school. In Alberta, almost all school boards, according to the 2009 ASBA survey, use the dropout and high school completion calculations provided by Alberta Education.

An analysis of the dropout and completion rates provided by Alberta Education as well as student dropout information obtained from Statistics Canada (2006) points to four key trends that are relevant to Alberta’s school boards. These are:

• Dropout rates in Canada and Alberta have been improving as have high school completion rates.

• Dropout rates in Alberta, along with the other Prairie Provinces, are higher than the Canadian average.

• Males have higher dropout rates and lower completion rates than do females.

• Aboriginal students have higher dropout rates and lower completion rates than the non-Aboriginal population.

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The Alberta Context

Alberta’s Commission on Learning (2003) identified the need to improve high school completion as a key issue facing the Alberta education system. Subsequently, both Alberta Education and ASBA have given priority attention to this issue by creating task forces to identify barriers and promising practices, and generally to advocate actions intended to improve high school completion rates for Alberta students.

Identifying Students at Risk

The available evidence indicates that there is no typical profile of a high school dropout. Rather, dropping out of school appears to be the outcome of a number of factors which are specific and unique to each student. In sum, the evidence supports the notion that dropping out is a process, not an event, and that dropping out of school is often the result of a long process of disengagement that may begin before a child enters school.

As such, it is apparent that identifying students at risk of dropping out is not just something that happens in high school but is a necessary student assessment practice at each stage (elementary and secondary) of a student’s schooling. Much of the research base related to high school completion emphasizes barriers to high school completion or intervention strategies. Little is written about practices that help identify at risk students. The Alberta Education High School Completion Framework is currently engaged in projects designed to provide information to school boards regarding identifying and tracking at risk students.

The 2009 ASBA survey (question 4) explored the question of how and when school jurisdictions identify students at risk of dropping out. Survey responses indicate that school jurisdictions take seriously the challenge of identifying students at risk. They use a number of indicators to identify potential dropouts. Practices reported by jurisdictions included a review of grade nine student profiles, course completion data, counselling referrals, attendance records, family history, school attendance history and performance on standardized tests. Some school jurisdictions use a factor checklist while others use a standardized survey instrument to identify students at risk of not completing school. This risk assessment information is then used by school jurisdictions to implement student specific intervention strategies.

Barriers to High School Completion

The 2009 ASBA asked school jurisdictions if they have been able to identify factors which contribute to students leaving high school early (question 5). All 43 of the school jurisdictions that responded to this question were able to identify some factors that influenced a student’s decision to leave school early.

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The factors noted by school jurisdictions can be clustered around the following five themes:

1. Lack of Home support2. Personal factors3. School and achievement related factors4. Lack of engagement5. Socio – Economic factors

Each of these factors is explored in the body of this report.

Strategies for Improving High School Completion

The 2009 ASBA survey asked school jurisdictions to identify factors that contribute to students successfully completing high school (question #6) and to comment on one or two initiatives that are demonstrating the greatest degree of success or promise in improving high school completion (question #11). As well, question #14 asked school boards to comment on any plans to implement initiatives and/or system improvements anticipated to provide the greatest degree of success or promise in improving high school completion and/or reducing dropout rates.

On analysis, school board responses to the three questions can be clustered around five broad themes:

1. program variety, flexibility and choice2. supporting and reducing transitions3. providing individual student supports4. engagement and relationships5. effective teaching practices

This report examines and discusses these themes from the point of view of a condition supporting high school completion together with some examples of current initiatives and future plans related to the themes being considered by Alberta’s school boards.

School Board Governance Priorities and Support

The 2009 ASBA survey explored some key governance practices of school boards as they relate to the issue of high school completion. Question #7 asked boards if they had identified high school completion as a priority, question #8 asked boards if they had set goals or targets for improving, question #9 asked whether boards had incorporated high school completion priorities into the jurisdiction strategic plan and question #10 explored the role of the board in identifying priorities and determining the overall direction of the jurisdiction strategic plan. The survey also explored sources of support and information for boards

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related to the issue of high school completion. Questions #12 and #13, for example, asked whether school boards use Alberta Education or ASBA resources and question #15 explored interest in attending a high school completion symposium.

On overview, survey responses demonstrate that Alberta’s school boards have a good understanding of their governance role as it pertains to issues like improving high school completion and an equally good grasp of the “levers” available to them to improve results. School boards understand that their governance responsibility is to set the direction, identify and support clear priorities, communicate their “will” through the jurisdiction strategic plan, track progress towards identified goals and hold their superintendent accountable for turning their “will” into operational reality.

Survey responses indicate that most school boards use the information and resources provided by Alberta Education, particularly the research reports and information related to AISI projects. As it applies to the issue of high school completion, some school boards also use resources provided by ASBA but many boards are unsure of what these are.

Survey responses indicate that Alberta’s school boards are very interested in collaboration and sharing practices and approaches that work to improve high school completion. This willingness to engage in “horizontal networking” is commendable as such a practice is often sited in the literature as an effective capacity building strategy.

Conclusion

Improving high school completion rates in Alberta is an important challenge for Alberta’s school boards. While Alberta dropout rates have been declining and high school completion rates improving, Alberta and the Prairie Provinces still lag Canada with their high school completion rates. This is a serious issue in that not completing high school has many negative personal consequences for young adults as well as many negative social and economic consequences for communities.

The governance practices of locally elected trustees matter. As the results of the 2009 ASBA high school completion survey demonstrate, Alberta’s school boards have risen to the challenge. Their actions are resulting in significant improvements to high school completion rates for Alberta students. School boards see improvement to the high school completion rate as a continuing priority and are implementing numerous strategies to improve dropout rates.

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They are also prepared to be accountable as they are tracking and publicly reporting results. In addition, school boards indicate their willingness to improve and share promising practices and strategies that work to support students staying in school.

The evidence points to two trends in dropout rates that school boards need to give continuing attention to. These are the unacceptably high drop out rates for Alberta’s Aboriginal students and the gender gap evidenced by higher dropout rates for males.

Because of these issues, complacency is not an option. School boards will need to continue to work towards ensuring that all students can take their rightful place in society. They are up to this challenge.

I . Introduct ion and PurposeStudent dropout and high school completion rates are issues high on the Alberta educational agenda. This is because Albertans understand that high school dropouts, or early school leavers, experience significant difficulty making the transition from school to productive activities in adulthood, particularly post-secondary education, training, and employment. Further, Albertans understand that education is the best route to earning a decent living and to enhancing personal growth and happiness. Albertans understand that educated people not only make healthier life choices but also contribute disproportionately to Alberta’s economic well being.

The economic value of an education is confirmed by a recent OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) report (2009) on education that finds earnings increase with each level of education. In Canada, for example, for every $100 earned by a high-school graduate, a person with a university degree earns $171; a person with a college degree earns $111; and a person who did not graduate from high school earns only $75.

Because of the unquestionable positive impact achieving a high school diploma has on individuals and communities at large, both Alberta Education and the Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA) have given priority attention to improving high school completion for Alberta’s students.

This report briefly examines the issues and trends related to high school completion in Alberta and summarizes the results of a recent ASBA survey (2009) of Alberta’s school boards. The survey asked school boards to identify barriers to success as well as factors that contribute to improved high school completion for students. As such, this report captures many of the promising practices used by Alberta’s school boards that support students at risk of dropping out.

Governance practices matter. School boards, by employing effective governance practices, can overcome many of the personal and socio economic factors that negatively affect high school completion.

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II . Def ini t ion and TrendsHow is a dropout or high school completion defined and what trends regarding dropouts, if any, does the evidence point to?

The concepts of high school dropouts, returning rates and high school completion are related concepts yet distinctly different. While there are varying definitions for these concepts in the literature, this report uses the Alberta Education and Statistics Canada calculations.

Dropout Rates

Alberta Education annually tracks provincial and individual school jurisdiction dropout rates for Alberta students aged 14 to 18. Students who are registered in the education system one year but not the next (K-12 school, post secondary institution or apprenticeship program in Alberta) or have not completed high school are deemed to be a dropout. In this, an adjustment for attrition (e.g., moving out of province, mortality) is applied.

Statistics Canada, on the other hand, defines a high school dropout as someone who is 20-24 years old, who is not attending and who has not graduated from high school.

In Alberta, almost all school boards, according to the 2009 ASBA survey, use the dropout and high school completion calculations provided by Alberta Education. A few modify this, for example, by tracking the number of non completers who have left the province to return to school in their home province.

One metro school jurisdiction, reflecting the view of most school boards, maintains that the drop out rate provided by Alberta Education provides the best gauge of drop out rates and that using the provincial rate also provides appropriate comparators since the data is also released for the province. The jurisdiction argues that alternative methods of calculating drop out rates would fall short of providing comprehensive provincial comparative information. The board observes that “although there was a high level of interest in how the rate was reached when this data was first rolled out, this has been reduced over time as the focus shifts to what the rate is and to strategies related to increasing the jurisdictional rate. In exploring this question, the comment was made that in many circumstances, the actual processes involved in the calculation of high school completion rate is similar to the need to know how a computer runs: it’s really not necessary to understand the inner workings in order to value and use the computer as an effective tool”.

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High School Completion Rates and Returning Rates Dropout rates, on their own, do not factor in the number of students who return to school in subsequent years. For this reason, Alberta Education uses a completion rate calculation that includes students who re-enter the education system after dropping out. In that approximately 20% of students re-enter the education system after they have dropped out, the completion rate calculation presents perhaps a more accurate picture of a student’s success with high school.

The Alberta Education high school completion calculation tracks grade ten students for three, four and five years and determines the percentages of students who have completed high school in each time frame. Students are considered high school completers if they have received a high school diploma or equivalent, or have enrolled in an Alberta post secondary institution or apprenticeship program within the tracking period. The three-year completion rate is used by Alberta Education as the Accountability Pillar measure. The five year completion rate is used as the Alberta Education Business Plan measure.

Trends

Because Alberta Education and Statistics Canada use different methods and time frames to calculate dropout rates, the dropout rates they arrive at are different. Nevertheless, the dropout rate calculations, putting aside the method of calculation, can be used to illustrate dropout trends over time. An analysis of the dropout and completion rates provided by Alberta Education as well as student dropout information obtained from Statistics Canada (2006) points to four key trends that are relevant to Alberta’s school boards. These are:

• Dropout rates in Canada and Alberta have been improving as have high school completion rates.

• Dropout rates in Alberta, along with the other Prairie Provinces, are higher than the Canadian average.

• Males have higher dropout rates and lower completion rates than do females.

• Aboriginal students have higher dropout rates and lower completion rates than the non-Aboriginal population.

A brief discussion and illustration of each trend helps provide background and context to the balance of this report.

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Trend #1: Dropout rates in Canada and Alberta have been improving as have high school completion rates.

