Zero Out Of 44 Students Complete Freshman Year

A new experiment in ending social promotion ended the year with ​“shocking” results at High School in the Community: Not a single one of 44 first-time freshmen earned enough credits to move up to sophomore year.

The results came at the end of the first year of a ​“turnaround” experiment at High School in the Community (HSC), a historically teacher-run school that was formally taken over by the teachers union last year. Teachers, newly empowered to break from traditional practices, have begun to reinvent the high school experience by switching freshmen to a self-paced system where kids move up only when they’ve ​“mastered” specific skills. The goal is to make sure kids learn something instead of breezing through school with Ds.

When school officially ended on June 25, teachers determined that none of the 44 true ​“freshmen” — those in their first year of high school — had mastered enough material to move up a grade, according to HSC Facilitator (aka Principal) Erik Good. (Some kids who were repeating freshman year did earn enough credits to move up.)

Unlike at other schools, the 44 kids won’t have to repeat freshman year. They’ll get an opportunity to finish their work over a new, four-week summer school at HSC. Then, if they need more time, they can start off the year right where they left off instead of repeating entire classes.

Good said about 20 of the 44 appear to be within reach of finishing their work if they show up to summer school. The others will return in the fall as freshmen.

The risk of retention prompted 25 freshmen — and 34 upperclassmen, who have been experiencing the changes to a lesser degree — to sign up for a new four-week summer school at HSC to try to catch up, according to school officials. The group includes well-behaved, diligent students who had easily skated through middle school.

Aaliyah Staton (pictured at the top of this story) was one of 52 students who showed up to summer school on Wednesday, just one day after the official final day of school.

“I never needed summer school,” she said. ​“I don’t like” having to go.

Mom Nilda Paris, who has been very involved at school, said she was confused and ​“shocked” to learn that her daughter, Nikita Rodriguez, would need to take summer classes in order to advance to sophomore year.

“I’m not happy. I’m very frustrated,” she said. ​“It got me surprised that she has to go back to take summer classes and even though I was going to school like two times or three times a day” and meeting with teachers every two weeks ​“to talk about how Nikita was doing, and keep track of her.”

HSC’s experiment follows a national movement among educators to start promoting kids not on a rigid, uniform timeline based on seat time, but on a more flexible timeline based how much they’ve learned—ensuring they finish high school with a clear set of skills. HSC, which serves about 225 local and suburban kids on Water Street, is the first school in the state to fully embrace the new system, called ​“mastery-based learning”; its experiment has been closely watched, in part because it received $2.1 million from the state this year to be part of the new Commissioner’s Network of turnaround schools.

The number of freshmen (officially called ​“foundation-level students”) who make it to sophomore year is a key metric by which the school’s success — and the success of its principal — is being evaluated.

In April, Good had made a more optimistic prognostication: He predicted half of the freshmen may be held back. That would have been a big drop from the school’s previous pass rate, which ranged between 65 and 75 percent, according to Good. No one seemed to expect the eventual zero-percent pass rate.

“I’m not entirely surprised” at the number of freshmen being held back, he said, ​“but I did think we’d have a handful of kids who would have finished and moved on. And we didn’t.”

Good (pictured) said he’s not sure yet what to conclude: ​“Maybe we set the standards too high. Maybe kids came to us too weak.”

In order to move up, kids had to get six credits, including one each in math, science, English and history. To get a credit, they had to score a 3 or 4 on a four-point scale on the school’s new report cards.

Good said he hadn’t had a chance yet to go through kids’ report cards and determine how far behind they are, and in which classes. ​“I want to see what this means,” he said.

2 of 60 Pass Science Class

Science teacher Kelly Baker, who taught four freshman physical chemistry classes, said only two of her students are set to move up to biology next year. Another 18 stand to finish the course over the summer. And a remaining 40 kids will likely return to the same class in the fall.

“The students didn’t really get it,” she said. ​“They’re all behind.”

Baker said students went through a change in mindset throughout the year.

At the beginning, they objected when she began to make them work independently.

“I like the old way of teaching,” they protested. The ​“old way” meant sitting in a chair and taking notes while the teacher delivered information, Baker said. She told her kids that if the ​“old way” worked, they would already understand the material she was presenting, which was supposed to be a review.

