1 PARTNERS IN SUCCESS Partners in success: Parent-school counselor communication as an intervention for failing freshmen Andrew Fick, M.Ed. Portland State University May 30, 2014 2 PARTNERS IN SUCCESS Partners in success: Parent-school counselor communication as an intervention for failing freshmen In recent years, educational stakeholders have emphasized the critical nature of the freshman year and its relationship to student achievement and outcomes. The calls have ranged from scholarly research articles (McCallumore & Sparapani, 2010; Neild, 2009) to headlines that make declarations such as “Ninth Grade: The Most Important Year in High School” (Willens, 2013). On a local level in Astoria, Oregon, many of the high school stakeholders have placed a similar emphasis on freshmen with the intent of improving academic success, high school completion, and the post-secondary opportunities available to students. More specifically, the school’s leadership had made addressing the needs and challenges of failing freshmen a priority and increasingly placed their focus on the aggregate measure of freshman failure rates, that is the number of “F” and “NP” grades earned by freshmen as a percentage of all grades awarded, as an indicator of student and school success. The reduction of freshmen failure rates has been a reemerging area of need for the past several years at Astoria High School. Over the past seven years, freshmen failure rates have fluctuated at AHS from approximately 6 to 13% across cohort year. Stakeholders have expressed concerns in addition to the initial failing grade itself have included that those students who receive one or more failing grades as freshmen are more likely to experience continued academic difficulty, disengagement from school, increased absences, credit deficiency, delayed graduation, or ultimately drop out. Though failure of classes during the freshman year does not condemn a student to these outcomes, a review of school data and anecdotal student experiences support the validity of these concerns. Additionally, these outcomes may also be associated with other systemic risks and problems for students that can further complicate students’ abilities to 3 PARTNERS IN SUCCESS achieve. In response to these concerns, administrators, teachers, counselors, parents, and other stakeholders in the school have identified the reduction in freshmen failure rate as a priority for targeted intervention strategies and further investigation. This purpose of this study was to improve understanding of how regular parent-school counselor communication may affect freshmen failure rates within an “at-risk” population of students. By specifically narrowing the scope of this study to at-risk freshmen students defined by those who had failed one or more classes in their first semester of high school, it sought to answer whether weekly school counselor communication with freshmen students’ parents or guardians may be an effective intervention strategy for supporting individual freshmen students that had failed. The study also sought to identify themes in interventions with parents, which may highlight deficiencies in failing students’ educational programs. Additionally, this study is intended be useful in that it provides insights and guidance to AHS school counselors for future data collection and intervention strategies as part of the school’s comprehensive guidance and counseling program. Despite the limited nature of this study, this research is significant in that it provides school-specific feedback regarding interventions targeting the persistent, systemic problem of failing freshmen. Moreover, this data and feedback can be used to inform future decision-making and practice at individual and school levels and in turn support overall school improvement and reduction in freshmen failure. Literature Review Focusing on Freshmen Researchers have targeted the freshman year as one of the most important transitions in students’ educational journey, with the success of this transition being an indicator of future success including whether or not a student graduates (McCallumore & Sparapani, 2010; Neild, PARTNERS IN SUCCESS 4 2009; Allensworth & Easton, 2005). McCallumore and Sparapani (2010) note that it is during the freshman year that students are often faced with increased expectations in their core classes, which are often substantially more rigorous and are now required for graduation. Freshmen can often experience these high expectations in combination with the trend of increasing diploma requirements as a substantial change from middle school (Fulk, 2003). Additionally, students that are already behind in the development of their skills in mathematics, reading, and writing find themselves facing the dual challenges of being unprepared while they are asked to do more (Neild, 2009). Faced with these transitional academic challenges and the increased stakes of passing classes in order to remain on-track for graduation, the freshman year can be a decisive time in students’ educational experiences. The “freshman on-track indicator” described by Allensworth and Easton (2005) has become a key data point in predicting future graduates and dropouts. In studies of Philadelphia and Chicago high schools, on-track students, those with five full-year credits and no more than one failed core course per semester, have been found to be about four times more likely to graduate than their not on-track