Both Statistics Canada and Alberta Education dropout rate calculations indicate that dropout rates in Canada and Alberta have been improving over the past decade (see figure 1).

Figure 1: High school drop-outs as a percentage of all 20-24 year-olds, Canada, 1990-1991 to 2004-2005 as calculated by Statistics Canada

(Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-004-x/2005004/8984-eng.htm)

Figure 1 illustrates the significant decline in Canadian dropout rates. During the 1990/1991 school year, the first year for which dropout rates were calculated, 16.7% of 20-24 year-olds were neither attending school, nor had a high school diploma. By 2004/2005, however, the Canadian dropout rate had fallen to 9.8%.

Alberta Education’s calculation of annual student dropout percentages shows a similar declining trend (See figure 2).

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Figure 2: Alberta’s dropout rate from 2002/03 to 2007/08

(Source: Alberta Education 2008/2009 Annual Report)

There were 154, 976 grade 10-12 students enrolled in Alberta’s public, charter and private schools in the 2007/2008 school year. If the annual dropout rate of 4.8% is applied, approximately 7400 of these students dropped out with only 1500 of these re-engaging with the education system.

Improvement in dropout rates is related to improvement in high school completion rates.

As illustrated in figure 3, Alberta’s five year high school completion rate has increased from 75.2 % in the 2002/03 school year to 79.2% during the 2007/08 school year.

Figure 3: Alberta’s five year high school completion rates

(Source: Alberta Education 2008/09 Annual Report)

Alberta’s Deputy Minister of Education considers the five year high school completion rate as an important area for improvement as results, though improving, have levelled off at 79% and remain short of the long term provincial goal of 90% as recommended by Alberta’s Learning Commission (2003).

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Trend #2: Dropout rates in Alberta, along with the other Prairie Provinces, though falling, are higher than the Canadian average.

As figure 4 illustrates, dropout rates are falling across Canada but in an uneven pattern. One group of provinces, including Atlantic Canada, Ontario and British Columbia, has relatively low dropout rates (≤10%) and a second group, including Quebec and the Prairie Provinces has higher rates of dropouts (≥10%). The difference between the province with the highest dropout rate (Manitoba with Alberta a close second) and the lowest (British Columbia) is a ratio of two to one, a significant difference. Richards (2009) maintains that the major factor underlying the large number of students failing to complete high school in the Prairies is, in part, related to the composition of the student population. In his view, the concentration of Aboriginals in the Prairie Provinces combined with their low high school completion rate is a key factor in the overall lower completion rates. This issue is explored more fully below.

Figure 4: High school dropouts as a percentage of all 20-24-year-olds, Canada and provinces, average of 1990-1991 to 1992-1993 and 2002-2003 to 2004-2005 school years


While the reasons for the uneven pattern of declining dropout rates are complex, Alberta’s school boards have cause to celebrate the declining rate. Complacency, however, appears not to be an option as significant work lies ahead if the

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dropout and high school completion rates are to be reduced to more acceptable levels.

Trend #3: Males have higher dropout rates and lower completion rates than do females.

The evidence indicates that males have higher dropout rates than females and that the gap is widening.

Statistics Canada observes that of the 212,000 drop-outs in Canada in 2004-2005, 135,000 or approximately 64%, were males (Figure 5). Expressed as a rate, the dropout rate for young Canadian males in 2004-2005 was 12.2% compared with 7.2% for young females.

Further, the gap in dropout rates between males and females is widening. In 1990-1991, males represented approximately 58% of dropouts but by 2004-2005, that proportion had increased to 64%. This, according to Statistics Canada, was not because more males were dropping out but because the decrease in the dropout rate had been larger for young females.

Figure 5: Thousand of High school drop-outs, by gender, Canada, 1990-1991 to 2004-2005


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A recent Alberta Education (2009) longitudinal study of 32,721 Alberta students who started Grade 3 in 1995/96 and entered Grade 10 in 2002/03, found gender, consistent with the Statistics Canada finding, to be a key issue in high school completion.

The Alberta study found that approximately 4% more female students were completing high school compared to their male counterparts (75.8 versus 71.8 percent respectively three years after entering Grade 10). The study concludes that risk factors for leaving high school vary by gender and extend beyond academic reasons and that, as such, at least some gender-specific intervention strategies need to be considered. The study references the Statistics Canada’s Youth in Transition Survey (Statistics Canada, 2004), that found higher percentages of 17-year-old males who had dropped out cited school-related reasons for their early departure (such as being bored or not interested in school, having problems with school work and with teachers, etc.) as well as wanting or having to work. Females, on the other hand, while also mentioning school-related reasons for leaving school, were more likely than males to also cite personal or family reasons (including health matters, pregnancy/child care and problems at home).

Trend #4: Aboriginal students have higher dropout rates and lower completion rates than the non-Aboriginal population.

Alberta Education’s 2010-2013 Business Plan sees First Nations, Métis and Inuit student achievement and high school completion as key challenges of the provincial education system. While not all aboriginal students attend the public school system, four out of five do, representing approximately 6% of Alberta’s total student population. The dropout rate for Aboriginal students in Alberta, unfortunately, is more than double the dropout rate of students overall.

Richards (2009) maintains that “within the Aboriginal population, education outcomes are above average in Ontario and British Columbia, close to the national average in Quebec, and much worse in the Prairies, home to nearly half of Canada’s Aboriginals” (p.7). Figure 6 illustrates the highest certificate, diploma or degree gap between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals

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Figure 6

(Source: 2006 census, retrieved from http://www.vitalsignscanada.ca/index-e.html)

Figure 6 illustrates the following key trends with regard to Canada’s Aboriginal population:

• High school is the highest completed level of education for more Aboriginal Canadians (38.5 per cent) than non-Aboriginal Canadians (24.8 per cent);

• A higher proportion of non-Aboriginal Canadians (33 per cent) complete university degrees than Aboriginal Canadians (12 per cent). Only 5 per cent of Aboriginal young adults on reserve complete a university education;

• Double the proportion of young Aboriginal Canadians on-reserve (22.4 per cent) have completed an apprenticeship in a skilled trade, compared to 11.5 per cent of non-Aboriginal Canadians;

• College attendance is evenly distributed, with 25.4 per cent of non-Aboriginal Canadians, 27.7 per cent of Aboriginal Canadians and 24.8 per cent of Aboriginal Canadians on-reserve having completed a college certificate.

Alberta Education, largely because of the large educational outcome gap between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals, has placed success for First Nations, Métis and Inuit students as the new goal three of the provincial 2010-2013 Education Plan. Alberta’s school boards, in turn, are expected to address this goal through their own strategic (Education) plans.

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Alberta Education, in addition to placing improvement in Aboriginal student outcomes as a priority for Alberta’s education system, has recently introduced the Aboriginal learner data collection initiative. This initiative, based on the principle of self identification by the Aboriginal community, provides school boards with Accountability Pillar measure results that are specific to the Aboriginal community.

The Aboriginal learner data collection initiative supports a growing body of evidence that links improvement in Aboriginal student performance to practices that clearly define what success for Aboriginal students looks like as well as the measures and data that will be used to track progress towards this success. School boards that positively impact the learning of Aboriginal students track FNMI student performance as trends over time and in comparison to the results of larger populations. They use monitoring data to guide decisions regarding improvement strategies, allocation of resources, professional development, and programming.

In sum, the evidence clearly supports the need for greater attention to improving high school completion rates amongst Aboriginal students in Alberta.

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III . The Alberta ResponseAlberta’s Commission on Learning (2003) identified the need to improve high school completion for Alberta’s students. The Commission recommended that Alberta “implement a comprehensive and province wide strategy with the goal of ensuring that 90% of students complete grade 12 within four years of starting high school.”

Alberta Education introduced a new funding framework in 2004 that incorporated three key principles or “pillars”, these being; funding, flexibility and accountability. The introduction of the Accountability Pillar and its related measures was intended to give school boards a consistent way to measure success and assess progress on a range of educational outcomes, including dropout rates and high school completion rates.

In 2005 the Minister of Education established a broadly based task force that included representation from a number of education stakeholders, including ASBA. The task force, in pursuit of its goal of developing a provincial high school completion strategy, hosted a series of provincial consultations and produced a report together with 25 recommendations. These recommendations were grouped around five themes:

• Success for All Students

• Classroom and School Climate

• Career Exploration and Planning

• Student Supports

• Research and Ongoing Improvement Initiatives

While the ASBA participated fully in the Alberta Education task force, it launched a separate process aimed at involving school boards directly in identifying possible solutions to the high school dropout problem. This was done through two workshops at the ASBA’s 2005 fall annual general meeting. The 2005 annual general meeting produced a report detailing eight recommendations aimed at improving Alberta’s high school completion rate. The top eight recommendations that surfaced at the 2005 workshops were:

• Alberta Education provide additional funding to enable jurisdictions to offer early intervention programs.

• Alberta Education ensure there is additional funding to support guidance counselling services and to coordinate the delivery of multi-agency and school-based services including exit interviews of students leaving school.

• Societal pressure to reinforce the importance of education generally and specifically vs. outside jobs or leaving school early to work.

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• Alberta Education improve relevancy of provincial curricula and sequencing of high school core courses to ensure that the learning needs, aspirations and interest on non university bound students can be addressed effectively in school programs, and advocate that post-secondary institutions review and modify if necessary their entry requirements [especially in Mathematics] to fit the level actually needed for success in the area of further study.

• Financial incentives/disincentives to keep kids in school.

• Ensuring each at-risk student has at least one adult in the school who knows them well and will support them in their learning.

• Cross ministry cooperation – aimed at increasing high school completion.

• Alberta Education ensure that curriculum and funding are available for schools to work with students to assist them in knowing their interests and abilities and engage in meaningful and timely career development planning with trained career counsellors [not necessarily certificated teachers].

Alberta Education officially released its High School Completion Framework in 2009. The Framework supports five strategies aimed at improving high school completion. These are:

1. Personalized Learning. This includes more opportunities for distance learning, infusing culture or language into courses, and providing more flexible programming.

2. Successful transitions. This means making school more relevant to students by improving linkages between school and work, and improving grade-to-grade and school-to-school transitions.

3. Collaborative partnerships. The focus of this strategy is on increasing cooperation amongst various agencies and schools to develop an effective approach to the delivery of wrap-around services. From bullying to student mental health, the strategy looks at ways schools, social service agencies and government can work together to support families and students and keep youth in school.

4. Positive connections. This strategy aims to help students become more positively engaged with the education system through support of initiatives like the Alberta Mentorship Partnership.

5. Tracking progress. This strategy emphasizes better collection and use of data, including that of students entering into post-secondary, to better understand the barriers to completion and identify strategies that are working effectively to keep students in school.

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The ASBA created a high school completion task force in 2008 as a way to action its high school completion priority. The task force arrived at four strategies that were accepted by the ASBA Board of Directors. These strategies are:

1. Services to School Boards - that ASBA assist Alberta school boards in strategic planning and policy development efforts in support of improving high school completion rates.

