New Ways to Identify Struggling Students
February 21, 2019
By: Tara Garcia Mathewson
Source: The Hechinger Report
Five years ago, if teachers or administrators wanted to identify the struggling students they might be missing, they would have had to spend hours combing through spreadsheets, piecing together risk profiles. Now, a software program does that automatically, tracking dozens of factors related to student performance, attendance and behavior, and updating risk levels for every student monthly. Importantly, all the adults in the building have access to this information and they can add their own notes about students so that new insights are shared. Every time someone intervenes with a student and tries something to get or keep that child on track, it’s logged.
That’s a big change from how things happened before. Armstrong said the district is full of people who care deeply about serving students at risk of failing or dropping out. But five years ago, everyone was working alone.