Mayor Kenney, Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez and AT&T Mid-Atlantic President Mike Schweder presented a $500,000 AT&T Foundation grant to support ninth-grade students at Frankford High School through Johns Hopkins’ Talent Development Secondary Diplomas Now program on October 14th.
Diplomas Now partners with the school community to reorganize the schedule so each student at risk has caring adults and those adults have the tools to improve achievement. Working with administrators and teachers, a Diplomas Now team sets goals based on students’ attendance, behavior and course performance. They develop a strategic plan, implement an early warning system to identify struggling students and regularly review the data. Teachers and the Diplomas Now team craft individual student plans that include more math and English time and teacher teams with shared planning time.
Read this excellent report from Newsworks at this link. It explains what the problems are and possible solutions to keeping students in school to graduate. Its long but the problem is complex. Take the time. These kids are the future.
