Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and Technology
About the Practice
One of our best practices involves contracting services from CBOs to provide daily and direct services to our students. Since the 2012-13 school year and up to the present, our students have received services from the following CBOs:
FEGS Health & Human Services Systems: The primary function is to provide academic, post-secondary and socio-emotional support primarily to 9th & 10th grade male students. The support is provided through individual counseling sessions, in-class academic support, weekly advisory sessions and three weekly after-school club sessions that focus on mentorship, peer leadership/mediation training and a student council.
Good Sheppard Services: The primary purpose is to provide attendance outreach and counseling services to students (grades 9-12) not fully engaged with their education. This also includes weekly home visits and parent conferences to support efforts to improve students’ attendance rates.
Blue Engine: Blue Engine is a non-profit org. that provides staff members to our school in the form of teaching assistants. Our 9th grade math and English classes have 3 “BETAs” (Blue Engine Teaching Asst.) that provide daily assistants to students to ensure they perform at level and can be prepared for more rigorous academic programming as they progress through high school. They are instrumental in providing multiple opportunities for students to attend tutoring sessions throughout the semester.
Target Population/Total Students:
In total, our best practices targets approximately 120-130 students. For information about age and grade, please refer to the answer above.
Challenges:
- In providing services to targeted students (B&L, male) there is a population of students who don’t have access to the same support.
- While Math & English classes have teaching assistants for students who need academic support, classes such as History & Science aren’t afforded the same assistance.
How did school overcome challenges?
All of the contracted staff members attend weekly Grade-Team meetings to keep a close watch on the academic triumphs and pitfalls of our students’ experience. The school administration also provides opportunities for students to receive grade-improvement and grade-recovery work during daily tutoring sessions.
How will you continue to sustain this practice?
In our planning of Year 3, we will search for additional funds to support practices that have yielded the greatest results and utilize faculty so that, in concert, they can sustain a focus on students’ academic success, post-secondary planning and socio-emotional growth.