peers (Neild & Balfanz, 2006; Allensworth & Easton, 2005). More specifically, freshman data including GPA, number of failed classes, attendance, as well as on-track status has been shown to be indicative of the likelihood a student will graduate within four years (Allensworth & Easton, 2007). Though researchers consistently acknowledge the complexity of student success and the variables that contribute to whether a student graduates or drops out, improving academic outcomes early high school is likely to result in improved performance and completion over the course of students’ secondary schooling and may also positively influence student attitudes, motivation, engagement, and behaviors that are related to student achievement (Neild, 2009; Allensworth & Easton, 2007). PARTNERS IN SUCCESS 5 In addition to the critical academic nature of the transition between middle school and high school, the freshman year is often viewed as a new stage in personal and social development (Neild, 2009). The life cycle punctuation of entrance to high school affects not only the students themselves, but also on the family and social systems that surround them. Notably, parents often allow increased independence to their children as they enter high school (Falbo, Lein, & Amador, 2001). Along with the tendency to decrease parental supervision comes an increase in peer influence, which may result in both personal growth as well as risk taking behaviors (McGoldrick, Carter, & Garcia-Preto, 2011; Neild, 2009). Given that freshmen are often faced with increased academic demands, the personal and social factors involved in this transition may play an important role students’ ability to navigate challenges that arise as they enter high school. This further raises questions about what can be done to reduce the academic, personal, and social risk factors while increasing related protective factors and improving initial success and resiliency for freshmen. The integration of academic, personal, and social considerations has become well established in the study and promotion of engagement and achievement for high school students (Li & Lerner, 2013; Neild, 2009; Short & Russell-Mayhew, 2009). The progressive shift toward integration has been embodied by the Search Institute’s 40 Developmental Assets, which outlines a comprehensive index of individual and systemic, internal and external factors that support the developmental process for adolescents (Benson, Leffert, Scales, & Blyth, 2012). The importance of an integrated approach and the 40 Developmental Assets has been endorsed in states’ education policy and standards such as the Oregon Framework for Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Programs (Oregon Department of Education, 2012). This emphasis, both theoretical and in practice, is supported by research findings that suggests that a broad PARTNERS IN SUCCESS 6 contextual focus that includes personal and relational developmental assets in addition to the more traditional academic data approach is likely to be an effective predictor of both short and long term academic outcomes (Scales, et al., 2006). In addition to being an effective predictor, students who have made gains in their asset levels over time have also been found to have increases in their GPAs (Scales, et al., 2006). The implication that contextual factors beyond strictly academic intervention and assessment play a role in student academic outcomes appears to validate a systemically informed approach to supporting student success. Similarly, Li and Lerner (2013) support a multidimensional approach to school engagement and related academic achievement, suggesting that high school students’ behaviors, emotions, and motivational thoughts are interrelated with each other as well as influenced by a caring school environment and other external factors. Taking into consideration the importance of the freshman year and the complexity of constructs influencing individual students, a variety of strategies to intervene and support freshmen that are failing, at-risk for becoming “off-track”, or are on a path to disengage from school and drop out have been discussed throughout the literature (McCallumore & Sparapani, 2010; Neild, 2009; Allensworth & Easton, 2005). Schulz and Rubel (2011) suggest that common themes among students that do not complete high school include relational problems in the home and school environments and an inadequate sense of belonging, trust, and self-worth. While, identifying these deficits and challenges may be useful in framing objectives for intervention, Short and Russell-Mayhew (2009) encourage counselors to focus on resiliency rather than pathology when working with adolescents. Additionally, they encourage counselors to consider the role of parents, families, schools, communities, and other supportive adults in building resiliency, making the important distinction that “resiliency is more than the absence of PARTNERS IN SUCCESS 7 risk factors; it is also the presence of protective factors” (p. 215). Short and Russell-Mayhew (2009) also acknowledge the utility of a developmental assets approach, which can help to identify existing protective factors and provide a framework for engaging these strengths, gaining additional information and feedback, and further facilitating resiliency development. In other words, by identifying existing developmental assets, especially the parents or other supportive adults in the