Case Study of a Massachusetts High School with Improving
Cohort Graduation Rates and Declining Annual Dropout Rates:
Malden High School
Malden, MA
Hallmarks of Malden’s Strategies
Strong and consistent school
leadership for the vision of
“graduation and beyond” for
ALL students
Early intervention to identify
at-risk students and
individualize programs
Relentless focus on reaching
at-risk students
Recognition of students’
mental health needs
Flexibility and creativity in
definition of staff roles,
scheduling, programming,
and credit options
Services onsite to facilitate
student participation
Prepared by RMC Research
for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
June 2015
Introduction to the Case Study Project
The Malden High School case study is one in a series of three school profiles that describe how high
schools in Massachusetts are increasing graduation rates and simultaneously reducing the number of
students who drop out of school. The profiles highlight strategies used by the high schools, including
programs and roles supported by MassGrad grants (funded through the federal High School Graduation
Initiative) as part of Massachusetts’ College and Career Readiness strategy.
Massachusetts has made great strides in increasing statewide high school cohort graduation rates and
decreasing annual dropout rates over the last five years. These positive changes are the result of an
emphasis on the importance of improvement in these two areas from the Massachusetts Department of
Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) and the dedicated, thoughtful work of school districts and
schools to better meet student needs.
In 2014 ESE commissioned RMC Research to study and profile three of the high schools that have made
steady progress in increasing high school graduation rates and decreasing high school dropout rates:
Malden High School, Turners Falls High School in the Gill-Montague School District, and West
Springfield High School. The purpose of these case studies is to provide information for other school
districts on promising strategies to support dropout prevention and increasing graduation rates. The
three high schools were selected to maximize the variation in geography, high school size, and student
body demographics. Each of the high schools has a range of effective strategies. Malden is a large urban
school in the Boston area with an ethnically diverse student body. By contrast, Turners Falls High School
in the western rural part of the state has a student body of about 260 students. West Springfield serves
an urban and suburban area with a student population that is increasingly economically disadvantaged.
As the case studies illustrate, the three schools have made documented progress in improving
graduation rates while reducing the number of dropouts, and also improved student achievement as
measured by MCAS results. The case studies describe how they achieved those improvements including
the actions district and school leaders took to stimulate changes, the new roles that were introduced,
and the types of supports that were developed for students at-risk of failing to graduate or dropping
out. Each case study concludes with a distillation of lessons from the school’s experience that might be
applied to other high schools.
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is grateful for the district and
school staff included in the case study project. Staff were generous with their time, which resulted in the
rich information presented in all of the case studies representing the great work happening in each
school. Thank you.
1
“Continually developing alternatives and
finding new ways to make connections
with at-risk students.”
Malden Staff
Malden High School
spend their high school careers within one
house structure. As a further strategy for
creating smaller learning environments, each
house has its own Ninth Grade Academy of
approximately 100-125 students; each of the
four ninth grade academies has its own
dedicated staff.
is a large urban school with a diverse school
population located in Malden, Massachusetts,
about five miles northwest of Boston. Malden’s
five public K-8 schools feed into Malden High
School. The community also has a K-12 charter
high school and a Catholic elementary and high
school. The school population is diverse and
To meet the needs of students who require an
currently serves students from a variety of
alternative to the typical high school program,
countries including Brazil, China, Haiti, India,
the Pathways program provides an array of
Korea, Laos, Portugal, Vietnam, several Arabic
educational, counseling, outreach, and
speaking countries, Africa, and several Spanishtransitional programs and services through a
speaking countries. A
separate organizational
2013 assessment of
unit located in the high
Malden population: 60,500
the racial balance in
school, serving an
Malden
HS:
1,869
students
the Commonwealth's
additional 100-110
public and charter
students.
59% low income
high schools found
12% English learners
Malden High School
Malden High to be the
14%
students
with
disabilities
operates a rotating
most diverse public
five/six block schedule,
28% White, 22% Hispanic,
high school in
including a lunch block
Massachusetts.
24% Asian, 21% African American
that varies and monthly
Number
of
teachers:
116
In service of the high
late-entry Mondays that
school’s vision of
are set aside for all-staff
Per pupil expenditure: $12,792
ensuring
meetings, i.e. students
opportunities for ALL
have a late start; blocks
students, the structure of the school is
are approximately 45-60 minutes in length.
organized into smaller units to create
Courses meet six times in a seven-day cycle.
environments that are conducive to relationship
Until the class of 2015, 20 credits had been
building between students and staff. The school
required to graduate; beginning with the class
population is organized into four houses, each
of 2015, one additional credit is now required. A
of which serves grades 9-12 and has its own
full-year course is the equivalent of 1.0 credit; a
principal and support staff. Each house has
credit is earned when a student successfully
approximately 400-450 students who typically
passes the course at the end of the year.
