New Program Targets At-Risk Students at Wakefield High

Last Friday at , a bunch of teachers showed up wearing jeans, but it wasn't an act of defiance; it was a scheduled dress-down day to support Wakefield High's newest program for reaching out to high-risk students, called Steps 2 Success.

The program, which started this September at WHS, is a supportive program for students who need a little extra guidance to complete their work and stay on task throughout the day.  

Victor Branco, one of the school's psychologists, initiated the program and hand-crafted it for Wakefield High. Jason Levene, another school psychologist, also helps administer the program.

"The idea is to figure out a way to reach out to kids that aren't doing well with the traditional school model," Branco said.

Participation in Program Doubled

Though the program has only existed for three months, in that time the students participating has doubled, from 9 participants in September to 18 as of mid-December.

 The overall framework of the program is to give additional teacher support to students to help increase positive relationships with faculty at the school and to provide tangible rewards for success in hopes of increasing motivation for completing schoolwork.

 "We want to increase their buy-in into school," said Branco.

Principal Kimberly Smith said the new program is "really exciting."

"We have some existing supportive programs in the school, but we felt like there was a need for kids flying a bit under the radar that just needed someone to check in with them and encourage them and set goals in the population we felt like we weren't quite captivating through traditional means," she said.

Students Check In With Advisors Each Day

Every morning, students in the program come into their homeroom classes and meet with their advisors to go over their schedule for the day. Halfway through the day, the students meet with a teacher they have been paired with to check-in on their progress in their classes.

At the end of the day, the students reconvene in homeroom to talk about what went well that day and their plans for the afternoon. Throughout the entire day, students carry with them a progress report notebook that each teacher fills out after each class. 

Rewards Include Gift Cards

 The process not only creates a sense of partnership between the student-teacher pair, but it allows teachers to help keep students on track to accomplish the goals they have set and catch weak spots early. Motivations are mostly handled through external rewards. When goals are reached, students are rewarded with gifts like Dunkin' Donuts giftcards, iTunes gift cards, or vouchers for the school store.

"We tried to look at how to help students learn how to accomplish a goal and stick with it so we can try to get them intrinsically motivated to keep going," said Branco. "Even if at first they are motivated extrinsically, we hope they realize they were able to do it and will want to keep a passing grade intrinsically. "

That's where the jeans come in. The rewards for the program were the reason behind the teacher dress down day. Teachers could pay $5 to support the program and wear jeans for the day, which is normally against school policy.

  Branco said he was encouraged to see the support from his fellow teachers.

"I'm very happy to see all the teachers in jeans, because I know what it means," he said.