“You were taught it, but you didn’t learn it,” she recalled telling them. 

Baker, who has eight years’ experience teaching, said in a traditional high school, many of the kids would have passed her class with Ds. HSC raised the bar on what it means to pass a class — not just sitting in the chair and behaving well, but mastering the material.

In math class, teachers struggled with students who came to the school with math skills as low as the 2nd-grade level. Getting them to master 9th-grade material would take years’ worth of catching up.

Baker noted one benefit of HSC’s system: Unlike in traditional high schools, kids who didn’t pass a class won’t have to repeat the entire course again. They’ll just finish the units they haven’t mastered.

“They can just pick up where they left off,” she said.

The school has created new, half-year classes to accommodate kids’ individual paces. (Scheduling has been difficult, to say the least.)

“I’m Gonna Try”

Student responses have varied. Freshman Calvin Hernandez (pictured), who plans to attend summer school in upcoming weeks, took responsibility of his situation.

“I got behind because I didn’t do any work,” he confessed. He said he passed bike shop and social studies class, but still needs to catch up in other courses. In Algebra I, he got through four of six units, which means he could be within reach of completing the course.

His goal for the summer is to finish math and art class. He said he expects to be a freshman again in the fall, but just for the first quarter. After snagging his sixth credit, he said, he expects to move up.

Despite the extra summer hours (half-day sessions lasting four weeks), Calvin gave a positive review of the new way of doing high school. Calvin said he likes the system because if you work hard, ​“you can go ahead.”

Aaliyah said she didn’t like the new independent-pacing system at first, but she’s getting ​“used to it.”

She said she passed some classes, but didn’t make it through enough math or science to get a credit.

“I don’t really understand science,” she said.

Aaliyah said she plans to work over the summer to catch up, but she has a long way to go in phy-chem class. ​“I’m gonna try,” she said, but ​“I think I’m gonna be in Baker’s [class] next year.”

Aaliyah’s close friend, Serena Santiago (pictured), finds herself in a similar situation: Grudgingly agreeing to keep working through July.

“I never had to go to summer school,” she said. ​“I don’t want to.”

She said she made it through English and history class, but not math or science. She said working independently has been especially tough: ​“I need to be taught,” she said. ​“I can’t just be handed out stuff.”

Mom ​“Disappointed”

Paris (pictured with her daughter, Nikita) said she started the year with ​“high expectations” for HSC’s new way of teaching kids. She said she agreed with the fundamental premise that ​“you cannot keep passing these kids from year to year and grade by grade without them mastering” the material. She said she appreciates all that HSC staff has done to work with her daughter. After struggling with bullies in her younger years, Nikita is happy in high school.

But now Paris is skeptical about HSC’s approach to academics. She said during the year, she did all a parent could do: She talked with every one of her daughter’s teachers at least every other week. She checked Nikita’s homework. She read all the new descriptions on the new report cards. She sent her daughter to after-school help, according to the school’s recommendation. ​“I was after her, and I was after them all the time, asking how she was doing. I was the one who was asking for extra work.”

She said there were ​“a few times Nikita put aside what she was supposed to do” in school and ​“followed other kids.” But her daughter ​“recognized that” and got back on track.

She said teachers gave her the impression that ​“everything was OK. She was doing the job. She was doing the effort in order to accomplish that. All the time I was receiving these compliments. … I was believing it. And now, oh my God! I was upset.”

“At the end of the year, I don’t want surprises,” Paris said. ​“It doesn’t make sense.”

Paris has devoted a lot of time this year escorting her daughter to school from their home in Bridgeport. First, they were spending hours on public buses; after she got a car, she began driving her daughter. Her dedication comes out of the belief that education is the pathway out of poverty.

“There’s a lot of things I have to sacrifice just for this,” she said. ​“Everything we do. Every single day. Five o’clock in the morning.”

Paris said she is ​“very upset” and ​“disappointed” that her daughter may be held back. Kids shouldn’t have to stay in high school for more than four years, she reasoned. ​“She’s going to be a grown woman and still in school. I’m not making all this sacrifice for that.”

