The GRAD Partnership brings together nine organizations to partner with schools, districts, and community organizations to create the conditions for shifting the use of evidence-based student success systems from a new practice to an integral part of a school’s work. It is a national campaign, bringing together organizations with deep knowledge, practical know-how, decades of experience, and a wide range of diverse perspectives to develop and support the wide-scale creation of evidence-based student success systems to meet the challenges of pandemic-impacted times and enable schools to graduate all their students ready for their future. Student success systems build on what already exists in schools, help educators, families, and community organizations identify patterns in wellbeing and learning needs, prioritize the supports and strategies that will have the greatest impact, and continually improve until success is achieved.

RSC is working with two of our regional hub partners, North State Together and University of West Alabama, to launch pilot cohorts of participating schools in California and Alabama. These 20 diverse rural schools will receive a matched support grant and technical assistance to implement new student success systems to help students reach on time graduation. Learn more in the official press release.

RSC Hub Schools in the GRAD Partnership

Rural School Resources

• Using Continuous Improvement Cycles to Improve Attendance: This brief provides a case study of NCRERN’s continuous improvement process as implemented in New York and Ohio during 2020-21, including outlining steps to implement a pilot-and-test model in a rural context and summarizing key lessons learned.
  
• Trends in Student Absenteeism in NCRERN's New York & Ohio Rural Research Network: This brief describes trends in student absenteeism and the relationship between absenteeism and achievement for students in rural districts in New York and Ohio in the years prior to districts’ involvement in NCRERN.
  
• Results from Six Pilots in NCRERN's New York & Ohio Rural Research Network: This brief summarizes the findings for the four attendance-focused interventions NCRERN districts implemented and evaluated in the 2020–21 and 2021–22 school years: personalized messaging, mentoring, family engagement, and postcards.
  
• Personalized Messaging How-To Guide: This resource is designed for school staff who want to try out personalized messaging to improve attendance in their districts. The step-by-step guide includes an overview of the messaging intervention, considerations for planning to roll out the messages in your district, tips for successful implementation, and message templates that can be adapted for use in your district.
• Community of Practice - GRAD Partnership Definition of High Quality Student Success Systems: What kinds of indicators and early warning systems do we need today to help us restore, revitalize and deliver on the promise of public education? In this session, Robert Balfanz, Research Professor at the Center for the Social Organization of Schools and Johns Hopkins University and Director of the Everyone Graduates Center, Taylor McCabe-Juhnke, Executive Director of Rural Schools Collaborative, and Susan Schroth, Interim Program Director Shasta College, shared the GRAD Partnership’s definition of Student Success Systems that will be instrumental in making sure schools meet today’s needs while empowering educators and helping students seize success in school and beyond.