The GRAD Partnership: National Year Three Impact Results

Rural Schools Collaborative is a proud partner of the GRAD Partnership, a collaborative bringing together twelve organizations to partner with schools, districts, states, and local communities to implement student success systems. Rural Schools Collaborative facilitates a Rural Schools Cohort of the GRAD Partnership, convening Regional Hub partner organizations that serve as Intermediaries between the GRAD Partnership and school districts. Our partners currently serve 50+ rural schools participating in the GRAD Partnership.

We are pleased to celebrate the Year Three Impact results from the national GRAD Partnership research team in the following press release:

---

The GRAD Partnership's three year impact results are in: Middle and high schools implementing student success systems with the support of GRAD Partnership continue to achieve substantial progress in reducing chronic absenteeism and course failure rates. As schools nationwide continue to struggle with chronic absenteeism and a slow post-pandemic academic recovery, these results add to the evidence that student success systems can produce real progress that accelerates over time.

Building & Sustaining Success: The GRAD Partnership Year Three Impact Results documents the progress among schools implementing student success systems in the 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years.

• After one year: Average chronic absenteeism declined from 31% to 28%, a 10% reduction. Average course failure rates declined from 33% to 30%, a 9% reduction.
• Over two years: Average chronic absenteeism rate declined from 33% to 27%, a 18% reduction. Average course failure rate declined from 35% to 27%, a 23% reduction.
• Over three years: Average chronic absenteeism rate declined from 50% to 40%, a 20% reduction. Average course failure rate declined from 39% to 22%, a 44% reduction.

In ninth-grade classrooms, where early intervention is especially critical, the pattern of improvement was even more pronounced:

• Chronic absenteeism declined from 34% to 27% after two years.
• Course failure rate declined from 32% to 26% after one year, a 19% reduction, and from 38% to 28% after two years, a 26% reduction.
• Among the small group of schools with three years of ninth-grade data, course failures fell by 45%.

GRAD Partnership's year three impact and implementation results indicate that three things are true. Across three cohorts of year one schools, enough key components of student success systems were implemented in the first year to achieve noticeable improvements in student outcomes. By year two, a strong majority of schools are achieving solid or strong implementation across most of the key student success system components, and impacts increase. By year three, the components that typically take the longest time to implement (because they involve changing school practices and adult mindsets more broadly) are reaching solid or strong implementation in the majority of schools, and impacts continue to increase.