2. Professional Development - that ASBA support Alberta school boards in sharing their experiences in attempting to improve high school completion rates.

3. Communications - that ASBA help in collating information on the ASBA web site related to improving high school completion rates.

4. Survey of Alberta School Boards - that ASBA facilitate a survey of Alberta school boards to assist in identifying barriers to high school completion and boards’ current efforts to improve high school completion rates.

While Alberta’s education stakeholders generally support the Learning Commission target of 90% completion within four years of beginning high school, this is seen as a long term target. The reality is that the high school completion rate for students has levelled off at 79%. Alberta Education has set what it believes is a realistic and achievable target of 81% high school completion by 2012/13.

The work of school boards is instrumental to achieving this target. The 2009 ASBA high school completion survey captures many of the practices school jurisdictions use (or plan to use) to identify and support students at risk.

The balance of this report analyzes and summarizes the work of school boards related to improving high school completion as reported through the 2009 survey.

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IV. Ident i fy ing At Risk StudentsAlberta’s High School Completion Task Force Report (2005) maintains that “there is no typical profile of a student who does not complete high school” (p.13). Rather, dropping out of school appears to be the outcome of a number of factors which are specific and unique to each student. In sum, the evidence supports the notion that dropping out is a process, not an event, and that dropping out of school is often the result of a long process of disengagement that may begin before a child enters school.

As such, it is apparent that identifying students at risk of dropping out is not just something that happens in high school but is a necessary student assessment practice at each stage (elementary and secondary) of a student’s schooling. Unfortunately, much of the research base related to high school completion emphasizes barriers to high school completion or intervention strategies. Less is written about practices that help identify at risk students. The Alberta Education high school completion strategic Framework is currently engaged in projects designed to provide information to school boards regarding identifying and tracking at risk students.

How and when are Alberta school jurisdictions identifying students at risk of dropping out? The 2009 ASBA survey (question 4) explored this key issue. In total 43 of the provinces 62 school boards responded to this question, representing more than 70% of the provinces student population, by describing their jurisdiction or school level assessment practices related to students at risk of dropping out.

Whose job is it to identify at risk students?

Most school jurisdictions see the identification of at risk students as a school based responsibility of teachers, counsellors or school administration. A few use school wide teams or jurisdiction teams to identify and assess students at risk. A few excerpts from survey respondents illustrate these points:

• Currently identification of at-risk students is a site based responsibility with junior and senior high schools working closely with Outreach programs and other support agencies. Schools are relatively small and able to identify at risk students early on.

• High school counsellors and family school liaison workers have a lead responsibility for following-up with students who are not in attendance or are displaying other risk factors preventing their success at school.

• Principals are responsible for gathering school based data and monitoring such aspects as course completion, student progress, and student achievement. School counsellors are also tracking students and data in this way.

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• Each of our school based administrators is required to compile an “at risk” list. This list identifies students who they see need to be monitored through the course of the school year. The students on this list are identified as “at risk” due to a variety of factors. Many of these factors may lead to a student’s decision to not complete high school. By maintaining this list, the early identification of students who might have the potential to dropout allows us to provide additional supports.

Those who use a jurisdiction team approach reported practices such as:

• There is a District At-Risk Student Committee whose primary goal is to identify programs and services to meet the needs of students who have become disconnected from school for a wide variety of reasons. Also at the District level, there is a District Consultative Team comprised of secondary administrators, counsellors and central office staff whose role it is to identify students who are experiencing difficulty in school and to refer them to the most appropriate District alternate and outreach programs.

• Jurisdiction administration work with school based administration to ensure each school has a current list of students identified by teachers and support staff as at-risk of school success or school completion.

• Part of the role of the Director of School Completion

What evidence, indicators or diagnostic practices do school jurisdictions use to identify students at risk of dropping out?

School jurisdictions use a number of indicators to identify potential dropouts. Almost all are applied to students at the high school level with some emphasize on grade nine students. Practices reported by jurisdictions include a review of grade nine student profiles, course completion data, counselling referrals, attendance records, family history, school attendance history and performance on standardized tests. Some school jurisdictions use a factor checklist while others use a standardized survey instrument to identify students at risk of not completing school. This risk assessment information is then used by school jurisdictions to implement student specific intervention strategies.

The following survey excerpts illustrate the variety of indicators and practices used by Alberta school jurisdictions:

• Prior level of achievement is a useful data source that allows us to be proactive at the school level with particular groups of students.

• Schools in the Jurisdiction review grade 9 student profiles and target those students considered at risk academically and/or emotionally.

• The District and individual high schools identify and track course completion rates.

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• We utilize computer technology to identify all students who are fewer than 10 credits removed form qualifying for high school completion. High school vice principals and counsellors are provided with this information and use it to implement intervention programs where necessary.

• We use aggregated data, PATs, CCAT, medical history, family history as well as attendance to help in the identification of students at risk. A marks analysis day is a division day to review all student performance.

• Evidence of at risk includes; PAT results, CTBS results, performance based assessments, Tri-screen testing and literacy and math assessments and staff identification of at risk factors in student’s lives, such as divorce, abuse, etc. At the junior and senior high level staff also look at attendance and use a pyramid of intervention approach.

• We do graduation requirement reviews on all high school students. Action plans are then set up for all at-risk students. These plans are reviewed on an ongoing basis.

• Monitor that students have at least 100 credits to graduate… “hunt” students who do not complete 100 credits and try to get them to take a course through Outreach

• Schools in the Jurisdiction review Grade 9 student profiles and target those students considered at risk academically and/or emotionally.

• Our jurisdiction relies on a range of processes to identify students who are at risk as early as possible. In addition to consideration of Provincial Achievement Tests, school based and District staff use:

Parent referrals Referrals to the School Resource Team

Teacher assessment and evaluation

Consideration of achievement and challenges in the context of regular reporting periods

Referral to the District’s Instructional Support team

The initiation of a proactive attendance pilot project

Referral to Family School Liaison Workers

Referral to guidance counsellors including those linked to the new elementary guidance counsellor project

Referral to external agency as appropriate

Referral to Student Health Partnership resources

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• Our AISI/SITS project developed a “Factor Checklist” for identifying students at the grade 9 level that were at risk of not transitioning to grade 10 or not completing high school.

Some school jurisdictions use a standardized survey instrument to identify students at risk of not completing school.

• Our jurisdiction has participated in the development of the Student Orientation to School (SOS) survey, in the Search Institute’s Asset Development Survey, and in its own Zoomerang Satisfaction survey. The Division is presently adjudicating the benefits of administering the Gallup Student Poll which will measure the hope, engagement and well-being of our students.

The Student Orientation to School (SOS) survey used by some Alberta school jurisdictions appears to hold promise as a useful diagnostic instrument. A recent study by Alberta Education (2007) describes the SOS instrument:

The SOS was conceived as a comprehensive, yet succinct instrument that could be of practical value to school staff in detecting the issues that could interfere with students’ emotional comfort, academic and social engagement and, consequently, with high school completion. The SOS is aimed at helping identify students who may be at risk of school non-completion as early as upper-elementary level, and assist in the design and monitoring of intervention strategies based on the distinctive SOS profiles (p.2).

The SOS instrument assesses a student’s perception about school climate, self efficacy, resilience and peer relationships. The SOS data, in the view of the study authors, “may be a very useful addition to the conventional achievement, high school completion and socio-economic status (SES) information that is used for decision-making, planning, programming and intervention purposes, since to a certain extent it provides an opportunity for getting “into students’ heads” and capture their feelings and line of thinking about different elements of school environment and their own position in this environment” (p. 24).

Other school jurisdictions are developing a data analysis instrument that will cross-reference information from their Student Information Records System (SIRS) database with Alberta Education’s Accountability Pillar information on dropout rates to identify factors related to students dropping out of high school.

In sum, survey responses indicate that school jurisdictions take seriously the challenge of identifying students at risk of non completion. A wide variety of indicators and practices are used to identify students at risk. This assessment information is then used to implement student specific intervention strategies.

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V. Barr ier s to High School Complet ionThe 2009 ASBA high school completion survey asked school jurisdictions if they have been able to identify factors which contribute to students leaving high school early (question 5). All 43 of the school jurisdictions that responded to this question were able to identify some factors that influenced a student’s decision to leave school early.

Survey responses from school boards generally verify the barriers identified by researchers (see appendix A) and by Alberta Education in its 2001 final report on Removing Barriers to High School Completion.

One metro jurisdiction, for example, has undertaken a comprehensive review of Secondary School Education (2007). The purpose of the review was to help the school system identify and address issues that put students at risk of dropping out. Several factors emerged through the course of the review:

• Importance of relationships in the lives of students;

• A need to address relevance of content and instructional methods;

• A quest for increased rigor – challenging and engaging work for all students;

• Challenges during times of student transition;

• A requirement for enhanced literacy support;

• A call for flexibility in terms of time to complete high school, flexibility in timetables and schedules, and flexibility in instructional modes and content;

• A need to see an increase in our community’s commitment to our children and youth.

Another metro jurisdiction used the ASBA High School Completion survey to collect input from high school teams related to factors that create barriers to student success. Factors identified as having a high level of negative impact on high school completion were:

• Low self-esteem

• Limited career aspirations and/or low motivation

• Substance abuse

• Poor understanding of consequences of leaving school w/o completing

• Behavioural problems (acting out, anger, disruption, disrespect, etc.

• Poor study habits

• Low resilience (ability to cope with stress and pressures)

• Low respect for authority

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• Parents who do not value education and do not expect their children to perform well in school/complete high school

• Limited family support and involvement in child’s life (including education)

• Family breakdown (divorce, single-parent family)

• Harmful home environment (parental substance abuse, child abuse, spousal abuse, etc.)

• Poverty or poor access to resources

• Parents who have poor parenting skills (discipline, nutrition, proper sleep, etc.)

• Moving households frequently

• Living in a community that does not value education

• Absence of positive role models in the community

• Insufficient access to counsellors/school psychologists

• Poor relationship with other students

• Low academic ability

• Learning disabilities

• Pregnancy (becoming pregnant and/or having a child)

• Poverty or poor access to resources

• Negative peer pressure (regarding life choices)

• Working too many hours at a job (over 20 hours per week)

• Alienation from the community

• School work/courses are not seen as interesting and/or relevant

• Insufficient academic supports (e.g. tutoring, early assessment)

• Negative school climate (school not perceived as welcoming, safe, supportive and caring)

• Insufficient time spent by teachers one-on-one with students

On overview, the factors noted by these and other Alberta school jurisdictions in the 2009 ASBA survey can be clustered around the following five themes:

1. Lack of Home support2. Personal factors3. School and achievement related factors4. Lack of engagement5. Socio – Economic factors

Each of these factors is examined in turn and is supported by comments made by school jurisdictions that illustrate these themes.

