Grant Overview

In 2016, CCS was awarded grant funding to implement the Collaboration for Rural Student College & Career Readiness (CRS-CCR). The project created a partnership between CCS and five school districts within the Eastern Washington Rural Alliance Partnership to address college and career readiness for high school students with a focus on collaboration between CCS faculty and K-12 instructors in English and Math. The focus was on identifying gaps in academic preparation, student persistence and/or college and career readiness.

Andrea Reid (English department and grant coordinator) and Angela Rasmussen (Teaching & Learning Center coordinator and grant facilitator) led the CCS/College Spark partnership, engaging the expertise of English, Math, and counseling faculty from SCC, SFCC, and five rural high schools. Together, the group examined gaps in academic preparation, student persistence, and college-going culture in order to develop and implement school-specific interventions.

The rural school districts who participated were Mary Walker School District, Reardan-Edwall School District, Riverside School District, Grand Coulee Dam School District (Lake Washington High School) and Colville School District. Cross-sector teams designed student learning modules for 9th and 10th grade students that addressed academic gaps in Math and English, as well as varied student success barriers (study skills, mindset, persistence, time management, etc.) for successful placement into dual credit programs (Running Start) and/or placement into college-level courses after high school completion. See additional information further down on this page that describes the schools' interventions.

Riverside HS students working on computers, viewing the CCS website.

Grant Video

The following video provides an overview of the overall project and highlights the work of one high-school partner, Riverside High School. The school2020-RiversideHS-CCS-images (1).zip created an innovative college and career readiness program woven throughout students’ four years.

Rural High School Career & College Readiness Grant - CCS from Rogue Heart Media on Vimeo.

Thanks!

A special thanks to the CCS grant participants: Amie Schaumberg (English) and Bill Rambo (Counseling), SCC; and Jessica Hoppe (Math), Ben Ugaldea (Library), Bradley Bleck (English) and Debra Olson (Math), SFCC. Also, special thanks to Mark Macias and MaryAnne Winniford from CCS Institutional Research, and the CCS Provost and CCS Grants Offices, for their support and assistance with this grant all 4 years. Additionally, a special thanks to the hard-working ELA, math, and counseling participants from the five high schools affiliated with this grant who took the time to collaborate and design interventions aimed at improving the college going cultures in their districts (Riverside, Mary Walker, Colville, Lake Roosevelt, and Reardan-Edwall high schools). We look forward to seeing their students at CCS in coming years.

Below, Riverside High School teacher Sheila Messick is photographed with her class.

Additionally, we want to thank The Rural Alliance, whose annual conferences--and focus on post-secondary program completion and career readiness for rural students--created opportunities for conversation that led to the CRS-CCR grant creation.

The Rural Alliance website: Link "Our mission is in partnering to increase options and opportunities for rural students, families and communities. Our values are student-centered, relationship-based, equitable innovative, and inclusive vision. Our vision is success for every rural student, family and community."

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Interventions below were developed by cohort groups in 2017-2018 and most were implemented beginning in the 2018-2019 school year.

Riverside HS: Creating stronger college and career readiness (CCR) skills through school-wide CCR modules

Our intervention aims to better inform and prepare our students for college/career life through a grade-level required course that will occur 13 times a year, to be team-taught by all of our teachers. These sessions will include various topics, such as "searching for scholarships," preparing for the SAT," "writing a professional email," and "budgeting for life after high school." We will also bring in many guest speakers, from college representatives to professionals in various fields. We want to encourage students, starting from 9th grade, to find their passion, set a plan, and take the appropriate steps to begin their journey. Many of our students are first-generation college students, thus they need much guidance on what opportunities are available and how to follow through on the process.

Mary Walker HS: Addressing 9^th grade attendance issues through multiple measures

Our intervention addresses the issues of attendance among 9^th grade students; our hope is to increase attendance as students become incoming 10^th graders. Our intervention includes multiple measures such as:

- Interventions by the mentor (weekly check-ins)
- Truancy Board Individual student plans 504 plans
- WARNS (Washington Assessment Risk Needs for Students) under 70% to pinpoints reasons behind low attendance
- Information Home about attendance laws and impact on education
- Strategic Letters regarding student absence
- Create Incentives such as hands-on or high interest activities on half-day Fridays
- Weekly recognition for 95% attendance during all-school meetings or display students names on the overhead screens
- ASB Students encouraging other students
- Field trips to colleges and universities (once or twice a semester)
- Recognition regarding the most improved attendance

Colville HS: Building a stronger college-going culture with individual student surveys and survey-identified interventions

The intervention that we have designed has a number of different moving parts. The initial instrument is a survey that will be given to all students in grades 9-11 each year as they progress through high school. The instrument addresses some of the issues related to why students do not attend college or some sort of post-secondary training/education. It is our hope to have a series of small workshops designed to target specific students based on their responses to the survey. An example would be a student who says they know little or nothing about financial aid, we would have a workshop for that student built into our daily schedule to address that issue. We intend to address the college-going culture issue with our intervention.

Grand Coulee: Addressing ongoing attendance issues through multiple measures

We intend to address attendance/absences, as this is a huge area of opportunity for us, and we believe that increased classroom attendance will positively influence test scores, rates of college attendance, and career readiness. We intend to do this through multiple means: 1) meeting with the school board to present our absence rates and ask for their help in addressing this; 2) clearing up attendance language in the school handbook, possibly making it more restrictive, especially in the area of our "rewards trips"; 3) continuing our "Attendance Matters" recognition for attendance rates each quarter and rewarding the best class; 4) making our "Awesome Attendance" lunch a yearly tradition, rewarding those students with the very best attendance, possibly making this more exclusive in the future; 5) notify parents and students of any changes in attendance language in the school handbook, especially in regards to rewards trips.

Reardan-Edwall HS was unable to continue with the grant work.