200 community partners join CPS for 2nd annual Graduation Pathways Summit

Participants want to develop new strategies that prevent students from dropping out

The summit was funded by a grant from the America’s Promise Foundation and Smaller Learning Communities.

More than 200 public officials, community partners and city agencies gathered at the 2nd Annual CPS Graduation Pathways Summit last week to discuss ways in which they can collaborate to stem the high-school dropout rate.

The summit, funded by a grant from the America’s Promise Foundation and Smaller Learning Communities, focused on developing new strategies to improve student engagement. One big target of the group is absenteeism.

“Attendance is the foundation for every strategy aimed at improving student performance,” said Ron Huberman, CPS chief executive officer. “Yet high absentee rates are a major challenge that many high schools in urban school districts are experiencing, and we know we cannot solve it alone. The support from partner agencies and community organizations will help us further develop meaningful strategies to re-engage our students and keep them in school.”

Attendance has a very important link to graduation, according to a 2007 study of CPS programs by the strategic consulting firm The Parthenon Group. The firm found that missing more than 10 days of school in the fall semester of freshman year is a critical predictor of a student’s likelihood to drop out of high school.

CPS officials were joined at the summit by representatives from the Chicago Department of Children and Youth Services, YMCA, VOYCE, Urban League, United Way, Local School Councils and many local organizations in discussing collaborative strategies for increasing attendance rates at 10 CPS high schools: Clemente, Corliss, Crane, Douglass, Hyde Park, Marshall, Orr, Robeson, Tilden and Wells.

CPS high school principals and community partners discussed how to work together to address each schools’ most pressing challenges to improving attendance rates.

Discussions focused on parent engagement, student work/school schedule conflicts, concerns about safety before and after school, issues arising when students are heads of household, and alternatives to suspension that keep students in school.

In addition, two student groups, Voices of Youth in Chicago Education and All Students Are Powerful, provided a student perspective on how to address attendance issues and increase student interest in school.

CPS also announced the launch of the Graduation Pathways Summer Enrichment Pilot Programs, which will provide 1,200 of students with unique experiences to keep them engaged in learning. Students will be able to participate in a variety of programs, including Fine Art Graffiti Class from The Marwen Foundation, Drumming Circles or Choral Classes from the Merit School of Music, and the Journalism Writing and Photography Program from True Star. The YMCA will offer two options: the Black and Hispanic Achievers Program, and the Youth and Government Program.

The new summer programs are designed to build long-term relationships between students and community agencies. After School Matters, The Chicago Urban League and the Little Black Pearl are among the community partners offering additional summer classes. Program options and dates vary by school.

Nearly 6.2 million students in the United States between the ages of 16 and 24 dropped out of high school in 2007, according to a recently released report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, and the Alternative Schools Network in Chicago. At CPS, the dropout rate has been declining from 46.9 percent in 2004 to 42.5 percent in 2008.

CPS launched a new dropout prevention strategy in 2008 aimed at assisting the most at-risk students, based on ground-breaking data about at-risk CPS students compiled by the Parthenon Group. CPS launched Freshman Connections, a comprehensive transition-to-high-school program in which incoming freshman visit and take summer programs at their new school. The program helps students acclimate to high school academics, and build relationships with students and staff.

Six schools also received Freshmen On-Track Labs last fall, as part of a pilot project aimed at increasing the graduation rate by providing targeted resources to at-risk students. A Freshman On-Track Labs report showed positive trends in freshman attendance and engagement at the six lab schools. The report also makes recommendations on the elementary-to-high-school transition, suggests attendance strategies, and points out the significance of developing personalized interventions for at-risk students.

The report revealed that standard attendance strategies, such as notifying parents of student’s absences, should be combined with strategies that target the root causes of low attendance rates.