Measuring the Effectiveness of a New Tiered Intervention ZAP Matrix and Tracking Database Steve Stay Professional School Counselor Carthage Junior High School

ZAPs in Step 1 – Teacher writes the ZAP Step 2 – Teacher s students’ names at the end of the day to the process coordinator Step 3 – Process coordinator compiles all teachers’ submitted names in Excel spreadsheet, then creates a separate list to feed to the auto-dialer Step 4 – Teachers write the next morning to say who needs a lunch detention Step 5 – Process coordinator copies certain names to new spreadsheet for lunch detentions Step 6 – All corrections are done manually by contacting process coordinator (if you can find her) Step 7 – Lunch Detention supervisor s list of students who served to process coordinator Step 8 – If you want to examine ZAP data, you go to process coordinator and she creates reports for you

Problems Human error (misspelled names, forgot to , etc.) Too much time involved in doing it manually Data is opaque and overwhelming Repeat offenders are hard to track No consistent intervention policy in place once repeat offenders are identified Only one intervention attempted, but too little too late (Organizational Skills Bootcamp) Too little parent involvement

Changes Made for Counselor created ACCESS database on the network to automate the process of submitting, tracking, and reporting ZAPs and Lunch Detentions Administrators and teachers collaborated to come up with 7 levels of increasing intervention for repeat offenders Students write the ZAP instead of teachers

ZAPs in Step 1 – Students write the ZAP Step 2 – Teachers select pre-typed names in database Step 3 – Teachers click names who don’t need lunch detention the next morning (teachers can make corrections themselves in database) Step 4 – Lunch Detention supervisor clicks names of students who attended Step 5 – All staff receive automated reports by and act according to predetermined matrix steps in handbook

Is it helping? Qualitative reports from teachers, process coordinator, parents, counselors, and administrators say “Yes” – Less time devoted to it – Fewer repeat offenders – Everyone’s more informed – Fewer errors mean fewer students disciplined unnecessarily, so students are happier

Measuring the Improvement

Fewer than half as many Ds and Fs as we had by this time last year! (44%)

So it is helping! Qualitative and quantitative measures indicate that our streamlined process and increased interventions have combined to cut the total number of Ds and Fs by more than half!

What next? Weekly Missing Assignments letters started after Spring Break this year Automated Missing Assignments Report next year Slight tweaks in the intervention matrix being used now