Early intervention helps Addision Trail raise scores
Officials at Addison Trail High School don’t just talk about college as soon as students arrive freshmen year.
They actually send kids there.
They actually send kids there.
The entire freshmen class piles into buses for a daylong trip to the leafy campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison so kids can see and feel what a real college is like — and learn what it takes to get there.
(Jean Lachat/Sun-Times)
The entire freshmen class piles into buses for a daylong trip to the leafy campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison so kids can see and feel what a real college is like — and learn what it takes to get there.
“It inspired me to do better,” said Addison Trail senior Emmanuel Cordova, whose parents never finished high school but who will graduate this year with 13 Advanced Placement classes under his belt.
The daylong “Future Focus” trip is among a host of new or revised programs in the last four or five years that are starting to pay dividends in Addison Trail’s state achievement test results, school officials say.
Addison Trail catapulted over more than 200 other Illinois public high schools this year to land at No. 79 statewide in the annual Chicago Sun-Times Report Card rankings. The school’s jump, based on the average reading and math scores of 11th graders last school year, came even though the DuPage County school has been serving an increasingly diverse and needy population.
Almost a third of Addison Trail’s nearly 1,900 students walk into school from low-income homes. Since 2004, the school’s Hispanic population has grown from 28 percent to 46 percent while its white population has shrunk from 64 percent to 46 percent.
But as its student population shifted, so did Addison Trail’s approach to kids. And while 11th grade math scores tumbled across most of the state in 2009, Addison Trail’s showed solid gains.
Principal Scott Helton, a gravel-voiced former science teacher, credits the school’s decision to throw out watered-down freshmen math classes while boosting support to all kids.
“The standard is ‘What do you do for kids who don’t learn?’ We do great things,” Helton said. “We have rich interventions for kids.”
Struggling eighth-graders get summer school help before they even step into Addison Trail as freshmen. As ninth-graders, they are assigned to double-period math classes, taught by two teachers so one can pull out small groups of kids to work on specific skills.
Still having problems? Kids can spend their lunch at the math center, talking to a math specialist. They can drop in — or be assigned to — a “learning support center,” manned by one teacher and one teacher’s aide. On Thursdays, they can work there as late 6 p.m.
And if kids still can’t pass algebra, or any other class, they can attend an online “credit recovery” program immediately after a first-semester failure or over the summer. The program allows kids to skip what they already understand, and focus instead on what they missed. They can pass out of a class with a P for “pass,” rather than a grade, once they hit 70 percent mastery on a computerized test.
The “passing grade” doesn’t help their GPA, but “it doesn’t hurt it either,” Helton said. Instead, it allows students to catch up quickly to their peers, reducing their chances of eventually dropping out.
“Once kids get behind in credits, sometimes they just check out and don’t want to be here,” Helton said.
The battery of new supports, along with new “smaller learning communities” that divide freshmen into more intimate “houses” — each with their own teachers, has helped Addison Trail shrink its freshmen failure rate from 25 percent in 2001 to under five percent last school year, Helton said.
“Most schools our size are spending $250,000 or five teacher salaries on re-educating failing students,” Helton said. “We’re putting that money up front on interventions to support kids.”
Under the new reforms, by the time Addison Trail students take their junior year state achievement test, which includes the ACT, they have taken four ACT practice tests — something senior Emmanuel Cordova says he appreciated. Without such practice, Emmanuel said, kids would get “stressed out.”
Emmanuel still remembers being unable to complete the high school placement test he took as an eighth grader. The test, called the EXPLORE, is a precursor to the ACT.
“I ran out of time in every subject,” Emmanuel said. “The words were kind of confusing. That’s why the [ACT] practice tests were vital. . . . Now I finish 10 or 15 minutes early, because of the practice I got.”
Addison Trail also has been expanding the reach of its college-level Advanced Placement classes well beyond straight-A students. The effort earned recognition this year from Newsweek magazine, which named Addison Trail one of the top 1,500 public high schools in the nation, based in part on the number of AP tests taken.
Rather than create multiple hurdles that kids must overcome to qualify for AP, Addison Trail looks for any glimmer that students might be able to handle more rigorous classes, then offers them help, if needed, to keep them there.
Senior David Gutierrez, 16, said he had only taken one honors class in middle school, but he was inspired when an Addison Trail counselor encouraged him to tackle four freshmen honors classes, putting him on track for later AP classes.
“It felt good because somebody thought I could do better than I was doing and they were willing to challenge me,” David said. This year, he’s taking four Advanced Placement courses.
For senior Martyna Wozek, 17, what makes Addison Trail special is its willingness to take an academic chance on kids.
“The school gives everyone a chance. They let students who show a commitment but who normally wouldn’t be given a chance have one, and that inspires them,” said Martyna, who has taken nine AP classes.
“They believe in their students.”