high school

Aim High is a summer learning program designed to prevent summer academic slide by providing middle school students from low-income families a summer program that blends academics and enriching activities such as sports, art, and drama. A second goal of Aim High is to build a pipeline for young people of color to enter the field of education. In 2014, Aim High engaged the Gardner Center to conduct a study to examine students’ and teachers’ experiences with the program and to identify key program elements and implementation conditions that bring about desired program outcomes.

This report proposes a conceptual framework for defining and implementing a system of integrated student supports that provides equitable access to college and career readiness via Linked Learning pathways in high schools. The framework emphasizes the central commitment of the Linked Learning approach to challenge prevailing norms of stratification in the American high school, and to prepare all students for college and career.

This brief outlines how effectively integrated student supports build or scaffold student competencies in five broad domains of learning for college, career, and civic readiness. Relevant supports are not limited to services or programs but extend to enabling resources and social conditions, including, for example, attention to school culture and climate issues, access to physical and behavioral health interventions, and the communicated beliefs and mindsets of all adults who work with youth.

Students with academic or behavioral problems in the comprehensive high school environment frequently enroll in alternative education schools.  The San Mateo County Office of Education administers two types of alternative schools: Community Schools, which are generally short‐term, voluntary placements for students in need of a smaller, more individualized learning environment, and Court Schools, including a school at juvenile hall and two minimum security camp facilities for students referred by the San Mateo County Probation Department. In this analysis, the Gardner Center examined the tra

Positive youth development literature suggests that adults can create settings that support youth development across five foundational dimensions: competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring, and this, in turn, will enable youth to develop a sixth dimension: contribution. During the 2011-12 academic year, the Gardner Center had the opportunity to conduct an implementation study of the Peers Advising Students to Succeed (PASS-2) program run by Oakland Kids First (OKF).

San Francisco’s Bridge to Success initiative joins the City of San Francisco, the San Francisco Unified School District, the City College of San Francisco, and community organizations to promote high school and postsecondary success for underrepresented students. Discussions between SFUSD staff and researchers from the Gardner Center led to the development of an Early Warning System to enable high schools to identify incoming ninth grade students in need of extra supports to be on track to graduate.

In 2009, community leaders working with youth in the City of East Palo Alto (EPA) and the Belle Haven neighborhood of Menlo Park approached the Gardner Center with a need to better understand why many youth remain disconnected from the community’s youth service programs and agencies. The Gardner Center collaborated with these leaders to gather and analyze data to answer the following questions: (1) What programs are available to youth in the EPA and Belle Haven communities, and where are there gaps or duplication in available services?

In 2012 and 2013, the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth, and their Families (DCYF), San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), and the Gardner Center collaborated to examine SFUSD student participation in DCYF-funded programs. The goal of this partnership was to help DCYF understand which students its programs served and to better match its programs to students who needed the most help. To this end, the Gardner Center linked DCYF program participation records to SFUSD administrative data on students based on student identifiers and demographic characteristics.

Research demonstrates that students’ success in rigorous middle and high school math courses is positively associated with their admission to college, earnings later in life, and career prospects. The sequential nature of math course-taking, however, can create an opportunity structure that puts certain students at a disadvantage, specifically those from lower-income and ethnically and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

The Bridge to Success initiative convened the City and County of San Francisco, the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), the City College of San Francisco (CCSF), and key community organizations to promote postsecondary success for underrepresented students. At the request of the initiative’s math teaching working group, the Gardner Center used the Youth Data Archive to conduct an analysis on the relationship between students’ high school math performance at SFUSD and their performance on CCSF’s math placement test for incoming students.