2
About six years ago, Principal Dana Brown was
motivated to explore ways to address the needs
of Malden’s at-risk students as he observed
individual students who operated in the
community as competent adults but who had
experienced difficulty obtaining enough credits
to graduate.
graduating. When “life got in the way” (e.g., job
demands, family illness, pregnancy), they could
no longer persevere and dropped out.
The insights from the review spurred strategies
for finding alternatives to help all students be
successful in graduating through a combination
of programmatic initiatives such as the ninth
grade summer transition program, new staff
roles such as the Navigator/social worker, and
relationship building to create more staff
connections with students through activities
such as mentoring.
When Malden decided to apply for a MassGrad
awardi, the administrative team reviewed the
histories of students who had dropped out of
high school. The data revealed that many
students were coming close to graduation
(“hanging in there for four to five years”). They
weren’t attaining enough credits to graduate
but many were coming within one course of
“I tell teachers that what we are doing is working for 90-95% of the kids
but for 5-10%, we need to figure out something different.”
Dana Brown, Principal
3
Indicators of Improvement
The statistics in the table below tell the story of what has been accomplished since the 2008-09 school
year at Malden High School.

Malden reduced the annual dropout rate by over two percentage points, and 44 less students
dropped out since the 2009-10 school year.

At the same time, student achievement on state assessments improved; the percentage of
grade 10 students scoring proficient or higher on the ELA and math MCAS increase by 10-12
percentage points—approaching the state average proficiency rates.

In the crucial ninth grade year almost 10% more students now are promoted to tenth grade
compared to six years ago.
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12
2012-13
2013-14
STATE
AVG.
2013-14
Annual Dropout Rate (%)
4.2
(n=72)
4.9
(n=83)
3.6
(n=64)
2.2
(n=40)
2.7
(n=50)
2.2
(n=39)
2.0
4-Year Cohort Graduation
Rate (%)
75.4
71.6
75.4
78.2
78.0
80.9
86.1
5-Year Cohort Graduation
Rate (%)
81.1
75.8
82.1
86
82.4
--
87.7
Absent 10 or More Days (%)
42.8
46.4
37.8
35.9
31.7
35.4
36
Promoted from 9th to 10th
Grade (%)
81
80
81
85
89
88
92
MCAS Grade 10 Eng. Lang.
Arts Proficient or Higher (%)
75
77
77
86
83
86
90
MCAS Grade 10 Math
Proficient or Higher (%)
66
72
71
79
71
78
79
36.3
35
34.8
42.2
33.3
40.4
72.4
Indicators
MassCore Completion (%)
4
On a monthly basis, staff reach out to students
who have formerly dropped out of school to try
to re-engage them. Creating workable
strategies to motivate students requires
continual communication among the school’s
adults to share their reasoning and decisions
about individual students. The process is
described by several as “relational
accountability”—adults keeping each other true
to the vision of “doing what is best for kids” by
continually discussing decisions with other
involved adults. At Malden High School, those
discussions about individual students take place
formally as part of Student Support Team
meetings and through daily informal exchanges
among administrators, counselors, and faculty.
Shared Philosophy
The initiatives Malden implemented over the
past decade have been informed by a core set
of principles that provide philosophical
coherence to an ever-increasing number of
strategies aimed at reducing the number of
dropouts and increasing the graduation rate.
Administrators and faculty members refer often
to five core principles that apply regardless of
the initiative they are discussing. The shared
focus on these principles helps to ensure
sustainability of focus on graduation as leaders
transition, grant programs change, and new
opportunities and challenges arise.
Student-Centered Vision
Core Principles in the
Malden Philosophy
Dana Brown has been Malden’s principal for
over a decade. Staff frequently credit his strong
and consistent student-centered leadership as
the foundation for creating the conditions that
have reduced the number of dropouts and
improved graduation rates. Brown notes the
importance of regularly reinforcing to staff that
the regular high school program works for 9095% of Malden’s students but extra effort is
required for the 5-10% for whom standard
strategies are not effective. For those students,
the whole school must commit to finding
different paths and making meaningful
connections with individual students—a mantra
often repeated by administrators, counselors,
and other staff. From a guidance counselor:
“Our whole school has taken up making
meaningful connections with students.”
