Freshman Year Isn’t What It Used to Be — That’s a Good Thing [Narrated Story]

What does it take to help a student stay on track in ninth grade and why does it matter so much? In this episode, hear from educators and students in Northwest Oregon who are rethinking what success looks like for freshmen. From personalized support and grading reform to student-led solutions and schoolwide culture shifts, this story highlights how collective effort is helping more students start strong and stay on course to graduate.

Read this article.

Transcript

Hello - I’m Ryan Hamilton, and I am one of four educators at Northwest Regional Education Service District whose sole mission is to get more freshmen on track to graduate by the end of 9th grade. I came into teaching after trying out other careers -- commercial fishing, brewing, baking -- but when I first stepped into a classroom in my mid-20s, I knew I had finally found a job with deep meaning and profound potential. 

I’ve found that high school is where I can have the biggest impact and serve my community best. We know so many changes happen when kids hit their teenage years. Their brains are changing rapidly, and they are trying to make sense of the world around them. For me personally, I didn’t have the kind of support I needed in high school.  I didn’t have anyone who was curious to know me on an authentic level and honestly never felt like I learned anything real or had anyone inspire me.  Only much later, traveling around the world and coming to the realization that learning itself is amazing, that I actually got angry about my experiences in school.  It’s that anger, coupled with the deep belief that our young people deserve so much more, that drove me to become an educator.

Partially due to my own negative experiences in school, I feel like I know what doesn’t work and how we could go about things differently. 

Teachers are there for these big moments and can help students feel supported, resilient, and ready for life is our purpose. But what does that look like? 

This story set out to answer those questions. What does it mean to help a student stay on track in ninth grade? What happens when they do or if they don’t? And what does it mean for teachers to adjust? 

What I hope you hear from these students and teachers is that supporting students isn’t about lowering standards or pushing them through classes. It’s about listening to students, finding out what they need and helping them navigate challenges so they can be ready for sophomore year and beyond. 

It also requires teachers to rethink their own instructional practices - their grading practices, engagements strategies, and their professional commitment to growth and improvement. We won’t get the results we want until we all do that sort of deep self-reflection. And what our network shows is this work cannot be done in a vacuum. It takes teamwork and investment from every side. 

Teaching is a team sport and we do best when we learn together. 

Now, I’d like to introduce you to my colleague Annie Tronco, who will read: Freshman Year Isn’t What It Used to Be - That’s a Good Thing.

Academically, middle school wasn’t that great for Knowyn, a 15-year-old from Beaverton. 

“I practically failed eighth grade,” he says.

But as he wraps up his freshman year at Beaverton High School, a lot has changed.

Like most teenagers, he’s been busy with school, friends and sports. He plays centerfield on a club soccer team and has a solid group of friends. REAP, a leadership club for students of color and others from historically marginalized groups, draws him to school each day and keeps him there.

He says when he first arrived in the fall, he wanted to do everything on his own but quickly realized he couldn’t. All the late work piled up, and he found himself short on credits. 

That’s when he met Kellie Rosenberger, Norma Gonzalez and Amy Hattendorf, teachers who are part of Beaverton’s 9th Grade Success team.

After that, his freshman year started to turn around. He was expecting a boring class, but what he found instead was a group of caring teachers who helped him get caught up on his classwork and his credits.

They offered him several opportunities to revisit concepts that had earlier evaded him. In addition to a five-week long supplementary course during his advisory period that gave him the chance to keep learning, he also attended half-day seminars during the school day with his classroom teacher. The one-on-one time gave him the chance to ask questions and cover topics he hadn’t understood. 

Several upperclassmen also tutored him during these seminars and helped him work on his assignments.   

As the days and weeks went by, he started earning passing grades. By June, he expects to have six credits — or 25% of the credits he needs to earn his high school diploma by 2028. 

He will be what the state of Oregon considers a student who is on-track to graduate. 

A landmark study conducted by the University of Chicago in 2007 found that high schoolers are 3.5 times more likely to cross the graduation stage if they are on track by the end of their freshman year. They found these on-track rates were highly predictive of graduation even after controlling for other factors like a student’s previous test scores, income or race. 

The researchers wrote that the transition to high school, especially the first semester, is a crucial time for students, and making sure students are doing well during that time is vital for success in later grades. As a result, Oregon’s Department of Education started reporting on track rates for every district in the state in 2012. 

In 2017, Northwest Regional Education Service District launched what is known as the 9th Grade Success Network. The group, led by educators who specialize in teaching other teachers, provides professional learning, onsite coaching and data tracking for 32 high schools, including 29 of 36 in our region. 