student’s life; counselors can work toward developing individualized interventions that extend beyond the individual student, encouraging communication and involvement of influential adults and considering other systemic factors that may affect a student’s success. For struggling freshmen in particular, consideration of developmental assets as well as engagement of parents and other supportive adults seems to provide a promising direction for intervention during this critical transition. Parent Involvement in Supporting Student Success Much has been said in the research literature about the importance of parent involvement on student achievement and healthy adolescent development in general (e.g. Wang & SheikhKhalil, 2014; Cripps & Zyromski, 2009). Researchers have investigated specific areas of significance including parenting style (Brown & Iyengar, 2008), parent and adolescent expectations (Zhang et al., 2010), parent goal orientation (Gonida, Voulala, & Kiosseoglu, 2008), parent influence on dropping out (Terry, 2008), parent involvement in homework (Pattall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008), and parental responses to inadequate achievement (Robinson & Harris, 2013) as examples of not only how parent involvement plays an important role in supporting a student’s academic success throughout adolescence, but also the complexity of how parents may affect their children’s educational outcomes. Traditionally, the general perception of adolescent-parent relationships has overly emphasized the problems and framed adaptive PARTNERS IN SUCCESS 8 aspects of this developmental stage as pathological, though this emphasis is contrary to research findings that suggest the majority of adolescents positively characterize their relationships with their parents despite challenges and identify parents as a primary resource when concerns arise (Wilkinson, 2011). Considering that during adolescence, parent-child relationships are complex but also influential and typically positive, it is a logical objective for the schools charged with educating adolescents to seek increased understanding of how the beneficial aspects of these relationships can be maximized and parent involvement can be developed to most effectively promote student learning and success. Aligned with a strength and resiliency approach and organized around a developmental assets framework, Epstein (2001) provides a broad theoretical model for schools to engage parents and encourage partnership between overlapping spheres of influence with the shared goal of benefiting the student’s academic, personal, and social development. At the center of Epstein’s model is the establishment of relationships and organizational structures from which students develop productive interactions at home, school, and in the community that support continual improvement. Specifically, these relationship and organizational structures can be categorized into six types of involvement: parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and collaborating with the community (Epstein et al., 2009). Moreover, Walker, Shenker, and Hoover-Dempsey (2010) found that why parents are involved is influenced by personal motivators such as a sense of parental role or responsibility, invitations from the school or the student to become involved, and contextual variables such as parental skills and time and family culture. Epstein and Van Voorhis (2010) assert that school counselors have a central role to play in implementing this model and fostering partnerships between families, schools, and their communities in each of these categories. By working to engage, guide, and 9 PARTNERS IN SUCCESS facilitate parent involvement, addressing challenges and barriers that interfere with parent-school partnership, and producing results through both direct and indirect means, school counselors can work systemically, engaging existing strengths and resources of families, offering intervention and education to address challenges, and providing contextually-sensitive attention and counseling services to students (Bryan & Henry, 2012; Bryan & Holcomb-McCoy, 2010). Additionally, high school counselors are often able to attend to the holistic assets and needs of students and families in compliment to the subject-specific focus taken by teachers at that level (Epstein &Van Voorhis, 2010). In this way, high school counselors are in a unique position to be leaders in coordinating and facilitating teamwork between students, parents, and educators (Bemak, 2000) as well as serve as cultural brokers between diverse team members (Amatea & West-Olantunji, 2007). School counselors can further contribute to these partnerships through their familiarity with developmental processes, communication and interpersonal dynamics, and resources in and out the school system. Furthermore, school counselors can use their specialized skill sets to engage parents and make the most of opportunities for parent involvement. Procedures This study took place at Astoria High School, a ninth through twelfth grade public high school in a small, rural community on the Oregon coast. The school has approximately 600 students. About half of these students qualify for free and reduced lunch. The student body is mostly White with Hispanic/Latino students comprising the largest ethnic minority at about 10%. For the purpose of this study, freshman students that had failed one or more classes in the first