Development of an At-Risk Program, Part I

Two years ago, in the spring of 2010, we began the process of developing the concept of an At-Risk Program in Boone that would create an impact at both the High School and Middle School levels.

Stimulating the need for adding this program was the demand for our alternative school, Futures, by a higher than normal number of students in our district. We found that, because of a combination of factors, both positive and negative, some students during their eighth grade high school planning session with our counselors were planning out their first two years of classes and then just writing "Futures" as their plan for their junior and senior year. This was a very strange concept to us, but the factors behind this were easy to detect.

Some factors that were impacting the demand/need for this program:

1) Great relationship building by the staff at Futures had led to success in the program (students graduating).
2) Word of mouth advertising - most commonly this was a friend of a relative that had attended their and said it was easier AND had told the current student how to get there (just fail, don't do anything).
3) Curriculum that really was easier than at the High School (packet work vs. deeper meaning, high order thinking project-based work).
4) A past one-year HS administrator who was had worked in the Futures building and was very passionate about the benefits of the school (promoting this to underclass students currently at the high school as the way to success).
5) A counseling program that had been reduced from three to two and could not meet the high demand of socio-emotional needs of our At-Risk students as well as that of the other students (800 students).
6) A handful of educators who made limited, if any, accommodations for students that were not designated as IEP. Usually this was done in the names of "rigor", "consistency" or "fairness". To compound this, nobody in the building felt or was empowered to be proactive to assist At-Risk students to communicate with instructors for accommodations/flexibility.
7) An advisory program that was very inconsistent, not focused, and did not have student relationships in mind (think old school homeroom only meeting once a month). Curriculum/lessons were put together for these meetings as needed by the counseling department based upon a monthly character counts list of terms and were placed in the in-box just prior to the meetings.