November 2007

Letter from the Editor

As the new editor of the NCSE-News, I am introducing a new column below called the Strategy Spotlight.

So many creative ideas are being implemented in pre-schools through high schools, by individual classroom teachers, schools, school districts and states! This column seeks to spread the word about a few of the wonderful ideas that come to our attention.

The purpose of the column is to provide food for thought about strategies that target engagement, broadly defined. The programs highlighted here will not necessarily have been evaluated, and should not be considered “best practices” except to the extent that thinking outside the box is always a best practice! I hope that over the course of the next months the ideas presented here will spark your interest and motivate your creative thinking about ways to make kids happy to go to school.

Jodi Heilbrunn, Newsletter Editor

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Attachment Theory and Truancy Interdiction
by
Sharon Gallagher, J.D.
Former Juvenile Prosecutor and Truancy Magistrate,
Sixth Judicial Circuit, Pinellas County Florida.

When faced with that glazed-eyed, hard, vacant look, eyes-staring-at-the-floor with the occasional glance at the ceiling – that ‘anything-to-avoid-eye-contact-with-you’ presence of a kid about to be labeled a habitual truant, it’s hard to imagine that same kid was born with an innate drive to learn.

One of the biggest challenges of working with kids and adolescents, both inside and outside the legal arena, is how to re-invigorate their natural, inborn drive to learn. It’s easy to forget that we’re all born with exploratory behavior – we want to learn new stuff about ourselves, others and the world around us.

I’ve worked with kids all my life – born the oldest of six children to a Southern-Baptist-turned-evangelical Catholic mother and a Marine Corps drill instructor father, learning meant survival. And according to how I thought I was perceived by my parents, I was not the sharpest blade in the drawer. My grades, except for the occasional miracle, were never that great. I wanted to be a veterinarian, but given my school performance, I was more likely destined to become a really good tomato sorter at the corner grocery. By the time I’d reached third grade my family had up and moved to St. Croix, one of the Virgin Islands. I was alternately fascinated by the world and scared to death of it. Frequently getting myself into trouble, I wasn’t always sure retreating to Mom or Dad was such a good idea, so I’d sort of hover close enough to keep them in sight, but far enough away to avoid too much attention.

Recalling that “hovering” dynamic drove my adult interest in how we learn and what role fear plays. We’re born into a paradox – exploring and learning is a biological imperative, yet retreating in times of stress to the comfort of someone older, wiser and better able to cope with the world is how we learn to continually reattempt a task without giving up. During 30 years of a varied career working with kids in the educational, mental health, social services, and finally legal arenas, I have learned to view behavior not as isolated events but as a discrete part of a learned pattern of relating that kids bring to new interactions. The exploration versus comfort-seeking paradox plays itself out in patterns of relating to self and others. Behavior becomes a pattern that we can interrupt in order to assist children in correcting their self-destructive behavior. But first we have to understand a child’s individual attachment pattern. [1] Kids who act out their maladaptive attachment patterns are seeking predictable, familiar outcomes. Responding in an unpredictable and unfamiliar, but fair and clear, way interrupts their pattern and allows change.

The result is the joy of watching a child’s microsecond glance of interest towards you – watching his once deadened stare turn, just enough, to take in the possibility that he may have a chance with you. That your predictability, clear limits and consistently assigned and attainable baby-steps offer a real possibility back to successful learning. We can strike a match that draws their attention and allows them to rewire their maladaptive patterns in order to develop the inner sense of competence necessary for them to attach and achieve.

Here are some general guidelines: First,

· Judicial officers can establish court-in-school programs;

· Use school-based post-petition weekly truancy hearings to set limits and establish working relationships;

· Use pre-petition criminal diversion programs based in the community; and

· Create a comprehensive outcome-based monitoring network with people already in the child’s life - school staff, peers, law enforcement and probation officers, community recreation program leaders and family members - to monitor them.

Second, in one-to-one interactions, develop a dialogue around goal-correcting behavior:

· Establish a ‘clean’ relationship with the child - this is key. (Children bring their patterns of relating to the table or the bench; evaluate your own pattern of relating.);

· Build a working knowledge of developmental learning levels and attachment patterns;

· Learn how to act when baited by a kid. (An adolescent’s job is to push limits and you represent one.);

· Use ‘life-style’ sanctions (modems in the trunk, bedroom doors off the hinges, selling dessert, etc.,);

· Get the kid’s school ‘stuff’ organized for a fresh start (the secrets and treasures of a kid’s school backpack).

Your interventions can prove a powerful tool for truancy interdiction and ultimately crime prevention.

(Sharon Gallagher, J.D. has worked with students as a teacher and counselor and is currently preparing for the Arizona bar.)

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Strategy Spotlight

College Credit as a Dropout Prevention Strategy:
A New Twist on an Old Practice

It’s fairly common for high schools to offer one or more ways for their students to earn college credit while still in high school. Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes are generally taught by high school teachers in the high school building, and many community and state colleges allow students who have exhausted the local high school curriculum to take an actual course on the college campus. Several districts have more formal arrangements called “dual enrollment” programs whereby students earn both a high school and a four-year college degree in six or seven years. A recent evaluation of two such programs, in New York and Florida, showed improved rates of both high school and college completion[1]. Typically, these options are open only to high-achieving students; juniors or seniors with GPAs of 3.0 or better, for example.

However, the New York State Board of Regents has just approved a program to allow 12,000 lower performing students deemed at risk of dropout to enroll in college level courses. The New York Times[2] quoted Associate Education Commissioner Joseph P. Frey as saying “One of the critical intents is to get students excited about what they could do, and to get them to work at a highly competitive level. That is something that would assist students to stay in school, and to not need remediation in college. And it will save money over the long term.”

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Find and apply online for competitive grant opportunities from all Federal grant-making agencies.

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Hall, Daria. (2007, August) Graduation matters: Improving accountability for high school graduation. Washington D.C.: The Education Trust. This brief 10-page paper argues that graduation requirements set under NCLB are too low. It includes a table of state-by-state graduation rate requirements accepted under No Child Left Behind.

The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement maintains a School Reform and Improvement Database. Search on “School Engagement” in the keyword field, limit your search to 2000 through 2007, and you will find 65 articles, many of which are available online.

The Houston Independent School District posts on their website an extensive list of dropout prevention strategies.

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www.schoolengagement.org

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