 Lead with a studentcentered vision that is
articulated by the principal
and reinforced by staff
 Take advantage of all
options with an attitude of
problem solving, flexibility,
and creativity
 Identify and target at-risk
students early
 Provide services onsite to
facilitate participation
 Expand awareness of how
mental health issues affect
at-risk students
The vision is cast by school leadership as
“graduation and beyond” and includes
relentless outreach to those students who have
left school.
5
Flexibility
Early Identification
“We build programs around
individual kids.”
The Malden team puts a premium on early
identification of at-risk students, using data
tools including the Massachusetts Early
Warning Indicator System (EWIS), to ensure
that the progress of ninth grade students is
carefully monitored. Ninth grade adjustment
counselors begin the process by working with
eighth grade students on a smooth transition to
high school; they reach out to 9th grade
students individually shortly after they enter
high school so they can make immediate
program adjustments as needed. By the end of
the first month of school, the Navigator asks
teachers to identify 9th grade students who may
be at-risk of failure; counselors use EWIS to
keep a ”watch list” updated. Similarly, house
principals ask each teacher to identify 10
students by the end of the first month of school
who may need additional supports. If the
current program isn’t working for those
students, the principals want to know soon so
they can refer students to adjustment
counselors.
Finding workable strategies for at-risk students
requires adults to be problem solvers, creative
in their thinking, and willing to question
practices and rules that may be barriers. The
whole school’s philosophy as described by the
director of the alternative program Pathways:
“We build programs around individual kids.”
Malden’s Student Support Team is empowered
to apply interventions in a flexible manner (e.g.,
double doses of academic courses, credit
recovery, special education-like intervention
services for individuals without IEPs on a shortterm basis).
Malden High School abounds with other
examples of flexibility: varied daily and annual
schedules for students who are working, online
options for credit recovery, and some staff roles
that have built-in flexibility. As one counselor
noted: “We have 5-10 key people who each
wear 5-10 hats.”
Onsite Services
One such less-structured role is the Navigator,
a social worker, who is available to address the
dynamic and emerging needs of the most at-risk
students as they occur during the school day.
She describes the importance of having “flexible
people in flexible roles,” able to address
individual student crises immediately and
available to students at all times during the
school day. Understandably, staff with highly
structured roles may have difficulty
understanding the functions of a colleague with
an unstructured schedule; the value is best
demonstrated when they jointly work together
to address individual student issues. One house
principal described the importance of keeping
some roles less structured: “…the more organic
the better. You don’t want to structure
something too much and ruin the culture.”
“If we provide services in the school
setting, students are more apt to use
them.”
Pathways school adjustment counselor
Students are more likely to take advantage of
special supports if they are located at the school
so the Malden team has continually brought
more options onto the school campus, starting
with the relocation of the Pathways Alternative
School that had been located in a separate site.
Also located on campus are a GED program that
operates in the evenings and a satellite campus
of Bunker Hill Community College Program to
facilitate dual enrollment course taking.
As indicated later, some health and human
service agency providers, such as Eliot
Community Human Services and South Bay
6
Mental Health, provide therapy to individual
students onsite.
reactions in the classroom and learn how to
manage these triggers can be more effective in
their responses to negative behavior (e.g., “It’s
not the students, it’s the behavior that’s the
problem”). When teachers have someone to
help them understand the student’s
circumstances outside of school, they can
better address their own frustrations. In the
words of a counselor, “It’s possible that faculty
may be judging/reacting to a student’s behavior
based on their own background and not
understanding that the student was probably
raised in a different background with different
behavioral standards/circumstances.”
Attention to Mental Health
“Professional development needs to be
focused around mental health issues –
these students are suffering from trauma,
alcohol and drug abuse problems,
depression, often facing multiple
obstacles.”
Pathways school adjustment counselor
Administrators and staff have participated in
professional development about ways to work
with students who have mental health needs,
including those who have experienced trauma
and are facing multiple obstacles such as
depression and alcohol and drug abuse. In
addition, the school opened up professional
development about mental health to
community members to extend the dialogue
about supporting young people in the school
and community. The school invited 50
community members to participate along with
the Malden High School staff. Two hundred
people attended, and five community social
workers and clinicians led discussions in small
groups of 13-14 people.
Future Plans
In the planning stages now is a new program
that will exemplify the five core principles
underlying Malden High School’s philosophy.
IDEA (the International Day and Evening
Academy) will be a school-within-a-school
targeted at English language learners who are
over-age and/or have gaps in their education—
a subgroup at-risk of dropping out. IDEA is
expected to open in the Fall 2015. It emerged as
an idea from Malden teachers and was
developed through a planning grant from the
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education. The school plans to open
with 40 students and add 10 students per year.
