The GRAD Partnership: National Year Two 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 2 Impact results from the national GRAD Partnership research team in the following press release:

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The GRAD Partnership’s Year Two Impact Results show that middle and high schools implementing student success systems continue to achieve substantial progress in reducing chronic absenteeism and course failure rates — two strong predictors of high school graduation and postsecondary success.

Among schools that began implementing student success systems in 2022–23 and continued using them in 2023–24:

• The average chronic absenteeism rate declined from 29% to 21% over two years, a 28% reduction
• The average course failure rate declined from 31% to 20% over two years, a 32% reduction

In ninth-grade classrooms, where early intervention is especially critical, results also showed meaningful improvement:

• The average ninth-grade chronic absenteeism rate declined from 31% to 26% over two years, a 14% reduction
• The average ninth-grade course failure rate declined from 32% to 22% over two years, a 31% reduction

The report shows the benefits of the GRAD Partnership’s collective expertise: A large majority of schools receiving technical assistance from the GRAD Partnership were able to successfully implement student success systems, with 82% achieving solid or strong implementation in their first year, followed by continued progress in year two. Implementation gains were especially pronounced in areas such as combining data with human insights (+22 percentage points) and creating access to holistic, actionable student data (+27 points). These results underscore the effectiveness of student success systems when paired with sustained, high-quality support — demonstrating the GRAD Partnership’s ability to help schools translate research-based practices into meaningful, measurable progress.