semester were identified as “at-risk” and a letter was sent home with report cards to these students’ parents or guardians inviting participation in the study and a follow up phone call was made. Of the 36 letters that were sent, eight parents responded and agreed to participate in the PARTNERS IN SUCCESS 10 study. Of these eight, six students were boys and two students were girls. Two participant students were on an Individual Education Program (IEP) for specific learning disabilities and one had a 504 Plan for a disability that affected concentration and attention. One of the eight students lived with both biological parents, four students were living with one biological parent, one student switched between parent and grandparent living arrangements, one student lived with a grandparent full-time, and one student was living with long-term foster parents. To begin the intervention portion of the study, the researcher, a licensed professional school counselor at Astoria High School, made contact with participant parents to discuss the logistical aspects of the study, including coordination of the best type of weekly communication (e.g. telephone calls, email, face-to-face meetings) and most convenient times for contact, as well as any initial questions or concerns parents might have about the study or their child’s current educational experience. The school counselor also discussed student’s current developmental assets that may directly or indirectly support academic achievement and provided a strengthfocused framework for addressing student challenges. In addition to parent contact, the school counselor made initial contact with participant students to discuss any questions or concerns that they might have about the study and identify developmental assets and strengths that may support their success at school. Following initial contacts with parents and students, the school counselor attempted weekly contacts with parents over the course of the first nine weeks of the second semester according to their individualized arrangement. The nine-week period is significant in that it is one quarter of the academic year and one half of the semester. This time frame is used for grading purposes with teachers posting the most up-to-date grades for progress reports, quarter grades, and final semester grades, which are posted on students’ transcripts. Contacts with 11 PARTNERS IN SUCCESS parents during the nine weeks were documented and coded according to type of communication, general theme addressed (i.e. academic, personal/social, college or career preparation), and subsequent interventions implemented as a result of the contact (e.g. follow up with student, follow up with teacher, referral to support resources). A brief narrative of each contact was also recorded to allow for qualitative analysis and facilitate continuity in weekly discussions. Student grades were recorded when teachers posted progress reports after about five weeks and again when grades were posted after nine weeks. The details of contacts and changes to student grades were analyzed and are presented in the findings section of this paper. This specific methodology was designed for this study in order to collect data and gain insight regarding general parent-school counselor communication that was or could be feasibly implemented in the setting. The design of this study also allowed for highly individualized communication and targeted intervention, which is common in the practice of school counseling at Astoria High School. By tailoring this research project specifically to existing practice, the researcher hoped to not only answer the research questions within the scope of this study, but also develop parent-school partnerships that could be sustainable beyond the study should they be found to be beneficial. Additionally, this research design also lends itself to gaining qualitative feedback from parents and students that may be useful in guiding future improvement and development of the school’s comprehensive guidance and counseling program. Findings The primary research question for this study asked: Is weekly school counselor communication with freshmen students’ parents or guardians an effective intervention strategy for supporting individual freshmen students that had failed one or more classes? Of the eight students included in this study, five reduced the number of failing grades, two increased the 12 PARTNERS IN SUCCESS number of failing grades, and one remained the same, but moved from the area before the end of the nine weeks. Notably, four of the five students that had improved were passing all classes at the conclusion of the study. The fifth improved student had reduced failing classes from four at the start of the study to one. Of the two that had increased, both had doubled the number of failing grades. Collectively, the participant group of students began the study with 27 failing grades at the semester grade report, though at the nine-week report card, this group had reduced the total number failing courses to 14, including three failing grades at the time of transfer for the student who moved to another school. If the student that transferred is omitted from these numbers the pre and post-intervention totals are 24 and 11, respectively. Failing grades at the five-week progress report totaled 17 collectively including the student that transferred who accounted for four of the failing courses during that