IDEA will partner with services in the
community such as the Immigrant Learning
Center to meet students’ cultural interests and
language needs.
The Pathways adjustment counselor/social
worker pointed out the importance of
supporting staff and promoting self-care.
Faculty members who understand which
student behaviors “trigger” their unconstructive
“Our whole school has taken up making meaningful connections with
students and keeping an eye toward their future education”
Ninth grade counselor
7
Malden High School
Supports for At-Risk Students
• Ninth Grade Academy
• Ninth Grade
Adjustment
Counselors
• Pathways Alternative School
• Middle-to-High School
Transition Program
• Credit Recovery Program
• Summer Trajectory
Enhancement Program
(STEP)
• Graduation,
Promotion, Success
(GPS) Navigator
Student
Programs
Ninth
Grade
Scaffolds
Roles and
Support
Structures
Community
Partnerships
• Malden's Promise
• Mentoring (Adult
Advocates)
• Bunker Hill Community
College Dual
Enrollment Program
• Data Team
• Onsite Health and
Human Service Agency
Providers
• Student Support Team
8
Pathways also added student supports along
the way (e.g., adjustment counselor, social
worker, behaviorist, internship coordinator to
make connections to community partnerships)
to improve the graduation rate. The adjustment
counselor provides both individual and group
therapy; helping students—especially those
who have been out of school for some time—
manage the stresses of school.
Student Programs
The Malden team created two main programs
that are specifically designed to support
students that are most at-risk for dropping out
of high school: the Pathways Alternative School
and credit recovery.
Pathways Alternative School
Pathways operates three daily sessions (full-day
7:30-2:15, mid-day 11:45-2:15, afternoon 2:305:00) to accommodate the needs of students
who are working or caring for families, including
those who have dropped out and returned to
school. The program offers opportunities for
service- or work-based learning as well as online
courses and other opportunities at the high
school. Pathways supports the skills students
need for graduation, and also the skills needed
to have a successful career beyond graduation.
Malden had a long-standing, off-campus
alternative program designed for Malden High
School students at-risk of dropping out. In 2009,
Principal Brown decided to make some key
changes to combat the program’s negative
image, which had been exacerbated by isolation
from the high school. He brought the initiative
onto campus, relocating 108 students to the
high school.
“We stay in touch every month with
students who have dropped out. We make
continuous outreach to dropouts to get
them back in school. We don’t give up on
kids.”
Internally and externally, Pathways has come to
be viewed as an opportunity for students at-risk
for dropping out of high school to obtain a
diploma, and students consider the program to
be a privilege, an opportunity to be taken
seriously. Buy-in from students is impressive;
for many, they are seeing success for the first
time. Through the Pathways program, students
overcome “learned helplessness” as they learn
to get the supports and resources they need to
succeed.
Pathways director
Principal Brown worked with the Pathways
director to integrate the school into the main
campus and add supports. The program began
by occupying two sections of the high school
building; however, staff soon were dissatisfied
because students spent all day in a limited,
isolated space. They began to move forward
with innovations, for example, integrating
Pathways classrooms among the regular
academic classrooms and integrating Pathways
students into the school culture by including
them in opportunities to join extra-curricular
activities and teams and enroll in the Bunker
Hill Community College Dual Enrollment
Program. Now, Pathways is fully integrated into
the whole school—all facilities, classes, and
extra-curricular activities.
“Older students leave the program saying,
‘I overcame so much; I can overcome
things if I ask for help and keep trying; I
can still reach my goals despite adversity.’”
Pathways school adjustment counselor
Pathways classrooms are interspersed among
other Malden High School classrooms and fully
integrated into the building, and Pathways
students participate in all extracurricular
activities. The lessons learned about meeting
individual students’ needs from re-tooling the
Pathways program were foundational to other
9
types of innovations subsequently developed to
help students at-risk of dropping out of school.
are invested in getting to know the ninth grade
students who will stay in the house for all four
years.
Credit Recovery
Ninth grade teachers have
90 minutes of scheduled
common planning time on
four days of each week.
One of those days is
dedicated to meeting with
freshman guidance
counselors and another to meeting with special
education staff. Some interdisciplinary lesson
planning also occurs.
Similar to many high schools, Malden offers
online credit recovery opportunities through
PLATO for students to earn back credits that
they have lost over the course of their academic
career.
