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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
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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
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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,
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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).
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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