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1. Lack of Home Support

A number of school jurisdictions alluded to students from families or some minority cultures that do not appear to value high school completion. This lack of family support often translates into students leaving school early. The following comments from the survey illustrate this point:

• With respect to our Low German-speaking Mennonite families from Mexico, it is embedded in culture and generations of practice for students to finish school (if they come at all) by the time they are 12 or 13. Our Outreach programs have been successful in accommodating religious and work needs. This means that we have more students registered at high school level (this is a great success), but do so with no intent of finishing high school.

• In our jurisdiction, we have found that many students leave for religious or cultural reasons, as education is not valued past the age of fourteen.

• Students who live in family structures that do not support school or don’t see school as important place kids at a higher risk. Students who are First nations also dropout early

• The greatest percentage of students leaving high school early is our FNMI population, for a variety of reasons...chronic absenteeism, lack of support from home, drug abuse.

• Lack of support from family regarding relevance and importance of completing high school.

2. Personal Factors

Almost all survey respondents mentioned a variety of student personal factors that put students at risk of leaving school early. These include things like relationship issues, chronic absenteeism, pregnancy, needing or wanting to work, addiction issues, criminal justice issues, mental health issues, exposure to violence and transience. A sample of survey comments that help illustrate this point include:

• Students who leave early often list personal circumstances or family reasons as contributing to their departure.

• Attendance is an issue with some students. With others, substance abuse is a contributing factor.

• Factors identified through discussion/feedback with school administrators from monthly attendance reports, anecdotal records of school experiences and the triangulation of evidence/factors influencing stated decisions of students to dropout: - robust economy draws students to world of work - influence of significant adults/peers to “get a job” - lack of sufficient interventions to encourage staying in school (counsellors/

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informed parents) - poor attitude towards school and its importance - teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, criminal justice intervention, foster child, transience.

• Students exposed to violence in their homes, communities or through war, have psychological barriers to learning.

• Negative peer pressure; substance abuse; legal issues/conflict with law.

• Students’ perceptions of irrelevance of education to their future; including a lack of occupational aspirations.

The issue of student transience (students moving from school to school) was mentioned by most school jurisdictions as a significant risk to high school completion. Alberta Education has “flagged” this issue by providing a report to school jurisdictions on “movers,” students who switch schools during their high school program.

Another frequently mentioned factor by many school jurisdictions was leaving to work in the resource sector or other sectors that offered significant salaries. Some jurisdictions saw this as a significant issue, others less so.

3. School and Achievement Related Factors

Other school jurisdictions emphasized school and achievement related factors as presenting barriers to high school completion:

• Students who have dropped out of school most often cite school-related reasons for leaving school. Some school related factors include: teaching methods that do not meet a student’s needs so that a student falls behind and becomes frustrated, especially if there is a history of low achievement; identification as a special needs student (learning and behaviour disabilities); low expectations of students related to their academic abilities; repeating a grade, particularly at elementary school, but also repeating courses in Grade 10.

• Through the analysis of our intervention strategies and experience we know that students at risk of leaving early exhibit one or one of these traits; high absenteeism, falling grades, escalating discipline issues, gradual or complete withdrawal from extra-curricular activities, excessive private work schedules.

• Difficulty recruiting and maintaining First Nations, Métis and Inuit staff (Cree Language instructors, FNMI School workers).

• Lack of interest and relevance in curriculum.

• Academic concerns -Failing two or more courses, difficulty completing Social Studies and English – identified through data analysis. School – Course work not seen as interesting or relevant; in school supports are

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stretched; difficulty accessing support services (psychiatry, counselling agencies and family support workers). Behavioural issues – frequent suspension or expulsions; poor relationships with teachers and students.

• Many of these children, with complex learning needs, are congregated in high needs schools without sufficient resources to address their needs.

• Literacy is an extremely important factor; as well as parental involvement; a variety of course selections throughout high school years.

• The demographics of our division are such that it is difficult to provide CTS courses and career training. We have small high schools which makes offering anything other than a basic program cost prohibitive.

• Timetabling problems created when a student drops or fails a course. The act of failing or dropping a course is a problem for the student but trying to replace the dropped or failed course within an existing timetable is more of an issue. We learned of this problem when we started tracking registrations at our Storefront School.

• In our District, attendance, number of transitions/new transition to a new school, and course difficulty are predictors of risk for dropping out .

4. Lack of Engagement

Other school jurisdictions noted lack of student engagement as a key risk factor:

• Alienation – the student does not feel cared for or cared about which can result in feelings of powerlessness, lack of control over immediate and long term environment, lack of self-esteem, isolation

• All students leaving our jurisdiction are requested to complete an exit interview. If a child leaves prior to Grade 12 graduation, the student and their parents are asked to participate in the interviews. One of the most common stated factors identified can be defined as relationships. Students who feel “connected to” the school have a significantly higher success rate of school completion.

• Lack of school-based relationships.

• An additional factor is the level of student engagement at the school level. Students need to feel that they have value in the school community.

5. Socio – Economic Factors

Still others emphasized systemic socio-economic factors.

• Underlying factors: Poverty, especially multi-generational poverty, contributes to the difficulties some students have in school. Families living in poverty often lack the resources to create a rich early learning

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environment for their children (e.g. time, prior learning, finances, awareness). This creates a large early learning gap prior to starting formal schooling.

• Ethnic minority and Aboriginal children are more likely to experience poverty and prior or concurrent violence in their communities. This can contribute to learning and behaviour difficulties in school. Further, adding to these difficulties are associated stereotypes and racism that alienate these children and their families within the education system. These families are the least able to advocate within the education system for supports that will meet their children’s needs.

On overview, the risk factors identified by school boards on the 2009 ASBA survey are consistent with research findings about early school leavers. A key point made by a number of jurisdictions is that dropping out of school is related to a mix of interrelated factors and is the result of a process that begins early in a child’s schooling. Alberta’s school jurisdictions have found that no single risk factor can be used to accurately predict who is at risk of dropping out as students at risk are not a homogeneous group. As such, some jurisdictions have begun using or are in the process of developing multiple criteria screening instruments or checklists that hope to identify at risk students early so that appropriate interventions can be implemented.

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VI. Strateg ies for Improving High School Complet ionThe 2009 ASBA high school completion survey asked school jurisdictions to identify factors that contribute to students successfully completing high school (question #6) and to comment on one or two initiatives that are demonstrating the greatest degree of success or promise in improving high school completion (question #11). As well, question #14 asked school boards to comment on any plans to implement initiatives and/or system improvements anticipated to provide the greatest degree of success or promise in improving high school completion and/or reducing dropout rates.

Forty three (43) school boards responded to question 6 (factors that contribute to student high school completion) while 42 responded to Question 11 (initiatives or system improvements that have demonstrated the greatest degree of success) and 39 responded to question #14 (plans).

While the three questions are somewhat related, question #6 emphasizes factors or conditions necessary for successful high school completion, question #11 emphasizes actions that school boards have taken to make a positive difference to high school completion while question #14 asks boards to share their future plans with regard to improving high school completion rates.

On analysis, school board responses to the three questions can again be clustered around five broad themes:

1. Program variety, flexibility and choice2. Supporting and reducing transitions3. Providing individual student supports4. Engagement (of students and parents) and relationships5. Effective teaching practices

Each of these themes is briefly examined and discussed from the point of view of a condition supporting high school completion together with some examples of current initiatives and future plans related to the theme being considered by Alberta’s school boards.

Alberta’s school boards have undertaken many actions and are considering others aimed at improving high school completion rates. Many of these, like emphasizing early intervention, introducing outreach programs or strengthening career counselling, are examples of initiatives being implemented by most of Alberta’s school boards. For sake of brevity, not all school board comments that relate to each theme are included. Comments included are intended to illustrate the types of actions being taken or planned by Alberta school boards as reported in the 2009 ASBA survey.

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1. Program Variety, Flexibility and Choice

Most school boards emphasized the availability of program choices as a key condition supporting high school completion. Related to this, many boards emphasized the importance of program relevance and flexibility as important factors to keeping students in school. Programs mentioned by school boards ranged from early intervention to community based, including: Career and Technology Study (CTS) courses, Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) courses, Knowledge and Employability (K&E) courses, Outreach programs, distance or e-learning programs, Alternative programs that emphasize a particular language or pedagogical approach, Locally developed programs, Literacy and Numeracy programs, and programs centered on FNMI languages and culture to name but a few.

a) Promising InitiativesPromising initiatives identified by school boards that clustered around the school program theme include:

• Offering a wide range of courses helps us retain students and keep them engaged...Our schools work very hard to try and offer meaningful and comprehensive programming that keep students engaged and offer many opportunities for students.

• Our ‘all-round’ program options. We identify students who may have the potential to fail. The following programs are notable for their part in supporting high school completion goals. Outreach School; personal and Career Counselling programs; YAP/RAP programs; Learning strategies; Music/Art/Sports that appeal to students.

• For our most challenging population with respect to high school dropout and high school completion, we have found that building programs to meet student and cultural needs is critical. This means the flexibility of Outreach at a secondary level that is distinct from the mainstream. It also means inclusion of religion education locally developed courses for some of our elementary and junior high grades.

• Outreach programming has been enormously successful. In addition, custom programming including Learning Strategies, K&E, CTS instruction and RAP are all of great value.

• Our Board promotes choice in educational settings so we have outreach schools and alternative programs respecting specific cultures and religions.

• Our jurisdiction does well in terms of having most of our students complete high school. We have also enjoyed a long history of providing early intervention services including preschools for the past 8 years. Additionally we collaborate with partners to provide “Parents as

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Teachers” in- home support to at-risk families (birth to 5 years). Since the government’s introduction of the Early Literacy Initiative, we have continued to offer intensive support K-2 for at-promise readers thereby preventing or reducing the need for remedial programming later in school. In five of our communities we provide an after school Teens Helping Teens Peer Mentorship Program pairing at-risk youth with older caring, responsible teens who can provide a great role model.

• Early Years: Research demonstrates that full-day kindergarten children appear to keep pace with their higher socio-economic status (SES) counterparts with respect to the proportion of children achieving at grade level in their reading and writing abilities through their lower elementary experiences. The District has now added pre-kindergarten programming for students who need additional English language experiences and Middle Years Literacy to continue to support students if they begin to lose ground. Focus on the early years is a long-term strategy to improve high school completion and the lives of children throughout their schooling. Early Development Instrument (EDI): The District is an early adopter of the EDI as it believes it has the potential to galvanize the community to better support families with young children through the early years.

• Wraparound Services: The District works collaboratively with the community to provide mentoring, summer school, cultural brokers and in-school settlement workers, in-school social workers, youth workers and success coaches. This work is relatively new and at this time our evidence is mainly anecdotal – positive feedback from staff, students, and family indicating that these services have made a difference and are keeping students in school. “STAR” (Strength, Tolerance, Attitude and Resilience) and “The Way In” are two examples of programs that are demonstrating success for at risk students.