Online credit recovery is an option (during the
school year at no cost and in the summer for a
fee) for students who have failed a class, need
more credits in a particular area, or are on the
way to failing a course, for example as a result
of attendance problems. Once approved, online
coursework can be done in school or at home.
Ninth Grade Adjustment Counselors
The two dedicated ninth grade adjustment
counselors (each serves two houses) were
added to the counseling program three years
ago to support transition and adjustment to
high school. Their offices are located near a
science wing where all ninth grade students
take classes and are likely to pass by—they can
keep an eye on the students, have easy access
to checking in with them, and facilitate student
drop-in. Counselors meet with the academic
staff within each house to help identify
appropriate interventions and supports (e.g.,
Pathways) for struggling students.
Pathways students are especially active users of
credit recovery but the option is available to all
Malden students under approved conditions.
Typically 20-25 students are taking online credit
recovery courses, and principals and guidance
staff share progress monitoring of students. The
majority of students who take courses online
have experienced success with an estimated 7585% pass rate.
Ninth Grade Scaffolds
At Malden High School the school adjustment
counselor functions more as a social worker
that a traditional guidance counselor,
addressing mental health needs within a school
setting with the focus on supporting and
advocating for students who may be struggling
socially, emotionally, and/or academically.
Adjustment counselors are available during
teachers’ common prep planning periods to
help support faculty outreach to students and
families.
Malden staff acted on the research that
identifies the critical role that ninth grade plays
in high school graduation by designing a
number of targeted grade nine initiatives.
Ninth Grade Academy
Within each house, ninth grade students are
organized into a Ninth Grade Academy
(approximately 100 students). A team of
teachers (English, mathematics, science, social
studies) in each house provides instruction to
the ninth grade students. Three of the four
subject classes are in adjacent rooms in each
house and the majority of students are
scheduled in the same cohort of classes for
each subject. The house principal and all staff
“We start seeing students individually not
long after they arrive at the high school so
we can start making adjustments early in
their experience.”
Ninth grade counselor
10
100% promotion to the 10th grade. Twenty
students participate for four weeks to engage in
online credit recovery (earning up to 2.5 credits,
representing half the number of credits
students would typically earn in a full school
year) and social-emotional learning activities.
Students engage in academic learning (e.g.,
online credit recovery) and social-emotional
learning activities (e.g., creating a mural project
that focuses on identity development and
personal
growth) with
“STEP has been
high school
wildly
successful and
staff.
Middle-to-High School Transition
Program
The Middle-to-High-School Transition program
is in its fourth year. As described earlier, the
dedicated ninth grade counselors work with
middle school staff and students to ease the
middle-to-high school transition, setting the
tone early on about high school course
selection and college and career planning.
Information shared among staff at the middle
and high schools helps to match the needs of
entering 9th grade students with appropriate
resources at the high school. Counselors host
transition-to-high school meetings in middle
schools at several points in the year prior to
ninth grade and also organize visits to the high
school. New to the program are end-of-the-year
transition meetings for 8th grade students.
reduced the student
A special
retention rate.”
feature of the
Ninth grade
program is
counselor
working with
outside
agencies through connections with community
partners (e.g., college and career readiness
workshops and high ropes course adventures
offered through Project Adventure). The
program also provides service-learning
opportunities. STEP has helped to increase the
9th to 10th grade promotion rate by nearly 10
percentage points over a five-year period.
Once students are in ninth grade, counselors
meet individually with students and family
members for orientation to high school. Work
with families is important because Malden has a
high transiency rate. Counselors meet with the
student and family to provide an orientation to
the high school. In these meetings, counselors
discuss the option of college and the course
requirements for various career options. They
also host a 9th grade family night for parents
and teachers, make outreach to families, plan
with parents, and set up meetings with teaching
teams.
Roles and Support Structures
The Graduation, Promotion, Success
(GPS) Navigator
The focus of the transition experience and
support for students continues into the high
school with activities such as individual
meetings with counselors. The first day of high
school is for 9th grade students only. It gives
them the time to learn about the school and the
opportunities it offers them without distraction.
In addition to adjustment and other counselors,
Malden created the GPS Program (Graduation,
Promotion, Success) with grant funding to
provide the most at-risk students in the
traditional high school with a “Navigator” who
provides individual counseling, group
counseling, and collaborative case
management. While Malden uses the term
“Navigator,” others might label the role a
dropout prevention coordinator or at-risk
coordinator.
