There’s no silver bullet for high schools — no one program that works for every student. In Portland Public Schools, several models are demonstrating success in helping students graduate: Grant High School, a large comprehensive school that consistently maintains high graduation rates among its diverse students; SEIS, a small school on the Roosevelt Campus with graduation rates higher than the PPS average; and MLC, a district-run alternative with its own unique philosophy, and the highest graduation rate last year of all PPS schools.
Grant High School
1,553 students, 91.5 percent graduation rate
Portland Public Schools’ largest high school offers a huge variety of academic and extracurricular choices, and focuses attention on freshmen to help them connect with teachers and fellow students.
Size matters. With the largest student body among PPS high schools, Northeast Portland’s Grant also has the most teachers and can afford a tremendous variety of classes from standard ninth-grade English through a host of Advanced Placement and elective classes.
The challenging classes and high expectations help Grant’s students succeed. But Principal Joseph Malone says extracurricular activities, too, have a “humongous” impact on keeping students engaged in school and on track to graduation: “They have a reason and a connection to come to school.”
The school seems to have it all: championship sports teams, band, chorus, mock trial and Constitution teams, plays, dance and more than 30 student clubs including knitting, environmental, bowling and snowboarding clubs.
In the grand scheme of things, Grant isn’t all that large. Some high schools in surrounding districts to the east and in Beaverton are close to twice its size, and even Grant during the peak of the Baby Boom edged close to 3,000 students.
But students now arriving from far smaller middle and K-8 schools can sometimes feel lost in the mix.
“It seemed really big, and the halls seemed really crowded,” recalls senior Hannah Olson of her arrival at Grant. “I was overwhelmed because there was so much to do, but excited at the same time.”
Grant works hard to help its entering student capitalize on the excitement — and avoid being overwhelmed.
For eight years, it has offered ninth-grade communities, breaking down each freshman class of more than 400 students into groups of about 85 to 90 students. Each community — known as G, R, A, N and T — takes Biology, English and Modern World History from the same three teachers. And each community is assigned one of Grant’s five counselors, who will stay with those same students through graduation. Those teachers get to know the students, and the kids get to know each other.
Vice Principal Kim Patterson says she deliberately mixes up the students in each academy, giving each a true cross-section of the population: no tracking here.
On a recent morning, eight students from the A community gathered in a hallway outside English class, practicing their modern English translation of a scene from “Romeo and Juliet.” All Grant freshmen now, those eight came from seven schools and had never met before, but by May they were familiar classmates.
“It was a chance to meet new people,” says 14-year-old Mallory Oslund, “and stick with them, and see familiar faces throughout the year.”
Jordan Shellmire, 15, followed his sister to Grant from Beaumont Middle School. But she came before Grant established communities. “It was more chaotic,” Jordan says. “It wasn’t as smooth a transition.”
The community teachers, counselors and special education staff meet regularly for shared planning and team time. They touch base on lesson plans and curriculum, and develop ways to support and challenge talented and gifted students and those who are struggling. They check in with each other about individual students: who’s not getting their work done, who seems distracted, troubled or simply bored, who’s skipping class. As a community team, they decide how to take action: who can call home, which teacher might check in with the student, who can arrange extra support outside of class.
Every community class has at least one student mentor — a high-achieving senior who attends the class, helps students with their learning and even teaching mini-lessons to support the teacher.
Down the hall from the “Romeo and Juliet” practice, Hannah Olson works with freshman Dalon Goodman, who had missed a couple days of school. Dalon says he appreciates the personal attention and help, which would be tough to get from his teacher during the class.
“They help with my work and make sure I understand,” he says. “I’m going to catch up on my work and get it done.”
Principal Malone also makes sure he adds his own personal touch to the campus. In this year’s entering class, 145 students were identified as “academic priority” students, based on their eighth-grade performance in their core classes and the eighth-grade state assessments. One by one, Malone is meeting with students in his office, talking with them about their goals and how they can improve in the classroom. Not only does he get their commitment, but he has the students take their plans to their parents — building buy-in to help their high school students succeed.
Ninth-grade communities, student mentors and personal attention: All help students make the most of what Grant has to offer while creating a more personal transition. And that helps students stay on track to earn their diploma, Malone says. “To me,” he says, “the freshman year is crucial.”