• “Centre High” offers programming designed to meet the needs of fourth and fifth year high school students. Courses are targeted to support high school completion and success transition to post-secondary or work. Outreach programming provides a flexible and focused learning environment for high school students. Course completions in these programs are strong.

• Dual Credentialing Programs: Successful transition to a registered post secondary program is by definition school completion. For some students this is viewed as more desirable or more possible than achieving a high school diploma, and encourages engagement and life long success. The District has developed the following certification programs for students while they are still in school: - Health care Aide Professional – Norquest and Capital Health - Print Media Production Program – Norquest -

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Iverson Computing Science program – University of Alberta - A+ Computer Repair Certification - Child Care Certification

• RAP and broad CTS programming have contributed to our high completion rates. Individually tracking and working with our students towards high school completion requirements is very beneficial in meeting our goals, this has also helped in our level of CEU claw backs (we have seen a reduction). Flexibility in programming is also a huge benefit, and expanded course offering to meet the needs of our students.

• In addition, the Moral Intelligence project, the pyramid of intervention and student support programs provides a greater sense of belonging to students. These projects have had a positive effect on our dropout rates and we anticipate the rate will continue to improve as we get better at implementing these strategies.

• Locally Developed Courses provide opportunities to engage the students in high interest courses that are relative to our local context and community. Current obstacles to course approval at Alberta Education may threaten our ability to continue to develop these courses.

- 3V course offerings provide a broad range of programs to motivate students.

- International field trips extend the learning environment for many students.

- FNMI program has been expanded to include FNMI workers in all of our high schools to assist FNMI students in completing High School.

• One of the most promising initiatives is the Gallup Path. Simply put, the Gallup Path is about great teachers, great principals, strengths development, engaged employees, engaged students, sustained growth, measurable outcomes, and value to community. The Gallup Path is a dynamic journey, not an event.We have received grants in the last 3 years to develop a Rodeo Academy (which has had a positive impact on student involvement), to enhance technology support at the high school level, money from AB ED for enhanced CTS, and have applied for another grant to provide a wider variety of CTS courses. We anticipate heightened engagement in our high schools, and a further decline in dropout rates. Our dropout rate has declined over the last 3 years.

• The Board believes that a multi-faceted approach best addresses the question of student success and engagement as it is such a complex factor in high school completion. Connecting with students to provide new and relevant learning opportunities focused the need to build on student interests and strengths. These include: a. Outreach Programming- Impact by this program has allowed us to reach out to students who have

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struggled to be successful in a traditional school setting. b. Registered Apprenticeship Program- Allows students to stream into areas of particular interest and receive valuable on site work experience in that interest area. c. Ongoing Partnership with Lakeland College- provides access to career pathway programming. d. Locally Developed Course selections provide students the opportunity to explore their areas of interest in school that do not fall within the current Alberta Education course offerings. e. Diplomax Diploma Exam Review Sessions- maximizes student potential with respect to diploma exam achievement thus increasing their options for post-secondary program admission.

b) Future PlansSchool boards identified the following future program plans:

• New Outreach program in a rural community with a high percentage of Low German-speaking Mennonite students. We anticipate keeping students in school past grade 6 and 7, but do not anticipate a large impact on improvement in participation or completion for a number of years…Project called Opportunity Shop that targets at risk students and links them with support structures, and builds completion of school to work strategies.

• The District recognizes that improving high school completion requires a focus on approaches from Kindergarten to Grade 12. As a result, the District is initiating a variety of strategies at all levels of schooling. Some examples of current initiatives are listed below. All of these initiatives have begun or will be beginning this fall.

- Continued Implementation of the District’s Aboriginal Education policy and regulation: This work is focusing on the introduction of a Cree language extended alternative program involving Elders and parents, expansion of cultural awareness training and improved transitions between school divisions.

- Implementation of the Multicultural Task Force Recommendation: This task force will be identifying policy and direction that will support school success and completion for students from culturally diverse backgrounds including students suffering from trauma. This work is underway and final recommendations will be approved by the Board.

- Expanding Early Learning opportunities: This program provides language-rich, developmentally appropriate programming that includes English Language Learning along with learning in the children’s mother tongue. Pilot locations will expand for next year. Implementation of the Early Development Instrument (EDI) will also provide useful information on the needs of young children beginning school.

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- Workplace Essential Skills Program: This program enables students to make a smooth transition from school to work and to be successful in a range of occupations.

- Analysis of school data in relation to levels of complexity in schools: The District is analyzing data regarding levels of complexity in schools such as the degree to which families are coming from socially vulnerable areas in the city, high needs of the students and families, and additional needs students may have in terms of special needs and needs due to diversity. This information will assist in determining effective strategies of support for schools with high levels of complexity.

- After school, mentoring, and summer camps: The District is working with a variety of community partners on putting in place additional supports for students who are at risk after school, during the weekends, and during the summer. These strategies will assist in engaging students who are risk in school.

- Pledge of High School Completion, as described earlier, will encourage students, parents, schools and employers to unite in a joint effort to support high school completion. With the support of the Chamber of Commerce, businesses in our community, especially those that employ high school students, will be invited to make a pledge in support of high school completion, particularly with respect to the high school students they employ. The pledge will include specific action steps to be undertaken by students, parents, schools, and employers.

- A community working group, including representation from the Chamber of Commerce, schools and community members is currently at work to identify other strategies that will contribute to raising the high school completion rate.

• As discussed earlier, AISI will have a large impact on improving high school completion rates. We are also involved in the Moving and Improving project to improve system leadership. Our jurisdiction has also been involved over the past three years on a leadership development program for our site-based administrators and teacher leaders. The student engagement project, the CTS enhancement grant, and the technology funding will make a difference in our jurisdiction, too.

• FNMI study from 2007-08 identified strategies to enhance high school completion rates with FNMI students. 2008-09 Literacy Study will provide additional strategies for all students. Student leadership initiatives and programs provide opportunities for students to excel. Active sports programs provide incentives for students to be part of the learning community. CTS ever-greening is providing sustainability

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for CTS programs to engage students and meet the needs of the local communities. Program enhancements are provided through 3V course offerings. Numerous locally developed courses are offered. Elite (Experiential Learning and Instruction for Trades Entry), RAP, and Work Experience programs provide valuable bridges between school and the work community. Local industry and business are consulted to provide feedback to students regarding the importance of high school completion

• Increased programming opportunities in the area of CTS in specific areas of the Division will provide enhancement. The opening of our new CTS mobile lab in the Morrin and Delia communities will offer courses not previously available to students in those schools. Cosmetology will be presented through VC as well. With our jurisdiction being successful in the Paving Health Pathways initiative, our students will be provided more opportunities to explore health related careers.

• Programs such as Moving and Improving, inclusive education initiatives, projects such as Kids in Care, AISI, CTS, career corner, EA cohort education, collaborative ventures with community, business and post-secondary institutions will help to improve the completion rates.

The above excerpts of school board responses to the 2009 ASBA survey help illustrate the range and variety of programs currently being delivered or being planned by boards in their attempt to better meet the needs of all students and thereby improve high school completion rates.

2. Supporting and Reducing Transitions

Consistent with the research findings regarding factors that improve high school completion as well as the “successful transitions” emphasis of the Alberta Education high school completion framework, many school boards noted the importance of minimizing the negative effects of transitions between schools or transitions within schools.

a) Promising InitiativesPromising initiatives identified by school boards that cluster around the transitions theme include:

• Aboriginal Strategies: Recently emphasis has been placed on supporting transition from Grade 6 to Grade 7 and Grade 9 to Grade 10, as well as tracking Grade 12 students and keeping them in school. A session that was held in the various district high schools for arriving Grade 10 Aboriginal students, who were provided with information about Aboriginal education consultants and liaisons, was well received. Grade 12 students continue to be tracked and followed up, resulting in some who dropped out returning for second semester. An Aboriginal resource

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room is being piloted this year and use by students and teachers has been very promising.

• Four years ago, we significantly improved the ability of the local high school to provide programming options outside of the existing timetable. The idea was to reduce the number of students who switched schools during their high school years. It appears that this change may be responsible for a further improvement in graduation rates within our system.

• Address school-to-school transitions. Research identifies school-to-school transitions as having a significant and negative effect on student achievement, and hence on high school completion. Our middle schools and high schools have implemented several initiatives that strive to ease this transition and to diminish its impact on students…FNMI students staying within the same school for both Jr. and Sr. programs.

• We use vertical team collaboration among schools to assist in the transition from elementary to junior high, junior high to high school, and high school to the workplace or post secondary education. We provide opportunities for students to explore career paths after high school completion, through career fairs and online resources. We also focus on improved completion rates through alternate programming such as Career and Technology Studies, Knowledge and Employability, Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP), Work Experience, Fine Arts and Sport Academies. We are strengthening the connections with industry and business for students planning to move directly into the workforce. In the area of Career and Technology Studies (CTS) both high schools are working to more closely to align programs in the CTS modules with the demands in the workplace…To encourage transition to the workplace, both high schools are extending and enriching their regular involvement with the Skills Canada Alberta Program.

• The introduction of transition workers in all our schools is promising in improving high school completion and reducing the dropout rates. The transition workers really identified a need for counselling on a personal level. We anticipate the results as being fewer dropouts at the grade 10 level.

• The Community Learning Campus, a joint venture of our jurisdiction and Olds College, supported by high end technologies that allow it to reach out to smaller communities, and built Career Connections - an integrated careers program focusing on all students, including those at risk and providing personal, career and family counselling under one umbrella with a focus on students being able to begin their post-secondary career in apprenticeship, college or university while in their senior years of high school.

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b) Future PlansSeveral school boards identified plans to restructure grade levels in an effort to reduce transitions:

• We are in the process of considering a grade reconfiguration in some of our elementary schools and middle schools, so as to decrease the number and impact of school-to-school transitions, thereby increasing the opportunity for success among the students in those schools.

• We are considering a grade reconfiguration that, if implemented, will reduce the number of school-to-school transitions for students in three of our elementary schools.

These proposed initiatives are consistent with recent evidence that supports grade configurations with fewer transitions such as a grade 1-12 or grade 7-12 configuration (Alberta Education, High School Completion Longitudinal Study, 2009).

3. Individual Student Supports

Most school boards, again consistent with research findings about factors that support school completion, referenced the benefits of providing individual and personalized support to students.

a) Promising InitiativesPromising initiatives identified by school boards that cluster around providing individual student supports include:

• Career counselling program. Our jurisdiction hires non-teaching career counsellors for secondary schools with an emphasis on engaging students in developing career plans early in high school. Students who have identified goals tend to be more motivated to complete high school and participate in courses that will contribute to their goal.