Summer Trajectory Enhancement
Program (STEP)
The Summer Trajectory Enhancement Program
(STEP) is a free summer opportunity for current
9th grade students that supports the goal of
11
In reality, the Navigator plays multiple roles:
some level of relationship-building activity is
advocate, graduation coach, therapist,
occurring. Staff have been eager to participate;
homeroom adult, and so forth. She maintains a
the fact that students have identified them as
comfortable classroom drop-in space where
possible mentors has proven to be enough
students come to study,
incentive to encourage adult
work on a special project,
participation. Students are
“Difficult problems drive
or seek academic or
prompted to initiate contact
collaborations
…
There’s
nothing
I
with mentors, in keeping with
personal advice.
can do on my own to fix it so we
the school’s philosophy of
The Navigator’s role is to
encouraging students to learn
have to collaborate.”
work with students who
that there are resources that
Navigator can help them along the way,
otherwise would be
disconnected (“the point
but they must take
person for a small number of kids that need lots
responsibility for seeking out supports.
of focus”). Most of her time is spent providing
direct service to students who are at-risk of
Data Team
dropping out. The Navigator makes connections
to existing services and opportunities,
Several teams of staff are responsible for
connections with teachers and community
coordinating services to at-risk students. Team
service providers, connections to mentors, and
leaders note that one benefit of meeting
connections to credit recovery options—all
frequently together is that the dialogue keeps
through the lens of dropout prevention.
the vision of problem solving on behalf of at-risk
students “in front of” everyone. There’s
The Navigator believes her background and
constant communication across all the teams,
training as a social worker with clinical
and teams hold each other accountable.
experience has been ideal preparation for the
According to the school principal and other
role which demands a rigorous understanding
team leaders, there is now a core group of
of behavioral, psychodynamic, and family
about 50 academic faculty who really
systems approaches for working with students.
understand what the high school is trying to do
Over the past few years, the Navigator’s work
for at-risk students.
has become more prevention than crisisoriented.
The Data Team emerged from the administrative
team that initially reviewed the records of all
Mentors (Adult Advocates)
students who had not graduated in order to figure
out which services they had received. The Data
The GPS program has also sparked the
Team now includes a broad cross-section of
development of a mentoring program for ninth
faculty and other staff and is led by a house
grade repeaters and tenth grade students
principal. The team examines data on a routine
referred by counselors and teachers. Adult
basis (e.g., tracking EWIS data closely for current
advocates are matched one-to-one with
students, reviewing the experiences of the senior
approximately 75 at-risk students annually.
class and recent graduates through Edwin data) to
Mentors include teachers and other volunteer
track patterns associated with graduation success.
staff (e.g., administrators, custodians, IT staff)
The team also conducts exit interviews with
who volunteer to be connected to an individual
students who choose to drop out of school.
student to serve as another interested adult in
their lives. Each student identifies three adults
as possible mentors; a mentoring coordinator
works with the GPS Navigator to make matches
and monitor the partnerships to ensure that
12
leaders to consistently exchange information
about youth issues and has been the driving
force behind professional development training
for administrators and counselors in dealing
with trauma. The monthly meetings of the
coalition allow for formal and informal
exchange of information, facilitating ongoing
conversations about services to individual
students.
Student Support Team
The Student Support Team, which has significant
membership overlap with the Data Team, is the
mechanism for decision making about planning
interventions and securing additional services for
individual students. The team has a great deal of
flexibility in figuring out what might work in each
case.
Malden’s Promise also initiated a “Graduation
Guru” campaign, which included identification
and training of a small number of adult
advocates in the community to be mentors for
struggling students.
“Students learn that they don’t have to
navigate the world by themselves—they
learn how to get the supports and
resources they need.”
Pathways school adjustment counselor
Bunker Hill Community College
Dual Enrollment Program
The team employs a Student Dropout Prevention
Checklist and Intervention Catalog (a summary of
all types of available interventions), which they
have developed from their experiences. As they
discuss individual students, they use the checklist
to make sure they have considered all options. As
noted by a house principal and member of the
Data Team: “We get the freedom to be
compassionate from what the data tell us.”
Malden High School serves as a Bunker Hill
Community College Dual Enrollment Program
satellite campus. This partnership has been a
key onsite
resource for
Pathways
students as well
as students in the
traditional high
school to earn
dual enrollment
credits. Both
college and high
school faculty
teach courses. Students are placed in course
levels using the Accuplacer assessment. Malden
students pass the college courses at a higher
rate than typical community college students.
Community Partnerships
Malden staff have been resourceful in taking
advantage of partnership opportunities of all
types to bring more services to at-risk students
The city of Malden has had a long-term
commitment to a communitywide focus on
youth.