Spanish English International School (SEIS)
225 students, 71.1 percent graduation
With rigorous courses and teachers and staff that offer individual attention, this small school beats the district average, although it educates students that typically are not well-served by PPS high schools.
The Spanish English International School on the Roosevelt Campus could be a case study on the power of high expectations, wraparound support and individual attention in raising graduation rates.
SEIS’ incoming students are not predestined to earn a diploma. Most would be the first in their families to graduate from high school, let alone go on to college. Almost two-thirds of students are deemed “academic priority” because they failed a core course in eighth grade, didn’t perform well on their state assessments or need emotional support because of personal or family situations.
The statistics go on: 80 percent from low-income homes; almost 30 percent currently learning English (others already learned English as their second language), and more than half Latino — all populations that Portland Public Schools often fails to get to graduation.
But the power of SEIS is that the teachers and staff there don’t see the statistics: They see individual students, with individual needs and individual strengths.
And they care enough to help them succeed. Despite the apparent disadvantages facing the school and its students, SEIS posted a 71.1 percent graduation rate last year, almost three points higher than the PPS average.
Leo Colegio, finishing his first year as SEIS administrator, says part of the success is due to asking a lot of the students with rigorous and interesting school work — and supporting them to achieve more than they might have thought possible. “We try to give them something for them to really bite into,” he says.
- SEIS is offering six Advanced Placement (AP) classes this year, up from three just a couple of years ago.
- The school offers AVID, an elective course that prepares students with the skills they need to be successful in college: learning to take notes, do research, organize their work and develop critical thinking and work habits.
- Electives challenge students to look toward their future, whether through the Judicial Systems/Mock Trial classes that work with volunteer attorneys, or the Bilingual Future Educators class or Small Business Economics.
- True to the school’s international theme, all students must take four years of Spanish. The four-year track for native Spanish speakers leads up to AP Spanish Language and AP Spanish Literature; those classes offer a chance for Spanish speakers to excel at reading literature and writing, even if they may still struggle in English.
“Our teachers are extremely focused on rigor,” says teacher Hallie Gleason. “Any kid can achieve. There’s a real focus on that and a real energy toward that. There’s a constant challenge to kids as they walk in the door.”
But that’s only part of the story. Colegio attributes some of the rest to persistence and paperwork. Across PPS, when students leave school, few bother to withdraw formally. Three-quarters just stop showing up. Those no-shows count against a school’s graduation rate.
At SEIS, the secretary, counselor and a teacher set to work part-time on checking the student records, and trying to track down the missing students. With other teachers’ help, they talked to each no-show student’s teachers, friends, parents, cousins — anyone who might know where the student was. Some had dropped out, but others moved out of state or entered a different school. A few came back to school. Reducing the unknowns helped the numbers.
That persistent attitude and outreach continues. Colegio heard that one student stopped coming to school after she got married.
“I called the house and talked to her,” he said. “She said she’d be in on Monday, and she’s been coming in every since.”
The school wraps support around its students. Incoming freshmen who struggled in eighth grade — whether in their core courses or on state assessments — are eligible for Step Up after-school mentoring and tutoring. A full-time social worker on campus helps connect kids to counseling, rent aid, food boxes, gang prevention referrals and mentorships. And the entire staff keeps an eye out for the juniors and seniors most at risk to not graduate.
Every Thursday students have a 45-minute advisory period — time to check in about issues coming up, work on their study skills and to make sure everyone’s still on track.
SEIS teachers — and there are only 16 in all — meet at least weekly by grade level to compare notes on students and develop action plans for those who may be slipping. One teacher might call home, another will pull the student’s work samples, and another will sit down with the student. All to figure out, as Colegio says: “What do we have to do for this one kid. My sense is these kids would be lost in a comprehensive. They’d just stop coming.”
Senior Shelby Davis agrees. She spent two years on transfer to a much larger PPS high school, with “too many people, and overcrowded classrooms.”
“There were some teachers who cared,” she says. “But at lot of the teachers were more like: This is my job. I have to do this.” She skipped school often, and got into trouble. That school’s counselor suggested she’d be better off back at her neighborhood school. They were right.
At SEIS, Shelby is taking Mock Trial, AP English Composition and AP Environmental Science, and she wouldn’t dare miss a day of school because she’d fall behind. Next year she’s heading to Portland State University.