• The Board has developed a “Pyramid of Success” as a model for supporting our vision of “Every Student, Everyday, A Success”. The Pyramid acts as a lens that guides our decision making at the division and school levels and ensures that we are continually striving to meet the academic, character, and relationship needs of our students. Three year plans are aligned to the academic, character, and relationship domains of the pyramid to ensure that schools are reducing at-risk levels and increasing high school completion.

• Ensuring schools have good school counsellors and family school liaison workers.

• High schools are tracking students after graduation and have been successful in supporting students to finish their diploma when they are

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just shy of completing. Many times it is as simple as a phone call to see if arrangements can be made to help them.

• Specific programs and partnership with the goal of addressing the needs of at risk learners have been developed. For example, RADAR (Re-engaging Academically Disconnected Adolescents Respectfully) Program, implemented in 2007-2008, is a unique cross sector collaborative initiative that addresses needs of adolescent students who may be disengaged and on the spectrum of homelessness. RADAR’s goal of reclaiming these disengaged youth is through an invitational approach involving a multi-disciplinary range of life skills including recreational, physical, educational, social, emotional, and vocational aspects which provides the stage for renewed hope. In assisting to reclaim these disengaged youth between the ages of 13 and 15, the program reconnects them with their families and communities when possible, while engaging them in a unique community-based learning environment that addresses their educational, cultural, social and medical/mental health and addiction needs. The five-fold focus of the RADAR program in addressing and meeting the needs of the students are: targeting and engaging youth, provision of educational programming, provision of personal support for youth, provision of recreational programming/life skills building for youth and transitional and re-connection support to youth.

• Extensive and individualized career planning and support in high school, particularly for students with high needs.

• The development of pyramids of intervention in each of the schools has made a difference. Having a career counsellor and expanding our Off Campus programs are other initiatives that have kept students in school and helped with the high school completion rates. In addition to this, having increased our student support services team has made a difference in early identification and programming for our students.

• Teacher Advisory (home room for 15 minutes) in a large high school.

• Working through its Social Workers and a designated Family School Liaison, our District has initiated a proactive attendance project to work directly with schools where the highest rates of non-attendance have been identified. Initiated in only a few schools in the fall, the success of the project has already resulted in an expansion of the numbers of schools involved.

• Mental health issues have been recognized as a major factor for at risk students who experience significant challenges to successful learning. As a result, two new approaches to the delivery of support related to students’ mental health needs. The first initiative, focused on early

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intervention, provides access to highly trained guidance counsellors at the elementary level several days per week. The second, a partnership with Alberta Health Services, utilizes the services of mental health therapists to address student needs identified through teacher and District staff referrals.

• Family School Liaison Programming- provides site based support for students and families experiencing challenges in the academic and non-academic realms. g. School Health Partnerships such as Wainwright on Wellness; Vermilion River Regional Healthy Communities Coalition; and WASAC (Wainwright and Area Social Action Committee). These programs allow for additional direct support to students and their families. While we believe that all of these initiatives contribute to improving high school completion and/or reducing drop-out rates, it is our expectation that the collective impact will serve to support students staying in school.

• The development of formal intervention programs where teams of administrators, counsellors, parents, and teachers meet to help students develop action plans to respond to a lack of academic success. We have the highest graduation rates at schools where these programs exist. We expect to further improve our rates based on the implementation of these plans.

• Student Centres. School Chaplains.

• Presently, we have an AISI-funded project consisting of four high schools which is titled “Reaching High School Students At-Risk”. A team consisting of a Learning Leader, CBe-learn (a school that offers senior and junior high programs online) teacher, and a School Family Liaison Worker is integrated with each of the school staffs. The teams work with the students, staff, and families in order to meet the needs of identified at-risk students. Their purpose is to maximize student opportunities for high school completion. As a result of this program, increased attendance rates for these at-risk students have been achieved. In the four schools increases in attendance rates for the at-risk students involved in the project ranged from 8 to 25%. Administration, teacher, and student anecdotal comments are very supportive of the program and connect it with students having a more successful high school experience.

• An initiative which has the most measurable success is the personal contact with students who have dropped out of high school and then designing high school completion plans that are respectful and responsive to their life circumstance.

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b) Future PlansSchool boards identified the following plans regarding providing individual student supports:

• We have implemented a Division Principal who is in charge of fostering classroom growth in literacy and numeracy instruction. This position is directly supporting our priority of all students reading at grade level by the end of grade three. This position is in its second year. We are also currently working with community partners including the University of Alberta, Augustana Campus to incorporate a “Reading University” during the month of July for grade two and three learners. The program would provide intensive literacy instruction to at-risk learners on the Augustana Campus. We remain hopeful for successful implementation of the Reading University.

• Our next AISI project will focus on improving self directed learning. We anticipate that this will impact student motivation and understanding of the learning goals, thus making the learning process meaningful to students.

• We have wanted to enact a 1:300 counsellor to student ratio for years. Unable to do so as school budgets could not sustain the costs. Placing a caring, informed, effective educator in an ongoing educational counselling relationship with students would help tremendously. We continue to work toward the ratio.

• The development of formal intervention programs at each school. We will consider implementing the requirement that Senior Administration is informed when a student is at risk of dropping out as a means to highlight the issue and determine if jurisdiction level support might assist the students in question.

4. Engagement and Relationships

The importance of student relationships and engagement (of students and parents) was a school completion success factor mentioned by most school boards. This emphasis on relationships echoes the “positive connections” emphasis of the Alberta Education high school completion framework.

a) Promising InitiativesPromising initiatives identified by school boards that clustered around relationships and engagement include:

• Our new focus is on improving student engagement and student leadership practises.

• Making connections with students - staff committed to building positive relationships with students - individually. We individually track each of

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our students to be sure they are meeting requirements for high school graduation. Our close, personal contact is a huge factor.

• Our Student Services program works hard to ensure the learning and social-emotional need of each student is met through relationship building and helping students experience success as learners.

• Strategies to connect all students to at least one trusted adult in the school environment.

• The benefits of having a small division provides for one to one contact with students and each student being known as an individual by their teaching staff. Parental involvement plays a key role as does extra-curricular activities and socialization.

• Student Engagement: Focus has been placed on linking the curriculum with real world learning, career and post secondary opportunities through our Career Focused Education initiatives: The Skill Centre: This is a cross ministry initiative (Education, Advanced Education, Alberta Health and Alberta Apprenticeship). The Skill Centre is also a partnership between our district and NAIT, with NAIT assisting in the development of the courses and resources. The objective of the Skill Centre is to allow high school students to access valuable resources and gain real-world experience with hands-on courses. Students learn about a career to make an informed decision about their future. This engagement will encourage a number of students to complete their schooling and successfully transition to work or post secondary.

• We will continue fostering the close relationship that teachers have with students, which we have identified as key to high school completion rates. The close relationship allows for early intervention to prevent problems.

b) Future PlansSchool boards identified the following future plans that support enhanced student engagement:

• Although it’s not a direct high school completion strategy, our Board is committed to improving our relationship and communication with First Nations families and communities. It is hoped that, indirectly, this will lead to improved high school completion/reduced dropout rates for our FNMI students.

• Our board is recommending that three system-wide task forces be established. The first, to examine and implement transition support for students. The second to examine and implement effective strategies for intentionally addressing the issue of student relationships with peers and adults. The third, to address the call that is being made for more flexibility.

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• Our board will be continuing with the priority areas of Literacy and High School Completion in the next AISI Cycle. That will provide 6 years for a more thorough impact. High School Completion will take on an even greater slant toward improving the educational environment for students. The new Director position will be the Director of Culture and Climate. In a nutshell, this Director will work with school administrators to put action plans in place that will improve the reasons why student want to choose to come to school each day. The educational environment and the student’s sense of belonging and being cared about are critical to improving high school completion.

• We are currently planning to use AISI Cycle IV to implement some strategies which strengthen student engagement in learning. These strategies will focus on enriching the school culture and on emerging classroom technologies.

5. Sound Teaching Practices

And finally, many school boards underlined the importance of building teaching capacity and staffing schools with caring and capable teachers and principals as a key factor to improving high school completion.

a) Promising InitiativesPromising initiatives identified by school boards that cluster around supporting and building sound teaching practices include:

• There is a jurisdiction focus on improving student learning by improving effective teaching practices based on current research, intended to benefit all students.

• Currently, in addition to ongoing strategies described previously related to early intervention programming and individualized interventions, our teachers are implementing assessment for learning strategies, improved grading practises and increased communications with our parents.

• The District also initiated a professional development series focused on the sharing of annual School Improvement Plans including the use of local and provincial data as well as strategies to address student needs and improvement.

• AISI Cycle 4 will also focus on coaching for teachers and a coordinator for working with kids at risk in grade 9 to 12.

• Teaching strategies that support…increased student control over learning, appropriate to their age, through assessment for learning strategies that support students’ increased independence and choice.

• Hiring and retaining diverse teaching and support staff that reflect student diversity combined with other strategies to provide students with role-models they can identify with.

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• There is a commitment to improve student engagement through effective teaching practices from K-12 intended to support the success of all students.

• Teaching approaches that allow students to learn and demonstrate their learning in multiple ways.

• High academic expectations and belief in students’ ability to meet those expectations combined with appropriate support and challenge; reduced streaming.

• We have done a lot of work on PLC and professional development… to give our staff the tools to work towards better student achievement. We anticipate higher student achievement and a lower student dropout rate.

• A second initiative is the District’s systemic Cycle 4 AISI Project designed to focus on engaging students through effective instructional practices. It is anticipated that, through this project, teachers will be able to participate in ongoing job-embedded professional development that will promote a systemic move towards the integration of differentiated instructional practices.

• Our district encourages the implementation of the professional learning community model in which students, through a pyramid of interventions, are supported with such strategies as: CUM file reviews, a Focus on Learner Outcomes project, Student At-Risk Mentoring, Assisted Attendance Monitoring, Individual Program Plans, Student Learner Case Conferencing and the use of Home Logic as a communication tool with the parents.

• At our Division Leadership Team meetings principals gather as Professional Learning Communities to identify best practices and strategies to improve High School Completion. This is an ongoing process of continuous improvement.

• Math for All: The District identified concerns in our mathematics programming and as a result introduced an initiative to address this, “Math for All”. The initiative, currently for Kindergarten to Grade 9 teachers, develops curriculum expertise through a coaching model. It is anticipated that improved understanding of the curriculum will impact teacher practice resulting in improved achievement in math.

• The AISI projects, “STARS - Students at Risk Succeed” which focused on Differentiated Instruction and Assessment for Learning have had a huge impact on stemming the dropout rates in our district. Students now experience a deeper connection to the subject taught and have greater involvement and responsibility in and for the process of learning.