Ryan Hamilton, Hilary Clark-Hassinger, Kristin Komatsubara and Annie Tronco lead NWRESD’s 9th Grade Success Network. After many years on the job, our coaches contend that to get the results they want, they have to focus on four areas. These are 1) building structures and systems at high schools where teacher-led teams focus on the work together, 2) creating a school culture where every student feels like they belong, 3) providing student-centered instructional support and 4) updating grading practices.

The network’s overarching aim is to get more ninth graders on track, with a special focus on students of color and students navigating poverty. 

Last year, participating high schools saw better outcomes for students of color when compared to the rest of the state. For this specific student population, nearly a third of Network high schools had more than 90% of their freshmen on track to graduate. Across the state, only 15% of schools have 90% of this population on-track in their freshman year.  

Kellie Rosenberger, the 9th Grade Success lead at Beaverton High School, has been working hard to increase her high school’s on track rates since 2018. Nearly half of her day is focused on getting more freshmen across that six-credit threshold. 

The district’s decision to dedicate her time was deliberate. “If we don’t make it a priority, it does fall by the wayside,” she says. 

When she began, 65% of the freshmen from historically marginalized groups were on track — seven years and one pandemic later, they boosted that number to 81%. For a school like Beaverton High, that means 24 more kids like Knowyn feeling like school is for him, that success is possible. 

Kellie says she learned years ago there is no miracle cure. “Whatever you are trying to do right now will not fix it all,” she says. But for her, it all comes down to creating a high school experience where students feel supported, respected and cared for. She says it’s the power of multiple adults working together to support students.

When teachers meet kids where they are and continue to follow up, it makes a big difference, Kellie says. “Kids realize: These teachers are not going to let me go. They are not going to give up on me.” 

Teams of teachers meet regularly to sift through data and come up with ideas to try to help students. They take those ideas, try them out and if they work well, they start using them with more students. The team at Beaverton takes a growth mindset with the work and learns from everything they try, even the projects that don’t work. 

“It doesn’t matter how much time you put into something,” she says. If it’s not working for students, let it go. 

For example, offering recovery opportunities for students during the school day is much more successful than offering them after school or on a day off. Even though it costs money to bring teachers out of their regular classes and into those half-day seminars, the results are striking. 

Students who attend already have a relationship with that teacher and are open to trying the material again. Typically, the concepts build on each other, and once the students get a better grasp of a concept and update their assignments with their new understanding, they can move whole letter grades in just one morning. 

“It’s a pretty meaningful way to spend money,” Kellie says.

Another example of a smaller change with big results is how the teams now start meetings. Before diving into the work, teachers spend about 5 minutes sending positive and personalized messages to the parents and caregivers of their students. They use specific language and examples about how students are participating in class, helping their classmates or putting in extra effort on an assignment. 

They also realized many freshmen were struggling to navigate seven different teacher homepages, so they rolled out a template format this year to the delight of students. 

When they look back on their progress, they say it’s the volume of what they do that has produced their results. 

Amy Hattendorf, an instructional coach who works closely with Kellie, says you have to try out multiple ideas at once and make sure they are tailored to different kids. 

“That’s the only way you can increase your percentage of growth,” she says. 

Another focus is on ramping up data. Kellie jokes after nearly 8 years in the role, she’s become an Excel wiz. She has reams of data on each student, including their credits, grades, demographic data, what they are interested in and how often teachers have talked with their families. 

She says she’s grateful to be part of a larger network and was pleasantly surprised to find she learns from everyone — regardless of a school’s size or student demographics. 

“We are much more similar than we believe ourselves to be,” Kellie says. “We can learn things even from a school that’s incredibly different from ours.”

At less than half the size of Beaverton, educators in the Astoria School District have experienced similar success with the same type of dedicated efforts. After 13 years at the helm of Astoria High School, Principal Lynn Jackson is now getting the results he envisioned back when the school was graduating just six or seven out of every 10 students. 

These days, more than 95% of freshmen are on track to graduate and the school has one of the higher graduation rates in the state at 92%.

He attributes this success to an ever-evolving and improving series of strategies and systems they’ve put in place over many years. But like Kellie, he says it’s the relationships the students have with educators that matter the most. 

Next year, he plans to spend at least 5 minutes with every incoming freshman — learning about their strengths and interests and any challenges they’re facing. He acknowledges he might not get deeply personal information, but he will ask questions and connect with students in a way most principals don’t get to. 

“It’s the small things that make great things come to pass,” he says. 

Lynn’s leadership drew Candace Chapman to the high school success role she now occupies in Astoria. A former band director, she got her master’s degree in education with an endorsement in special education in 2020.