“It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it,” she said. “And everyone’s friendly here.”
Metropolitan Learning Center K-12,
135 high school students, 96.8 percent graduation
MLC, an alternative school, is creative and flexible in its highly personalized program, which gives students freedom and responsibility for their own education and yields the district’s highest graduation rate.
The Metropolitan Learning Center is unique, and has been since its founding in 1968. Nestled in a former elementary school in urban Northwest Portland, MLC offers an alternative for students and families who might not fit in at PPS’ regular schools.
How is MLC different? As the application materials state, the academic program focuses on “experiential learning, character development, service to the community and the pleasures of life and learning,” for what it calls a “project and adventure based learning environment.”
MLC is the only public school in the city serving kindergarten through 12th grade — and the high school lockers are deliberately outside the youngest kids’ classroom to mix the age groups.
All students and staff are on a first-name basis. There are no hall passes, and middle and high school students have an hour for lunch and can go off-campus. There are no grades, but teachers give regular progress reports and students must meet a high benchmark of proficiency in a subject, 85 percent, to earn full credit for a class. All students annually compile and present a portfolio of their learning.
As Principal Scotto — or Frank, as everyone knows him — says, it’s not for everyone: “You have to buy in to our philosophy here.”
Delaney Green, a graduating senior, came to MLC after starting at a much larger suburban high school, where she felt treated like student “number 32259” and says too many teachers treated their work as “just a an 8-to-3 job.” At MLC, she said, “the sense of community and friendship and companion is just so much more. … You’re going to be part of their life and they’re going to be part of your life.”
Her classmate Alex Clemens agrees: “Education is valued, not industrialized.”
The school doesn’t accept students through the district’s choice lottery. Rather, a separate application process requires a letter of interest for the student and from a parent or guardian; a letter of reference from the student’s current school; and a signed statement of understanding about the school’s mission and philosophy.
If all that sounds selective, and thus elitist, that’s far from the outcome.
MLC doesn’t look for the highest grades, Scotto says, but rather for students who will thrive in the school’s unusual environment. That means students of varying abilities and backgrounds who can handle the freedom and responsibility, and who are comfortable working independently, interested in the academic program and willing to treat others with courtesy and respect.
While MLC has few students of color, that masks the actual great diversity among the students. Almost a third of students come from lower-income homes, and MLC has also been a refuge for gay students. Unusual for PPS high schools, MLC has high and balanced percentages both of students eligible for special education services (21.5 percent) and those identified as TAG, or talented and gifted (17.9 percent) — and both groups are fully integrated into all the classes.
Students who might get picked on in many schools are welcomed at MLC. “It’s a safe environment,” Scotto says. “Everyone’s accepted.”
MLC keeps its high school enrollment at about 140. It has only five classroom teachers and a special education teacher dedicated to those students. That means every high school student takes math from one teacher, science from another and French or Spanish from a third.
To give the students a full range of academics and experiences, the school staff gets creative. Students must complete community service, and many earn credits for independent projects. Many teach an elective class or two, on top of their core assignments, and many are certified to teach in multiple subjects.
Alex, the senior, remembers his architecture class, taught by an English teacher, where students drew “floor plans for ridiculous houses that would never be built.” MLC recently offered a cooking class taught in Spanish: Arte de Culinario.
Some things MLC can’t offer because of its small size: To compete athletically, students must join their neighborhood school’s sports teams, and extracurricular activities are limited.
Teachers get to know their students inside and out — their talents, strengths, motivations and good and bad habits. Counselors also meet weekly with mixed grades of high school students in a guidance period.
If a student isn’t on track to graduate, parents and teachers know it and can try to find solutions in their regular meetings. “You can see it coming,” Scotto says of students who don’t earn a diploma. “There was one girl last year, and we were working with her since junior year.”
National research and local focus groups of dropouts agree: The key to increasing graduate rates is making engaging students and creating connections among students, their families and teachers. That seems to be the critical ingredient at MLC.
“You’re not going to fall through the cracks,” Scotto says. He notes that most high school reformers preach the virtues of personalization.
“Here,” he says, “you have one of the best chances of pulling it off.”
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Carole Smith PPS Superintendentsuperintendent@pps.k12.or.us
