Meeting Students Where They Are

We have a philosophy at our school that anchors our work with kids, and that philosophy is pretty simple: meet students where they are and help them go as far as they possibly can. While the concept is simple, the implementation is complicated. Meeting students where they are requires a lot compassion, patience, learning, and an unwavering belief in student potential.  Because this philosophy drives us, we have made many changes over the past decade to ensure that there are systems of support in place for students. On the surface, it is possible to see these systems of support as a means of "making things easy" on kids, of requiring less of them so that they all succeed. The implication is that in this kind of system, the standards are so low, anybody can reach them. The reality is that these systems of support build a scaffold so that students can reach the high expectations we often talk about in education. So what are these systems of support?

One example is a practice we have that requires students to complete the work they are assigned. Some people call this a no zero policy, which can be misleading. We do not have a no zero policy, but we do require students to do the work they are assigned because it is meaningful and leads to an important learning goal. We do not let students opt out of important learning by simply recording a zero in the grade book for missing work. Rather, if a student fails to turn in work, he or she is assigned to one of several supports that are in place: WIN (What I Need, a during-the-school-day remediation time), Learning Lunch (eat with a teacher and do the work during lunch), or 8th Period (mandatory after-school homework completion). We heard an educational leader named Doug Reeves talk about this kind of system several years ago, and he said that we cannot allow adolescents to make decisions about their learning that could plague them for the rest of their lives--we must demand that our kids do the work it takes to learn. This is true accountability. Recording a zero in the grade book is a punishment; requiring students to give up their personal time to complete work is a logical consequence. Ultimately, if students refuse to do the work even in these settings, then they cannot earn credit for that work, but we have found that rarely happens. It makes a difference to students when we refuse to give up on them--they start to believe that maybe they really can succeed. This work is anything but easy.

Another critical change we have made in the past several years is our shift to standards-based reporting. Because we believe that our fundamental purpose as a school is student learning, we have to ensure that students actually learn the essential standards. When we took the journey to report student learning against measurable standards, it required us to substantially change the way we evaluate students. Not all students learn at the same rate, and not all lessons reach every student; therefore, when teachers learn through a test, quiz, paper or project that students are not yet at mastery of a skill, they give those students opportunities to keep learning and to demonstrate that learning. We reteach, give students time to practice, and reassess to see their progress. It would be easier on everyone to simply move on when students fail to learn, but then we would all fail in our mission. The best part is that it is working! Our students' outcome data, collected by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, shows consistently that Perry Central graduates are ready for the demands of college, outperforming the state average and doing as well or better than graduates from high-performing schools in our area.

Our teachers and students would say that implementing these systems of support demands time, effort and resiliency. It requires that we live out the philosophy of doing "whatever it takes" to help students. It requires us to believe the best in kids--to not just have high expectations of them but to teach them the skills it takes to meet those expectations. It is difficult and messy work, and it makes a huge difference in the lives of a lot of students. These systems of support light a path toward living out our philosophy: meet kids where they are and help them go as far as they possibly can.  It's simple, but it is definitely not easy.