Malden’s Promise
Onsite Health and Human Service
Agency Providers
In 2012, the community created Malden’s
Promise, a unique coalition of city government,
community nonprofits, the business
community, and the school system designed to
reduce the number of high school dropouts.
Malden’s Promise is part of the America’s
Promise Grad Nation Communities initiative and
received start-up funding through a MassGrad
award. The coalition offers an avenue for
Community services are allocated space at
Malden High School. Behavior health and
counseling services are provided by the nonprofit Eliot Community Human Services agency,
which is able to provide diagnostic evaluations;
emergency services and crisis stabilization;
outpatient and court mandated substance
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abuse services; individual, group, and family
outpatient counseling; and specialized
psychological testing. Similarly, South Bay
Mental Health provides a continuum of
community-based services to children, adults,
and families also offering counseling onsite at
the high school. Both agencies have the
philosophy of serving children and families in
their natural school and community
environments.
Depending on the preferences of students and
their families, arrangements are made for
therapists to provide services onsite at the
school. Adjustment counselors facilitate
referrals and scheduling arrangements.
SUMMARY: BENEFITS OF A SHARED PHILOSOPHY
Over a few years, Malden initiated many reforms aimed at “graduation and
beyond” for all students, including the 5-10% who are most at-risk of
dropping out of school. Those reforms produced results in the form of steady
improvements in annual dropout rates and cohort graduation rates at the
same time as achievement test scores have improved. The philosophy of
crafting creative individualized options for high-risk students and continually
making connections to and for them was initiated and led by the school’s
principal. The basic tenets have been embraced by other staff over time and
employed as design principles for staff recruitment and selection, as well as
program design and implementation.
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Lessons for Other Schools
Malden High School’s experiences offer lessons for other schools, especially those that are developing
initiatives to place more emphasis on relationship building with students to motivate students to think
about graduation and beyond.
Re-Tooling Dropout Prevention Programs
Many high schools have alternative schools or programs in place that were originally designed to serve
the needs of at-risk populations, similar to Malden’s Pathways program. When Malden administrators
re-tooled the Pathways program to better meet student needs, faculty and students began to
experience greater success in increasing graduation rates and reducing dropouts.
It is easy to understand how staff in a long-standing alternative program may become complacent over
time and need the opportunity for an outside perspective and reflection on how changes could be made
to reach higher aspirations. Because alternative programs with limited numbers of students can be
expensive to operate, leaders may not favor additional investments. Examining data about students’
experiences may demonstrate, however, that modest additional investments in program improvements
can pay off in terms of student graduation success—especially if the students dropping out are close to
meeting graduation requirements as many of Malden’s dropouts were.
The Value of Questioning
Change began to occur at Malden High School when school leaders started to question long-held
assumptions and ways of operating. This process included reviewing patterns of data about the
experiences of dropouts.
The Data Team continues to examine areas of vulnerability. Examples of the types of questions that the
team examined recently: (1) How does low attendance vary by demographics? Which subgroups of
students exhibit problematic attendance patterns? (2) Do ELL students fail regular courses at a greater
rate than Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) courses?
After determining that there were certain groups of students who were always very late to school, the
Data Team began working on making the initial homeroom period of the day a “not to be missed”
welcoming experience targeted to the interests of students. When data examination revealed significant
ELL failure rates in SEI courses as well as regular courses, the Data Team began working with faculty to
address the problem. Using data to spark discussions about what is actually occurring and why can lead
to staff discussions that generate creative solutions.
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Working with Reluctant Faculty
When a high school makes changes to existing practices and adds new roles, it is understandable that
some faculty will be skeptical about the changes and wonder whether standards are being lowered
and/or rules inconsistently enforced. They may complain about some students’ “special plans,” wonder
why certain students don’t face consequences, and push back on individualized alternatives. When
faced with reluctant faculty members, advice from Malden administrators and counselors is to work first
with the staff that are on board with changes and willing to go the extra mile with at-risk students.
Counselors estimate that now only 10% of the Malden faculty are not on board with the options for atrisk students and they say that they can usually find points of agreement with teachers: “We can usually
agree on the problem as manifested in behaviors—even if we disagree on approach.” This type of
discussion helps to depersonalize students’ behavior so that the teacher is clear that the problem
behavior is about the student not the teacher. One house principal said that he sometimes asks a
teacher to try to build a relationship with a particular student. He tells them the relationship will really
matter to the student whether or not it results in better performance in a given academic course. But in
the unusual case where a faculty member is very reluctant to go out of the way to support an at-risk
student, he is careful about the students he places in their courses.