Paris said she likes the idea behind the mastery-based system. But it doesn’t make sense to slam kids with a whole different way of learning once they hit 9th grade. ​“The system should start in 1st grade — not in high school,” she said. ​“It’s very shocking.”

If Nikita doesn’t catch up over the summer, she threatened, ​“I’m going to withdraw her from that school.”

Freshman Boot Camp

Good outlined several next steps for the school’s experiment-in-progress.

After summer school ends, and teachers get a final count of how many kids are moving up, teachers will work to ​“calibrate” the new system between classes, so that teachers have common expectations for what it means to pass a class. Those expectations were very much in flux over the year, as teachers rewrote curricula based on the Common Core State Standards, and worked by department to figure out just what it means to ​“master” each set of skills.

Next fall, teachers plan to corral new freshmen into a group of their own. Much like the ​“Freshman Academy” at James Hillhouse and Wilbur Cross, new, age-appropriate freshmen at HSC will have their own wing of the school. (Older kids who transfer to HSC after failing in traditional environments won’t be part of the group.) Four teachers will be responsible for teaching the freshmen English, math, science and history.

Teachers Sarah Marchesi and Matt Presser, who came up with the idea, pitched it to their colleagues at a recent staff meeting along with Baker and Wayne Austin, who are joining the effort. They argued that four teachers concentrating all their energy on freshmen would lead to better collaboration, interdisciplinary work, and shared expectations for kids. Kids will get a common, focused introduction to ​“mastery-based learning,” and a year-long freshman seminar teaching study skills.

After some reservations about ostracizing kids from the rest of the school, teachers voiced unanimous support for the proposal. Good said the year-long seminar would help the freshmen (called ​“foundation-year students”) be more successful than they were this year.

“One reason so many foundation kids failed this year was because they didn’t know what mastery was,” he said.

“In the beginning, there was no way we could accurately explain to kids what mastery was,” added Cameo Thorne, one of four teachers who run the school. She said the school needs to ​“explicitly teach habits of mind” for learning under the new system, which requires much more independence.

Good said HSC’s version of a freshman academy will help ​“stabilize” the transition from middle to high school. The new setup will eliminate the problem of having different teachers with different expectations for academics and behavior. And students will be less ​“distracted” by older peers and whatever else they might come across by moving classes through the rest of the building.

If it works, fewer kids will finish the year like Aaliyah, Nikita and their peers, disappointed about not moving up.

Good was asked about the risk of losing kids who are held back. One main reason kids transfer out of Achievement First charter schools is to avoid repeating a grade, according to school officials there.

“It’s possible that will be a consequence,” replied Good. But New Haven is set to expand mastery-based learning to five other high schools. Soon, kids won’t be able to leave HSC and skate through another high school with Ds.

“When everyone else is transitioning to mastery-based learning,” Good said, ​“there will be no place to hide.”

Previous Independent stories on High School in the Community:

• Solanlly’s Tale Sways UConn
• ​“I Sat Down & I Grew Up”
• Jury Sentences Jayla To Her Own Punishment
• Teachers Clash With Union Prez Over Turnaround
• 91 – 39 Blowout Comes With A Lesson For Victors
• New Haven Rallies For Solanlly & Chastity
• Social Promotion Vow Put To The Test
• HSC Heads To Capitol For New Diplomas
• She Awoke To A New Life — & A New Mission
• High School Of The Future Debuts, Briefly
• Gay-Rights Teach-In Goes Off-Script
• Nikita Makes It Home
• 15 Seniors Head To College Early
• No More ​“B And A Smile”
• Students Protest: ​“Give Us Homework!”
• Meadow Street Clamps Down On Turnaround
• School Votes For Hats; District Brass Balks
• Students Invoke Free Speech In Great Hat Debate
• Guv: End Social Promotion
• History Class Hits The Streets
• ​“Misfit Josh” & Alex Get A 2nd Chance
• Guess Who’s Assigning The Homework Now
• On Day 1, HSC Students Enter A New World
• Frank Reports Detail Experiment’s Ups & Downs
• School Ditches Factory ​“Assembly Line”
• State ​“Invites” HSC To Commissioner’s Network
• Teachers Union Will Run New ​“Turnaround”