“This is the most high-risk, high-reward job I’ve ever had,” she says. She knows there is a lot on the line every single day, but she says there is no other reward like seeing a student in that cap and gown. 

Like Kellie, Candace leads a team of educators who are laser-focused on getting kids on track to graduate. Dozens of color-coded cells on Google sheets drive their work. And she often finds herself building out plans for individual students. 

She says people ask her how she does it. “You can’t just make kids do things,” she says they tell her. But Candace doesn’t see it that way. “Did I make them or did they trust me enough? They know I’m asking for a reason.” 

She works to imbue a sense of hope and high expectations into everything she does with her students. She knows they are more likely to participate if she believes in them and if they believe they have a future. 

She says the work is 100% about relationships and connecting the learning students are doing with their experiences. “Grades are important, but we also know if we can connect with you, connect your learning, the grades will happen.”

Every incoming freshman takes her freshman transitions class where they learn how to navigate new responsibilities. She also helps them avoid the pitfalls of procrastination and manage stress. Students from every grade who need help staying on track take a class called high school success. 

Students say having teachers like Candace helps them. 

“It makes me want to care,” says Raeya, a ninth grader at Astoria High School.

Raeya says her transition to high school has come with more challenging classes, especially math, but she likes science and is looking forward to taking honors biology. She says when she gets lower grades it’s not because she isn’t trying. It just means she needs more help, and this year she has learned how to ask for that help. 

Hearing from students like Raeya helps educators know what’s working and what isn’t — beyond what they are seeing in their spreadsheets. So starting in 2023, high school interns officially joined the ranks of the 9th Grade Success Network so that educators could hear more directly from them. 

There are currently 44 mostly juniors and seniors participating. They receive a stipend from Northwest Regional ESD for their efforts, and like their teachers, they talk with freshmen and then try out ideas.

Estefany and Angelica, both seniors in Forest Grove, interviewed more than a dozen freshmen last fall and found out they wanted to feel more connected at school. 

Before their interviews, they thought they would focus on diversifying already existing events, but they realized freshmen wanted connection and instead decided to offer them a fun way to meet other students and learn about each other.

Alongside AVID students, they now invite freshmen to participate in a connection opportunity they named Squad Games, a nod to the TV series Squid Game. The games — which have included Uno, Bingo, trivia, spoons and Jenga so far — are offered once a month during an advisory period and have drawn dozens of students this year. 

Looking back on their experience, they are glad they signed up. 

Estafany says she remembers having to search on her own for more information about clubs and sports when she was a freshman. 

“It does feel nice to know they have more resources and they know how to get more help,” she says.

At a recent NWRESD board meeting, Seaside High School’s 9th Grade Success Team was recognized for their improvement efforts. Adults on their team noticed a dip in on-track rates for Latinx students and tasked student interns with determining why and what to do about it.

The student interns invited several freshmen to participate in a group interview called a story circle where participants take turns sharing their experiences. Students told them they didn’t realize what being on track meant or how important it was. In addition to gaining insights from the experience, the Seaside team noticed that there was a 10 percent increase in attendance in the six weeks following the story circle for the students who participated.

Acting on what they learned from the story circle, the student interns created a presentation with tips and advice they wished they’d received as freshmen and presented it last fall to the incoming class. The content was so well received that they recently presented the same information to eighth graders. 

Kaylee says she’s really glad they decided to get up in front of those students. They distributed a survey after the presentation and realized much of the information was new. 

“No one really knew what they were getting into or how to get on track and what they needed to do to graduate,” she says. 

And the student-led story circles have continued for the past two years. They’ve grown to include many different types of students and topics, and the one constant is that no adults are allowed to attend. The space is just for students to talk with each other and share their experiences. 

Hillary says leading improvement efforts  has been wonderful. “It has allowed me to see how students can change from being very closed off to actually being very open, and you learn so much from them,” she says. 

Kaylee agreed. “It’s been an eye opener for me to realize it really is possible to make a difference within our school,” she says. “It’s empowering.”

Seaside’s 9th Grade Success Team thanked the board for honoring students’ time with stipends and for providing the opportunity for teams across the region to convene and collaborate. Inspired by the success of their Network peers at Tillamook and Astoria high schools, the Seaside team has their sights set on an expansion to their summer bridge program as their next improvement move.

On May 13, more than 125 educators and interns will meet at Portland Community College’s Rock Creek Campus for the final network convening of the year. There, they will learn from each other and make plans for next year. 

Last year, there were more than 700 freshmen in our region who were not on track to graduate. 

There is more work to do.