1 in 4 first-year students earn F’s
Published 10:48 pm Monday, June 25, 2007
More than 1 in 4 Snohomish County high school freshmen failed at least one course during the first semester of this year.
And the rate gets worse at five of the largest high schools in the county – Cascade, Everett, Lynnwood, Mariner and Marysville-Pilchuck – where at least 1 in 3 received one or more F’s during the first term.
In all, 2,411 freshmen attending comprehensive public high schools failed a class, according to a Herald survey of area school districts. That’s 28 percent of the freshmen class.
A failing grade and the loss of credit early in high school particularly in core subjects such as English, can hurt a student’s chances of graduating on time if at all.
For some students, the first-term F is an early wake-up call, with credit made up quickly in summer school. History shows others will never catch up.
“It’s almost never an issue of a kid didn’t have the academic muscle to pass a class,” said Terry Edwards, executive director of curriculum for the Everett School District. “If you come every day and do your homework and do your best on quizzes and tests, it’s pretty hard to fail.”
The Everett School District has been attacking the failure rate over the past four years through research and classroom practice. It made a dent this year when it targeted resources on students failing one or two classes rather than many.
The freshman failure total mirrors the annual number of students who either drop out of high school or don’t earn enough credits to graduate on time. There were 1,776 dropouts in 2005, the last year that data was available for Snohomish County students, and hundreds more took a fifth year to finish.
The number of students falling behind early in high school is important to school districts, which are under pressure to improve on-time graduation rates under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Alan Weiss, principal at Edmonds-Woodway High School, said the transition from eighth to ninth grade can be a shock, particularly for those who coast through middle school.
The larger social scene and academic rigor of high school can overwhelm a 14-year-old.
He wants more teeth at the middle schools where students would have to accrue enough credits to go to high school.
“The problem is the kids don’t have any kind of exit pressure,” he said.
Everett shows progress
Four years ago, the Everett School District was confronted with a report showing only 53 percent of its students were graduating on time. The Everett School Board was adamant that something had be done.
Today, the district is nearing a graduation rate of 80 percent among on-time and fifth-year seniors.
Everett began investing extra money in its high schools to address the problem, but initially saw little improvement as it focused on students failing five and six courses.
When it changed strategies and shifted the money to students failing one or two classes, passing rates began to rise among all students – from students with one F to those with six F’s.
The result has been more students on track to graduate on time and fewer hopelessly behind by their sophomore year.
These days, failing students are identified earlier and more frequently.
Everett created a detailed database including every student at every grade level in every subject with every teacher since they entered middle school.
When a student receives an F, that scrutiny intensifies.
Teachers routinely get a “single F report” of students who are passing all their classes except failing only their class.
They also are provided information about how their students’ failure rates compare with colleagues teaching the same subject.
The reports “aren’t meant to browbeat” teachers into changing grading practices, but to get them talking with colleagues in their departments about what they are doing in their classrooms, Edwards said.
More tutoring is available as well as online and after-school credit recovery classes. In-school suspensions have been used where students must get their work done before they can attend class.
Fast start is crucial
Much of the effort is aimed at getting students off to a good start in high school.
Among freshmen, the number of Everett district students who failed enough classes after one semester to not graduate on time declined from 119 to 43 between 2006 and 2007. That’s a drop from 8 percent to 3 percent of the their freshmen class.
At Henry M. Jackson High School, that figure dipped from 20 percent to 4 percent and the percentage of freshmen passing all their classes during the first semester increased from 74 percent to 84 percent.
“We really focused in on the freshmen,” said Terry Cheshire, Jackson’s principal.
For all the interventions, it is ultimately up to the student.
Jill Thompson, a case manager for high school completion programs at Edmonds Community College, gets students from all kinds of backgrounds who left traditional high school.
Some quit for family reasons, drug problems or financial pressures, but others simply did poorly.
Many are able to do well once they decide to go back to school after working dead-end, minimum-wage jobs.
“It’s like that switch,” she said. “You don’t know what flips the switch at any given time.”
R.T. Jacques was a failing freshman four years ago at Jackson High School, getting an F in most of his classes.
He looks back on high school and sees a “rebellious 14-year-old” who didn’t take middle school seriously, always put off homework and dug a deep academic hole he couldn’t climb out of. He eventually transferred to Snohomish High School but was too far behind to graduate on time.
This year, he enrolled in the Youth Reengagement Program at Everett Community College where he is taking high school completion courses and working toward a welding certificate. He’s on track to graduate next year.
He senses that he has matured, but wishes he had done so earlier.
“I went through an entire year at the college without failing one class,” he said. “Why didn’t I do this a couple of years ago?”
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@ heraldnet.com.
