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This session, Stand WA is continuing to advocate for evidence-based strategies to support student success. We need Washington state to invest in these supports, including investing crucial funds to sustain the Ninth Grade Success Initiative and support work in 53 schools serving more than 13,000 students in Washington.
This is why our Executive Director Kia C. Franklin and Henterson Carlisle (NW Regional Director of CHSS) co-authored an Op-Ed in the Seattle Medium that underscores the need to focus on the success of 9th graders as the single greatest investment our state can make in increasing graduation rates and closing equity gaps, and in turn, in empowering students as they prepare for the future.
However, with funding in jeopardy many schools that are doing great work may have to scale back or stop the Ninth Grade Success Initiative work altogether. This impacts schools like Royal High School in Central Washington. In one year, Royal boosted their on-track rates by 32% and nearly eliminated the disparity between white and Latino students. This also means that Meridian High School in NW Washington may have to stop their Ninth Grade Success work, which is closing opportunity gaps for students receiving special education services (whose on-track rates jumped 17 points with the Ninth Grade Success Initiative).
Investing In Ninth Grade Success: A Crucial Step Towards Equitable Education sheds a light on the importance of funding this critical initiative and what’s at stake this legislative session.
“Another important result of this work is that students begin to feel they are in a place that genuinely cares about them as human beings. In many cases this could be the first time in a student’s educational career to experience a true sense of belonging.”
Read the full article here. To track progress on this effort, subscribe to our email list for updates!