While the new Massachusetts Educator Evaluation system has caused some concern among teachers
because they feel that at-risk students’ performance will negatively affect their evaluations, Malden
administrators noted that the system has also opened up a window for working with reluctant faculty.
The teacher evaluation standard related to learning environments (Standard II: Teaching All Students, B.
Learning Environment Indicator, 1. Safe Learning Environment, 2. Collaborative Learning Environment, 3.
Student Motivation) provides the opportunity for teachers to document how they are supporting at-risk
students.
Navigating New Roles
There are obvious benefits when multiple staff are staying on top of the needs of at-risk students, but it
can be demanding to figure out how to avoid duplication and not overwhelm students and families.
Malden staff in new roles did find it difficult to work through the challenges of various potential overlaps
to reach the point of working together efficiently. Coordination was especially challenging for those in
less formal roles where the boundaries of functions are less clear.
Achieving a solid working relationship among staff required strong leadership. Helpful discussions
focused on: “What is my lens for looking at this student and what is your lens?”
Practices that might be of interest to other schools:

Create mini-teams around students.

Always include an administrator on the team.

Designate one member of the team to take the lead in keeping other staff in the loop; often the
adjustment counselor but the lead might change depending on the circumstances.

Designate a single point of contact for communicating with the student’s family.
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Questions for other schools to consider
Re-Tooling Dropout Prevention Programs
 Do alternative program students feel they are part of the high school, including having access to
high school amenities, e.g., extracurricular activities, electives? What are perceptions about the
alternative program among students and their families, staff, and the broader community?
 Is there acknowledgement of the need for support services, including individualized counseling, to
meet the social and mental health needs of students? Where are the gaps in services?
 Are there multiple options for attaining the credits needed to graduate, e.g., online courses, dual
enrollment options, summer school, or evening courses? Are the courses offered via alternatives
high quality, and do they set a foundation for subsequent courses? What other options are
necessary to meet students’ academic needs?
 Do school schedules accommodate the real lives of students, including work and family
responsibilities? Which students are challenged by the current schedules?
 Do faculty value relationship building with students? How can other adult advocates be brought
into the picture?
The Value of Questioning
 Has the leadership team reviewed data, including EWIS data, about dropouts? What do the data
reveal about patterns of credit attainment and potential obstacles to graduation?
 Does the school make a practice of doing exit interviews with dropouts? What types of
information do the exit interviews yield and how are these data being used?
 Is there a designated group that reviews EWIS data and maintains a “watch list” of at-risk
students? How does this team inform other teams and staff?
 Do school leaders understand key supports from the perspectives of graduates who had once
been at-risk? What steps can be taken to strengthen and/or extend supports that are working?
 Does the school have a standing Data Team? Does the team review relevant data about
Working
withcredit
Reluctant
attendance, failing grades
in course work,
recovery Faculty
experiences, and so forth?
 Are some faculty members reluctant to embrace dropout prevention programs and strategies?
What strategies have been most successful for engaging reluctant faculty members?
 Have reluctant faculty members been engaged in discussions about relationship building with
students? What additional supports do faculty members need?
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Questions for other schools to consider
 Has the leadership team found ways to employ the educator evaluation system to engage staff in
discussions about supporting at-risk students? How might the educator evaluation system be
better leveraged to increase support for at-risk students?
 Are some faculty members reluctant to embrace dropout prevention programs and strategies?
What strategies have been most successful for engaging reluctant faculty members?
Navigating New Roles
 Are there effective processes for counseling staff to use in managing communications about their
ongoing work with students? How can those processes be sharpened and/or streamlined?
 Have school leaders reviewed staff roles to look for potential areas of overlap? To what extent
does overlap among roles exist?
 Are administrators engaged in counselors’ decision making about students? How could school
administrators better support the ongoing work of counselors and other student support roles?
 Do families have a single point of contact and experience a coordinated response from the
school? What are families’ perspectives about communication with the school?
 Are there effective processes for counseling staff to use in managing communications about their
ongoing work with students? How can those processes be sharpened and/or streamlined?
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Endnotes
i
In 2010, the U.S. Department of Education selected Massachusetts as one of two states for the federal
High School Graduation Initiative award. The implementation of this federal award is known locally as
MassGrad. As part of this initiative, competitive awards were made available to high schools that
exceeded the statewide annual dropout rate of 2.9 percent in the 2008-09 school year. The MassGrad
project supported statewide and local efforts for high school dropout prevention, intervention, and
recovery.
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