reporting period. Interestingly, failing grade distribution shifted from semester grades, to progress report, to nine-week grades with both positive and negative progress amplified over time as illustrated in Table 1. STUDENT Fs at 1st Semester 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Fs at 5 Week Progress Report 4 3 6 4 2 2 3 3 Fs at 9 Weeks 1 3 1 2 1 4 0 4 1 6 0 0 0 4 0 3 27 14 Total Fs Table 1. Distribution of failing courses at grade reporting periods. Green indicates improvement, red indicates increased Fs, and yellow indicates no change. This study also sought to examine the types of contact used, general theme of parentschool counselor communication, and subsequent action taken by the school counselor. The PARTNERS IN SUCCESS 13 most common form of weekly contact was by telephone with seven of the eight parents preferring this form of communication. One parent preferred email, however the parent would also make telephone calls to the school counselor in order to follow up on email communication. Five of the eight also had at least one parent-school counselor in-person meeting over the course of the study. Three of the eight missed one week of parent-school counselor communication, however all participants maintained some form of contact for the duration of the study with one week being the maximum that any participant family missed. Based on the three domains outlined by the American School Counseling Association’s National Model (2012) for student development (i.e. academic, career, and personal/social), qualitative themes found in parent-school counselor communication were analyzed. Seventy percent of communication was primarily focused on academic topics with the remaining 30 percent emphasizing personal/social development, and none of the conversations had career development as the primary theme. For six of the eight participant families, academic development was the most common theme. Notably, of the three students who did not improve his or her failing rate over the course of study, two of these students’ parent-school counselor communication was dominated by discussion about personal/social issues, and one of these students ultimately transferred out of district. Weekly contacts were coded according to follow up action taken by the school counselor as a result of communication with the student’s parent. The most common action taken following communication with a parent was follow up contact with student. In some cases, multiple actions were taken, for example referral to academic supports and a meeting with the student. Of note, nearly all contacts resulted in some form of follow up action. A detailed account of follow up action for each student can be seen in Table 2. 14 PARTNERS IN SUCCESS Follow Follow Follow Ref. to Ref. to No up w/ up w/ up w/ academic community additional STUDENT student teachers others supports resources action taken 1 7 3 1 1 0 0 2 5 1 3 1 1 0 3 5 1 0 1 0 0 4 7 0 2 0 2 0 5 2 2 0 2 0 2 6 6 0 1 2 1 0 7 7 1 1 1 1 0 8 6 0 3 0 2 0 45 8 11 8 7 Totals Table 2. Individualized follow up actions taken by the school counselor. 2 In summary, five of the eight participant students showed gains with their grades between the first semester grade report and the third quarter grade report, which accounted for a reduction of total failing grades by nearly 50 percent. Two students doubled the number of total individual failing grades and one student remained the same. The most common topic theme was academic in nature, though communication with parents about personal or social issues accounted for 30 percent of the total contacts. Parents most frequently preferred phone contact as the means of communication and the most common follow up action taken was contact between the school counselor and the student, though a variety of communication methods and follow up actions were found. Discussion The findings of this study were consistent with the hypothesis that parent contact would improve the freshman failure rate within the sample population. Though there are many factors that influence whether students are academically successful, the gains for individual students and PARTNERS IN SUCCESS 15 the reduction of failing grades by almost half suggest the significant impact regular parent contact with school counselors may have on outcomes for at-risk freshmen. In addition to the general intervention of weekly parent contact, individualized follow up by a school counselor likely contributed to student gains. Notably, students were contacted approximately 80 percent of the time following parent-school counselor contact and there were 34 additional follow up interventions with teachers, other involved adults, academic support programs, or community resources, suggesting that scheduled parent contact may also positively influence follow up actions by school counselors. In all of these cases, interventions were individualized and guided by specific student strengths and needs and were coordinated between home and school. Students that did not make improvements academically appeared to have a high incidence of personal and social difficulties that may have contributed to a decline in academic performance. In analyzing weekly narratives and primary theme of parent-school counselor communication, parents appeared to be more concerned about other student problems such as substance abuse, peer group, skipped classes, and their child’s social development and decisionmaking