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b) Future PlansSchool boards identified the following plans regarding enhancing teacher capacity:

• In alignment with our Three-Year Education Plan, three main actions have emerged that are anticipated to provide the greatest degree of success or promise in improving high school completion and /or reducing dropout rates. They are as follows:

- Secondary Review Symposium A Secondary Review Symposium, facilitated by the department

of Community Engagement and Operational Planning. This symposium would result in a refreshed base of data that would inform our understanding of shifting community values, needs and expectations. The symposium would include students, parents, staff, alumni, community members, representatives of government and staff associations.

- That Instructional Practices be established as a consistent system-wide professional development focus.

A symposium will be developed in which Richard Elmore may serve as the central facilitator. One school from each Area and designated Learning Leaders will have the opportunity to participate in highly focused, and resourced professional development on the “instructional core”. Richard Elmore (2006) teaches that change for all students hinges on the transformation of instructional practices in all classrooms.

- That three system projects be established and resourced.1) High Schools That Work (HSTW) is an effort-based

school improvement initiative founded on the conviction that most students can master rigorous academic and career/technical studies if school leaders and teachers create an environment that motivates students to make the effort to succeed.

2) Establishment of a Career and Technology Skills Centre. This centre will incorporate a multi-year sequence of career guidance, high tech course work and work-based learning experiences. It will enable students to explore a variety of career choices and opportunities within a context for learning. The Centre will align the Program of Studies and provides linkages between high school, post secondary education and the world of work. Within the Centre, students will be able to access apprenticeships, work-place learning employment transitions as well as

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articulated post secondary pathways that accept advanced credit and guaranteed placement with challenging opportunities.

3) Integrated inter-agency services project will be established to support a resiliency focus in a family of schools. There are many initiatives that exist in various schools and in clusters of schools throughout our jurisdiction, through which agencies work alongside schools. There is an increasing body of evidence that indicates the most effective working relationships for improving student achievement and well-being are those in which the community is working in an integrated way with education. The difference is that in a truly integrated model, organizations formalize their relations and align their policies and practices as they pursue shared results (Lawson, Meeting at the 102 Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 2003).

• AISI Cycle 4: coaching, formative assessment and the PD we provide our staff will be critical to our success. High School Liaison Consultant; this person or persons will be invaluable in reaching our goals.

• We have engaged in an extensive project which focuses on the instructional practices that we utilize in our classrooms to ensure the engagement of students. This will be a district wide AISI project from 2009 - 2012 and was started in the 2008 - 2009 school year.

• Entered into an agreement with Red Deer College increasing teacher training to offer a greater variety of CTS courses to students. Piloting 3400 level courses with journeyman supervision. Partnership with Information and Technology Council to offer industry level computer technology training. We have started two pilots this year, training has begun, implementation in September 2009 for students.

In summary, most 2009 ASBA survey comments can be clustered around the five themes identified with the exception of one comment from Edmonton Public schools that argues for the raising of the minimum school leaving age to 18. Edmonton Public’s view is that the age of 16 for compulsory attendance is too low and in essence “gives permission” for students to leave school early while 18 is documented in research as having a demonstrable effect on raising the high school completion rate. The compulsory school attendance age is a statutory issue and as such school boards might want to consider this as a policy issue at an AGM of ASBA.

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VII. School Board Governance Pr ior i t ie s and SupportGovernance is defined as the art of steering an organization, as the process whereby strategic goals are set, key relationships are maintained, the health of the organization is safe guarded and an account is rendered for organizational performance (http://www.iog.ca/). Simply, governance is about leadership, relationships and goals with good governance characterized by strong leadership, positive relationships and shared goals.

Good governance also gets results. The success of an organization can be directly linked to the leadership of its governance board. For school boards, organizational success, in large part, means achieving the goals that have been set for students and their learning.

Because of this, the 2009 ASBA survey explored some key governance practices of school boards as they relate to the issue of high school completion. Question #7 asked boards if they had identified high school completion as a priority, question #8 asked boards if they had set goals or targets for improving, question #9 asked whether boards had incorporated high school completion priorities into the jurisdiction strategic plan, and question #10 explored the role of the board in identifying priorities and determining the overall direction of the jurisdiction strategic plan.

The survey also explored sources of support and information for boards related to the issue of high school completion. Questions #12 and #13 asked whether school boards use Alberta Education or ASBA resources and question #15 explored interest in attending a high school completion symposium.

On overview, the school boards that responded to the 2009 survey demonstrate that they have a good understanding of their governance role as it pertains to issues like improving high school completion and an equally good grasp of the “levers” available to them to improve results. School boards understand that their governance responsibility is to set the direction, identify and support clear priorities, communicate their “will” through the jurisdiction strategic plan, track progress towards identified goals and hold their staff accountable (through the superintendent) for turning their “will” into operational reality.

A few excerpts from the survey responses help demonstrate this collective understanding.

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Question # 7: Has your jurisdiction identified high school completion as a priority? Has your jurisdiction identified other priorities as being at least as important and what are they?

Of the 42 school boards that responded to this question, all but three have identified high school completion as either a direct (explicit) or indirect (implicit) priority. For example, those that have identified high school completion as an explicit priority made comments like:

• Yes, high school completion is a priority and the jurisdiction works with individual schools to support strategies being implemented to increase this rate.

• As per Alberta Education mandates, these plans are the focus of the District Three Year Educational Plan and are incorporated in the day to day operations of the District as well as integrated into a wide range of projects, specific programs as well as into the monitoring reports and special requests from the Board of Trustees that occur throughout the school year. Board priorities and provincial mandates are also intentionally incorporated into each Schools Annual Educational Plan as are strategies arising from the annual analysis of Provincial Achievement Test data, diploma examination results, school accountability pillar data, school and classroom based assessment and evaluation. Strategies related to school and student improvement play a prominent role at monthly District Leadership Councils and are the focus of many initiatives including AISI

• Yes, high school completion has been a priority in our district for over a decade and results have been positive. Specific programs to address the needs of particular student populations including Aboriginal students, English as a Second Language students, special educations students, and students with a particular programming interest.

• Our district has identified High School completion as a priority. We have 5 Ends which describe desired outcomes for students. The first one is called the Mega End: Each student in keeping with his or her individual abilities and gifts will complete high school with a foundation of learning to function effectively in life, work and continued learning.

Other school boards see high school completion as an implicit umbrella goal of other student achievement priorities. Comments like the following illustrate this point of view:

• Yes. The District has identified other initiatives that will positively impact high school completion rates over time. Some examples include

• provision of and advocacy for funding for full day kindergarten for vulnerable students

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• a district initiative to strengthen programming and support for Aboriginal students

• development of a Skill Centre Pilot to support effective alignment of Career and Technology Studies (CTS) courses to post secondary and workplace requirements

• support for the Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) • Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) Community

Collaboration initiative to support interagency collaboration to improve school success

• established a Multicultural Task force to provide leadership to support improved success for immigrant students

• the District is developing a work plan to address improved outcomes and services for students with special education needs

• offering alternative programs of choice to increase student engagement

• providing a variety of outreach programs to meet the needs of students

• High school completion is not a one dimensional issue, but rather, it is the consequence of a complex, dynamic context. Therefore, although high school completion is the final outcome of the Kindergarten to Grade 12 journey, there are many contributors and distracters along the way, all of which are important to address. Our contributing priorities include employing and nurturing engaged administrators and teachers, assigning teachers to teach to their strengths, program choice, co and extra curricular activities, interagency and counselling services, distributed learning, assessment for and of learning, programming for diverse needs, student hope, engagement and well-being, etc.

• High school completion is implied in all of our district priorities which address the success of students.

Question #7 also asks boards to list other identified priorities. All 42 boards that responded to this question provided a list of priorities identified in their strategic (education) plan. The large majority of these related directly to students and their learning or to better community or parent engagement. Survey responses clustered around the following theme areas:

• FNMI student success

• Student success for all from K-12

• Continuum of services for special education students

• English as a second language

• Engaging parents and community

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• Improving student achievement generally and raising jurisdiction PAT and Diploma exam outcomes specifically

• Leadership development

• Improving the range of student program offerings

• Improving student Numeracy and Literacy

• Citizenship education

• Student wellness and safety

• Staff and leadership development

• Enhancing supports to at risk students

• Technology improvements

Survey respondents also referenced priorities that clustered around the themes of adequate overall funding, transportation and school infrastructure.

Question #8 asked whether the jurisdiction had identified targets or goals for improving high school completion and/or reducing drop out rates and what these might be.

All but 10 of the 41 school boards that responded to this question have set specific targets related to the high school completion goal. These either reflect improvement to the current rates, or mirror or exceed the current Alberta Education Business Plan targets. While not all survey respondents identified their specific targets, some examples from those that did include:

• The target for drop put rate is 4.5% (per year) and the target for high school completion is 87% (three year)

• Yes. The targets for improving high school completion contained in the Three Year Plan are: 73% for 2008/09, 75% for 2009/10 and 77% for 2010/11. The targets for decreasing the drop out rate are: 4.5% for 2008/09, 4.27% for 2009/10 and 4.2% for 2010/11.

• Yes, as mandated by Alberta Education specific targets are only required for Accountability Pillar measures with an evaluation of “Issue” or “Concern”. These are incorporated into the District’s Three Year Educational Plan submitted to Alberta Education. Goals and targets are also linked to many District projects such as the focus on safe and caring schools. This focus was continued in 2007-2008 through the second year of the implementation of a Cycle III Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) project entitled Strengthening School Culture and Climate.

• Each year when we monitor our Ends 1, we look at our graduation rates and dropout rates and set targets for the next year. For example, in

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2007-08, our 5-year completion rate was 78.9%. The previous 3- year average was 75.4%. The target for 2008-09 is a 5-year graduation rate of 79.9%. The dropout rate in 2007-08 was 5.2%. The previous 3-year average was 5.2%. The target for 2008-09 was 4.2%.

Completion rate targets identified by school boards ranged from 61.5% to 90% although it should be noted that not all boards specified whether these were three, four, or five year completion rates.

Question #10 explored the role of the Board of Trustees in identifying priorities, setting targets or goals and determining the overall strategic plan. Forty two boards responded to this question.

Three key points can be derived from board responses to question #10. The large majority of survey respondents:

• See their strategic (Education) plan as their prime governance and direction setting document;

• Use a broadly based consultative process to arrive at their jurisdiction strategic plan;

• Practice evidence-based decision making in that they use and analyze performance data to help establish jurisdiction priorities and targets.

Three survey excerpts help illustrate these points:

• Our Board is highly involved in this process. We incorporate several processes throughout the course of the year including a Board Retreat where strategic system planning begins for the year by reviewing results from the previous year and establishing Board priorities. The Board is also committed to a large scale consultative process that incorporates students, parents, teachers, and support staff in the process of accessing feedback on Division goals and strategies. The Board\Administrator Retreat takes the data from the consultative process and uses that data to set measures and targets for our school division.

