9th Grade Counts

“Every child deserves a champion: an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists they become the best they can possibly be.”

— Rita Pierson

During the transition into high school, incoming ninth-grade students face a kaleidoscope of change: new faces, new expectations, new distractions, new intellectual challenges, new emotions, and new self-realizations. With that, the stakes are high for students who enter the ninth grade unprepared academically, emotionally, or socially: for every full-year course that ninth-grade students fail, their chance of graduating in four years decreases by 30 percent. (Neild, 2009)

What the data is telling us:

Students are 3-5 times more likely to fail a class in the ninth grade than students in any other grade.
Low attendance during the first 30 days of the ninth grade year is a stronger indicator that a student will drop out than any other eighth grade predictor, including test scores, other academic achievement, and age (Jerald, 2006)
The ninth grade bulge is illustrated by the following numbers: enrollment figures show 4.19 million students enrolled in grade nine during the 2003–2004 school year, while figures for the following school year, 2004–2005, show enrollment numbers for tenth grade at around 3.75 million—a loss of 10.5% (NCES, 2005). The dip in the number of students in tenth grade reflects both the large number of students not promoted to tenth grade as well as those students that drop out after ninth grade and before tenth grade.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that up to 40% of ninth grade students in cities with the highest dropout rates repeat the ninth grade, but only 10–15% of those repeaters go on to graduate (Balfanz & Letgers, 2004).
Racial disparities highlight the ninth grade bulge and tenth grade dip—these figures are the most pronounced for African American and Latino students. For example, grade nine enrollment is 23–27% higher than grade eight and attrition between grades nine and ten hovers around 20% for African American students; for their white peers, grade nine enrollment is 6–8% higher than grade eight, while attrition between grades nine and ten is stable around 7% (Wheelock & Miao, 2005).
Twenty-nine of 51 states see their greatest “leakage” in the “education pipeline” occur during the ninth grade (EPE Research Center, 2006). Some states have as high as a 20% decrease in enrollment between ninth and tenth grades (Wheelock and Miao, 2005).
Most high school dropouts fail at least 25% of their ninth grade courses, while 8% of high school completers experienced the same difficulty (Letgers & Kerr, 2001).
More than one semester “F” in core subjects and fewer than five full course credits by the end of freshman year are key indicators that a student is not on track to graduate (Allensworth & Easton, 2005). Low attendance during the first 30 days of the ninth grade year is a stronger indicator that a student will drop out than any other eighth grade predictor, including test scores, other academic achievement, and age (Jerald, 2006)

5 Challenges to Address

Research points to five key areas to focus on in order to change outcomes for students in terms of accelerating social, emotional and academic success. According to the National High School Center, Linking Research and Resources for Better High Schools, the five key areas of focus are:

Establish a data and monitoring system that will both diagnose why students are struggling and be used to hold schools and districts accountable.
Address the social, emotional and instructional needs of students who enter high school unprepared for rigorous work.
Make learning visible for students and teachers to lower the sense of ambiguity, anonymity and address individual needs.
Build capacity within the faculty and school leadership to address gaps in achievement and opportunity by attending to diverse student needs.
Create connections to the community, employers, and institutes of higher education to better engage students and help them see the relevance of their coursework.

Redmond School District has integrated a ninth-grade “on-track” indicator into our accountability system in an effort to support our high schools as they focus on students who need intervention. Redmond School District, in an effort to strategically focus on the success of incoming 9th grade students will utilize the following metrics:

Attendance: 9th grade chronically absent - students who have lower than 90% attendance
Credits Earned: Number of credits earned while in ninth grade - ninth graders who earned fewer than 6 credits
Grades: Two or more failures - students who have two or more failures
Student Behavior: Number of major incidents -
School Involvement: Amount of freshman participating in extra curricular activities.

As such, Redmond School District is creating a summer bridge program to accelerate academic achievement, increase retention of previously taught concepts and skills and provide meaningful life experiences for students transitioning from eighth to ninth grade.