than academics. This theme raises several possibilities as to why these students received worse grades over the course of the study. One possibility may be that factors in the student’s life outside of the scope of this study progressively had a negative impact on their academic performance, for example the progression of a substance abuse problem. Another possibility is that as adults in the student’s system became progressively organized around problem behaviors, well intentioned interventions by parents, teachers, and other may have promoted escalation of problem behaviors and academic failure as first described in Tannebaum’s article “The dramatization of evil” (1938). A third possibility is that students may have fewer personal and social skills than their peers making coping with initial failures in high school that much more PARTNERS IN SUCCESS 16 difficult thus leading to undesirable coping strategies and reduced motivation to be academically successful. Regardless of the reasons for these students not making academic improvements, a potential benefit of parent-school counselor communication is engagement of the student’s support system to address needs beyond the scope of school alone, such as supervision after school, participation in pro-social activities, or involvement in a drug and alcohol treatment program, however parent contact and school counselor intervention alone are likely insufficient to address academic failure for these students. Serving students with multiple and complex risk factors in addition to academic failure is an area for future action research as these students are most likely to continue to have high rates of failed classes, have additional problems during their teen years, and ultimately drop out of high school. While this study was useful in tracking a small number of students and investigating the role parent-school counselor communication may have on freshman failure rates, the scope of this study presented several limitations. For one, the sample size of this study makes it difficult to generalize any findings and the diversity of students and contextual factors may account for many of the gains or lack there of. Of the 36 students initially identified for this study, only eight, about 22 percent of those recruited, participated in the study resulting in both a small sample size as well as potentially skewing results based on parents that may have a higher level of involvement already, place a higher value on academic success, or are more willing to work with a school counselor. In addition to the limitations of sample size, this study was not designed to study the influence of more specific individualized intervention strategies used by the school counselor, which may account for more of outcomes than the less specific intervention of simply contacting parents on a weekly-basis. It seems likely that parent-school counselor communication impacts interventions that the school counselor may employ with PARTNERS IN SUCCESS 17 students or in the school system and further research into how this general intervention may help or hinder students’ success systemically is one possible direction for future study. Another direction for future study would be to expand to a longitudinal study that explores factors influencing student success before high school, uses a similar individualized and strength-based systemic approach, and collects data on academic outcomes over the course of high school and post-graduate outcomes. Collecting ongoing data from students and parents on perceptions about strengths and needs aligned with academic content areas and the 40 developmental assets would also allow for a more targeted intervention and sophisticated data analysis. Despite the limitations of this study, the findings validate both the role of school counselors intervening with academically at-risk students at Astoria High School and the importance of engaging the parents of these students. In continuing to develop and refine the AHS comprehensive guidance and counseling program, it will be worth continuing to make parent engagement a priority, especially for those students that are at increased risk. Additionally, it will be beneficial to continue to develop strategies to invite parent participation in their child’s education and provide a range of ways that parents can communicate with school counselors and other faculty, staff, and community partners. Students that present with personal and social concerns during the transition from middle school should be given additional consideration in order to take proactive measures to promote academic success and reinforce protective factors as responsive interventions may be less effective with these students. Above all, it will be important to continue to balance the needs of all students while providing targeted interventions to those specialized needs, all in partnership with parents and other stakeholders to the end of maximizing student success. 18 PARTNERS IN SUCCESS References American School Counseling Association. (2012). The ASCA National Model: A framework school counseling programs. Alexandria, VA: Author. Allensworth, E. M., & Easton, J. Q. (2007). What matters for staying on track and graduating in Chicago Public High Schools. Chicago, IL: Consortium on Chicago school research. Retrieved December, 17, 2007. Allensworth, E. M., & Easton, J. Q. (2005). 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