• The Board of Trustees works closely with the Chief Superintendent and collaborates closely with School Councils and parents in seeking input, feedback and response related to District priorities, initiatives and programs. This includes but is not limited to regular points of contact with School Councils and School Council chairs as well as exploration of provincial and school based data that reflects student success, emergent needs, and areas of growth. The Board also works closely with provincial organizations, other school jurisdictions, and Alberta Education to identify barriers to student success and high school completion and to advocate collaboratively to meet the needs of its students. The Board

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also works with District Administration to identify priorities, set targets and goals as well as develop, implement and assess the District’s plan on an annual and ongoing basis. Currently, the Board of Trustees has representation on ASBA’s high school completion committee.

• Trustees work with stakeholders to set direction through the development of district priorities. They determine the planning base which identifies how funds will be distributed to support the achievement of the priorities. Members of the board meet with clusters of schools and central services units to monitor plans and initiatives prior to final approval and submission of district plans and budget to Alberta Education in June. In the fall Trustees meet with schools and central services to review the results achieved. Trustees also identify specific areas for focus and advocacy to support district priorities.

• The Board of Trustees sets the priorities for students through the identification of the Ends. The Ends give overall direction to the system and are in place for an extended period of time. Our Trustees have put in place policies that contain the Board’s values and perspectives that must underlie all organizational decisions, activities, practices, budgets and goals. Each policy is monitored on a yearly basis. In monitoring the Ends, the Board of Trustees has a discussion on whether reasonable progress towards that End has been achieved the previous year and looks forward to the upcoming year. Targets are identified in each area. Administration then brings together the results desired by the Board along with the provincial goals in the Three-Year Education Plan. This plan must be approved by the Board of Trustees before it is submitted to Alberta Education. The Board’s role is to do all the items noted in the question. They are the primary stakeholder in determining the overall strategic plan of the Division.

In addition to exploring some key governance practices as they relate to improving high school completion, the 2009 ASBA survey also asked school boards to comment on sources of information and support about high school completion and about the feasibility of ASBA hosting a high school completion symposium (questions #12, #13, #15).

Survey responses indicate that most school boards use the information and resources provided by Alberta Education, particularly the research reports and information related to AISI projects. As it applies to the issue of high school completion, fewer school boards use resources provided by ASBA and many boards are unsure of what these are.

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Typical responses to question #12 (jurisdiction use of Alberta Education resources) include:

• Yes, our District utilizes the resources and research available through Alberta Ed. The support to AISI planning by department staff has made an impact.

• Yes. The District has utilized resources related to AISI projects and research related to FNMI education and high school completion. Although all three have had an impact, the resources for FNMI education have had the greatest impact.

• Our division utilizes the resources, initiatives and research available through Alberta Education on a regular basis. We have used the AISI and the APAR clearinghouses to develop strategies to improve student achievement.

With regard to question #13 (jurisdiction use of ASBA resources), the following represent typical board responses:

• We are not currently utilizing resources available through the ASBA, but know who we would contact if assistance was required.

• No to all of the above in the area of high school completion.

• Our district has reviewed the research that has been distributed by ASBA, but has not utilized ASBA resources, initiatives or personnel in this regard.

• Yes. The research papers, Hot News, position papers and assistance with legal issues and communication strategies have been helpful. We have not worked with ASBA representatives in the development of initiatives, but are aware of who to contact.

• Accountability Services is not aware of our system using ASBA resources and research to inform or support the study of high school completion or student drop outs. We are not aware of who to contact in ASBA for assistance.

With regard to question #15 (jurisdiction willingness to attend an ASBA hosted high school completion symposium), all but three of the 39 boards that responded to this question would be interested in attending a high school completion symposium.

Many comments emphasized the benefit of sharing and collaboration regarding governance practices related to high school completion. Other comments emphasized the importance of using existing mechanisms like zone meetings, annual conferences or the ASBA website as vehicles for sharing and exchange.

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Some typical comments include:

• Yes we are interested. Perhaps one of the topics could address how we might better share information and collaborate with other school boards.

• A symposium is a one-shot event. Information is best shared using an AISI type online repository which highlights best practises and unique approaches. AISI and CASS all have similar initiatives. A partnership with them would be excellent if a symposium should go ahead.

• Yes and a forum for sharing ideas on your web site would prove valuable.

• We have found that it is always beneficial to share best practices. One of the most powerful ways to do this has been at AISI conferences, and, if a similar model was used where teams from jurisdictions presented and were available for questions and support, then this would be great.

• Yes we would like to attend symposiums that would help in sharing promising initiatives, but not bemoan issues that exist. Meet together with surrounding Boards to discuss our initiatives that we find very beneficial to our students and our work to improve high school completion rates.

• Yes • Would suggest a round table discussion at Zone meetings • Also an on-line clearing house approach may work

• Yes, we should be using our fall and spring general meeting to do more sharing of process and best practices.

• Yes we would be interested in attending a symposium to share initiatives. Other methods to share information include distributing the sessions throughout the province so that trustees do not have to travel as far. This could be done by having regional centers connected together through video conferencing as an example. Perhaps the zones could be used. Continuing PD rather than a one-shot meeting would be preferred. The focus of any symposium needs to be clear. Is this administrative or governance driven?

When the results of question #15 are combined with the generally positive responses to question #16 (the willingness of jurisdictions to share promising practice), it becomes evident that Alberta’s school boards are very interested in collaboration and sharing practices and approaches that work to improve high school completion. This willingness to engage in “horizontal networking” is commendable as such a practice is often sited in the literature as an effective capacity building strategy.

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Conclus ionImproving high school completion rates in Alberta is an important challenge for Alberta’s school boards. While Alberta dropout rates have been declining and high school completion rates improving, Alberta and the Prairie Provinces still lag Canada with their high school completion rates. This is a serious issue in that not completing high school has many negative personal consequences for young adults as well as many negative social and economic consequences for communities.

The governance practices of locally elected trustees matter. As the results of the 2009 ASBA high school completion survey demonstrate, Alberta’s school boards have risen to the challenge. Their actions are resulting in significant improvements to high school completion rates for Alberta students. School boards see improvement to the high school completion rate as a continuing priority and are implementing numerous strategies to improve dropout rates. They are also prepared to be accountable as they are tracking and publicly reporting results. In addition, school boards indicate their willingness to improve and share promising practices and strategies that work to support students staying in school.

The evidence points to two trends in dropout rates that school boards need to give continuing attention to. These are the unacceptably high drop out rates for Alberta’s Aboriginal students and the gender gap evidenced by higher dropout rates for males.

Because of these issues, complacency is not an option. School boards will need to continue to work towards ensuring that all students can take their rightful place in society. They are up to this challenge.

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Appendix A

Significant Risk Factors for School Dropout – From the National Dropout Prevention Center (USA, 2007)

Individual Domain Individual Background Characteristics

• Has a learning disability or emotional disturbance

Early Adult Responsibilities • High number of work hours

• Parenthood

Social Attitudes, Values, & Behavior • High-risk peer group

• High-risk social behavior

• Highly socially active outside of school

School Performance • Low achievement

• Retention/over-age for grade

School Engagement • Poor attendance

• Low educational expectations

• Lack of effort

• Low commitment to school

• No extracurricular participation

School Behavior • Misbehavior

• Early aggression

Family Domain Family Background Characteristics

• Low socioeconomic status

• High family mobility

• Low education level of parents

• Large number of siblings

• Not living with both natural parents

• Family disruption

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Family Engagement/Commitment to Education • Low educational expectations

• Sibling has dropped out

• Low contact with school

• Lack of conversations about school

© 2007 National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University and Communities In Schools, Inc. 4 All rights reserved.

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Reference Lis tAlberta Education. Alberta Early Child Mapping Project: Presentation to the Alberta School Boards Association. May 2009.

Alberta Education (2005). High School Completion Rate Task Force Report.

Alberta Education (2008). High School Completion Dropout Rates: Presentation to the ASBA Fall General Meeting.

Alberta Education (2009). High School Completion longitudinal Study.

Alberta Education (2001). Removing Barriers to High School Completion: Final Report.

Alberta Education (2008/2009). Promising Practices for Keeping Kids in School, Issues #1, #2, #3, #4, #5.

Alberta Education (2006). Summary Report on Alberta Education’s high School Completion Symposium.

Alberta Education (2009). Alberta High School Completion Framework Brochure.

Alberta School Boards Association (2006). How to Improve Alberta’s High School Completion Rates: Insights from Alberta’s School Trustees.

Alberta School Boards Association (2009). High School Completion Task Force Advocacy Plan.

Alberta School Boards Association (2009). High School Completion Survey.

Barton, P.E. (2006). One Third of a Nation: Rising Drop Out Rates and Declining Opportunities. Educational Testing Service. Princeton, N, J.

Bowlby, G. (2008). Provincial Dropout Rates-Trends and Consequences. Statistics Canada.

Community Foundations of Canada (2009). Vital Signs: 2009 Report. Retrieved from http://www.cfc-fcc/ca/

Edmonton Journal. (July 29, 2008). Alberta’s High School Completion Rate Lowest Among Provinces.

Gunn, T. et al (2008). High School Completion: AISI Provincial Research Review. University of lethbridge. Lethbridge, Alberta.

Hammond, C. et al. (2007). Drop Out Risk Factors and Exemplary Programs: A Technical Report. National Dropout Prevention Center. Alexandria V.A. retrieved from www.dropoutprevention.org

Nadirova, A. et al. (2007). Moving Beyond Achievement Data: Assessing Student’s Orientation to School to Remove Barriers to High School Completion. Alberta Education.

Richards, J. (2009). Dropouts: The Achilles Heel of Canada’s High School System. C.D. Howe Institute.

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AcknowledgementsThis report was prepared under the direction and guidance of the ASBA High School Completion Rates Task Force. Though all of Alberta’s school boards were invited to participate and contribute to this report, task force membership (at the time of printing) included ASBA Board of Directors, ASBA Zone Representatives and a representative of Alberta Education:

ASBA Board of Directors Representatives

Jackie Swainson, Director, Zone 4, Chair of Task Force Marilyn Bergstra, Director, Edmonton Catholic Kerry Milder, Director Zone 6

ASBA Zone Representatives

Bryan Imray, Zone 1, Peace River SD Bernie Huedepohl, Zone 2/3, Buffalo Trail Public Schools RD Ken Checkel, Zone 4, Clearview SD Rosemarie Goerlitz, Zone 5, Calgary Catholic Karen Bartsch, Zone 6, Grasslands RD

Alberta Education Representative

Becky Pretli, FNMI and Field Services, Project Lead - High School Completion

Alberta School Boards AssociationSuite 1200, 9925 - 109 Street, Edmonton, AB T5K 2J8

Phone: 1.780.482.7311 Fax: 1.780.482.5659 www.asba.ab.ca

Improving High School Completion: Alberta School Board Perspective

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