“It's In The Culture of Our School:” Student leadership flourishes at Fall River High School

Fall River Junior Senior High School, located in McArthur, CA, sits alongside a quiet river, with large windows overlooking fields and peaks in the Inter-Mountain area northeast of Redding. Centered on the grounds in front of the main building, the school’s original bell serves as a reminder of Fall River’s longtime existence– it was founded in 1911– and the photos of graduating classes throughout history carry many surnames found in the halls today. Fall River is both of and for the community in and around McArthur, continuing a cycle of service and support that makes this school of about 215 students, grades 7–12, stand out.

Fall River is one of ten GRAD Partnership schools in Northern California, collaborating with RSC Northern California Regional Hub partners North State Together as part of RSC’s GRAD Partnership Rural Cohort. The GRAD Partnership works across the country to establish student success systems that integrate academic support with well-being and career transitions, and relies on intermediaries like North State Together to bridge the gap and support the unique needs of rural schools in their service areas. Onica Mello, Program Director at NST, serves as the GRAD Partnership Northern California Lead and RSC’s Northern California Hub co-lead.

Elizabeth Guerrero, the Principal at Fall River, describes the school’s implementation of student success systems in three phases: “the first phase, we worked with the elementary schools. We brought them over to events. We got them free admission to our sporting events. We had dinner for them, we met their parents, so that they could have a comfort level when they got to us.” Phase two saw a focus on attendance; Principal Guerrero and her team began breaking down attendance by grade level, and offered celebrations and incentives such as pizza parties to the classes who had the best monthly attendance.

The district also analyzed why some students were not consistently able to attend school, and discovered that lack of reliable transportation was a major barrier for students. This led to the establishment of the “second chance bus,” which focuses on students who may need extra help getting to school in a rural district where bus rides can exceed one hour each way. “That has been a game changer for a couple of our kids. We have kids that don't have power. We have kids who don't have internet. We have kids who don't have phones. Their parents can't afford to drive them in, or don't have a functioning car. We go from having very affluent students to having students that have so much need. And so that is one of the things that the district has implemented that has really changed [attendance] for some.”

Now, the school is entering phase three with a new campaign, Every Day Counts. Students with no absences or tardies receive a goodie bag, filled with snacks, and are entered into drawings with big prizes, such as headphones or bikes. She reflects that “We did letters home to the parents, highlighting every day they were gone what their attendance percentage was. So we're trying to educate them and bring them into what we're trying to do. It's out on our social media. It's out on our websites and our leadership kids [are promoting it]. . . so far, it's, it's going well, and our kids seem to be bought in.”

Moreover, the staff has turned over a lot of the campaign to their student leadership team, who put up posters, made a promotional video, and encourage their peers to buy in. A.J., a senior and the Vice President of the student leadership team, sees initiatives like Every Day Counts as fostering a snowball-effect of buy-in: "It’s really good to have incentive programs with this one that we're starting up, just because when the kids see certain kids participating, they think ‘oh, that could be fun. That could apply to me.’ Then when one kid does it, the other kids follow them.”

A.J., Caoimhe, and their fellow students on the leadership team describe Fall River as an atmosphere where student agency and innovation flourish because of a foundation of strong adult-student relationships in the building. Audrey, the president of both the student leadership team and the Interact club, notes that those relationships are bettered by the school’s smaller size within a tight-knit community: “Everything is just very personal. We always feel very safe with staff members and teachers, because they just really care about everyone. We all get some sort of spotlight on ourselves, and none of us are really ignored.”

In the eyes of the student leaders, the trust and responsibility that the administration and teachers place in them is as much a part of their education and career-readiness as regular coursework. Caoimhe, a vice-president of the student leadership team and FFA president, reflects that “I believe our school is really heavy on doing student-led things, because we want to be able to prepare our students to be able to reach new things and new heights. You know, looking at our community members and our older community members who've been through the school system, we have a lot of people who've come from our community who've been able to build up leadership skills and really know how to make those connections.”

In addition to new programs like Every Day Counts, student leaders at Fall River participate in a myriad of clubs and activities that connect them to each other, the school, and the community at large. Many upperclassmen serve as peer mentors for 7th-8th graders, helping them build relationships and feel more comfortable making the transition to secondary school. Programs like Friday Night Live, of which many of the leadership team are a part of, similarly engage both students and community. All told, over 80% of students at Fall River engage in some sort of sport, club, or extracurricular activity.

With connections and relationships soaring, it should be no surprise that attendance at Fall River is also in a strong spot. Three years ago, attendance hovered in the high eighties, and now sits comfortably at 92%, a figure that both Principal Guerrero and the student leaders take pride in. Caoimhe describes that while direct messaging around attendance and personal responsibility matter, the reasons for the many successes at Fall River are representative of a strong school climate: “It's not necessarily being taught to our students. It's in the culture of our school.”

Rural Schools Collaborative would like to thank Onica Mello of North State Together for her leadership as a GRAD Partnership Intermediary, and for facilitating RSC’s visit to Fall River.