GRAD Partnership School Earns First ‘A’ Rating

As part of the national GRAD Partnership for Student Success, Rural Schools Collaborative is supporting 50 schools who are implementing student success systems in a rural cohort. This feature is supported by RSC’s Black Belt Regional Hub partners at The University of West Alabama. Read more about RSC’s GRAD Partnership project here.

A big round of congratulations are in order for the GRAD Partnership’s first spotlight school – Southeast Lauderdale High School – who have recently seen their efforts to support student success systems pay off in a big way. For the past three years, the school has been focusing on improving student achievement and attendance in order move up in the rankings on their Mississippi State Report Card.

With the introduction of the GRAD Partnership in 2022, school leaders created a focus on belonging and connectedness to ensure that each and every student finds their “something” that connects them to school. For some students, that means fostering more ‘traditional’ connections like athletics and clubs. For others, however, faculty and staff have gotten creative and created new outlets for connections such as bringing back old student organizations (color guard), adding new ones (e-sports), giving students individual assignments (basketball game videographer), and fostering connections through their strong CTE programs.

On her recent visit to Southeast, Annah Rogers, GRAD Partnership Intermediary for the Black Belt, spoke with a student tour guide who shared that welding was his “why” for coming to school. His testimony that welding had kept him enrolled in school when traditional academics were not his “thing” illustrates just how far one strong connection can go towards keeping students on-track to graduate and the power of student-centered learning.

When the Rural Schools Collaborative team and GRAD Partnership Intermediaries Annah Rogers (UWA) and Susan Schroth (NST) conducted their first site visit at Southeast in the spring of 2023, then Assistant Principal Kameron Burnham shared that their goal was to bring Southeast up to an “A-rated” school, after recently being promoted from a “C” to a “B”. This year, that goal became reality because of the school’s improvements in English Language Arts.

To celebrate, and to foster even more student-to-student and student-to-faculty/staff connections, now-principal Kameron Burnham organized an “A-Day Celebration” for students. Input was solicited from students to ensure that all activities were ones that the students would really enjoy, and faculty and staff stepped up to supervise activities and serve the students lunch.

Students had a blast at the various stations – painting, cabbage ball, corn hole, water slides, and more! Faculty and staff had the opportunity to connect with students outside the traditional academic setting. It was a great day for the entire school community to reflect back on the strides that Southeast Lauderdale has made towards growing student success systems in their school community. Rural Schools Collaborative, the University Of West Alabama, and the entire GRAD Partnership network are excited to see Southeast Lauderdale continue to shine as a GRAD Partnership spotlight school.

Thank you to the Southeast Lauderdale High School Student Success Systems team for sharing their story. Special thanks to The University of West Alabama, who is serving as an intermediary for the 10 schools in the Black Belt rural school cohort through the GRAD Partnership for Student Success. Learn more about the GRAD Partnership and RSC’s Rural Cohort Pilot Schools in the Black Belt and Northern California.