1. Check & Connect: A Model to address Student Engagement
Colleen Kaibel
Director, Student
Retention & Recovery

2. Check & Connect

3. Equality and Equity
Equality is treating everyone the same. Equity is about fairness. Equality aims to promote fairness, but it can only work if everyone starts from the same place and needs the same help. Equity is giving everyone what they need to be successful.

4. Educational Equity
Inclusion is the act of creating environments in which any individual or group can be and feel welcomed, respected, supported, and valued to fully participate.

5. Educational Equity Providing all students with
the unique supports they
need to succeed.
The challenge is formidable.
Inequitable funding.
Lack of access for all students to strong teachers, support staff, and curriculum.
Homework

6. What is Check & Connect?
Check & Connect is a model of sustained intervention used to enhance and maintain students’ engagement with school.

7. Origins of Check & Connect
Began as a partnership between the University of Minnesota and Minneapolis Public Schools.
OSEP funded grant to develop and field test dropout prevention strategies for middle school youth with disabilities ( ).
Model developed collaborative by practitioners, parents, and researchers.

8. Origins of Check & Connect
Student’s engagement with school is a process (Finn)
Need to build on protective factors, by promoting (Masten)
resiliency thru mentoring-type approach (Masten)
competency thru cognitive-behavioral approach (Bloomquist, Walker, Sugai, Horner, Gresham, Lewis)
home-school collaboration thru family-centered approach (Christenson)
Problem solving steps, based on a cognitive-behavioral approach.

9. Origins of Check & Connect
Finn (1989,1993) - made a significant contribution to research and conceptual approach toward school dropout…
Focused on factors that educators, students, parents, communities can change and influence.
student levels of engagement with school
school practices and policies on attendance, discipline, parent outreach
family support for learning
access to and responsiveness of community resources

10. Origins of Check & Connect
Status Variables
Socioeconomic status
Ethnicity
Metro status and region
Gender
Family structure
Disability IQ
Alterable Variables
Attendance, suspensions
Extracurricular participation
Grades, accrual of credits
Age to grade level
Parental support for learning
School outreach
Access to community resources

11. Check & Connect Components
A mentor who keeps education salient for students.
Systematic monitoring.
Timely and individualized intervention.
Enhancing home-school communication and home support for learning.

12. Check & Connect Model
… is designed to promote student’s engagement with school.
… can be implemented as a targeted intervention or as an intensive, individual intervention. Ideally intended to be used in conjunction with universal interventions that facilitate student engagement.

13. Check & Connect Model

14. Check & Connect Model
Check – to systematically assess students’ connections to school
Connect – to regularly respond to students educational needs according to their type and level of risk of disengagement

15. Check & Connect Model Connect: Basic Interventions
A regular structured conversation, at least once to twice a week to no less than weekly when a student is on track.
Review student’s progress in school
Make connection between school completion and check indicators of engagement (credit accrual)
Emphasis importance of staying in school (economics)
Go through problem-solving steps (real or hypothetical)
Communicate belief in student’s ability to succeed

16. Check & Connect Model Connect: Intense Interventions
Identifying strategies to promote attendance, participation and engagement.
Problem solving with parents, students, staff.
Negotiating alternatives to out-of-school suspension.
Accessing resources (academic support, community agencies)
Connect: Intense Interventions

17. Check & Connect Model
Cornerstone of Check & Connect is relationship building, leading to change in student’s educational trajectory.
“SIGNIFICANT LEARNING
DOES NOT OCCUR
WITHOUT SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP”
Dr. James P. Comer

18. Check & Connect Model Strength based
Features
Strength based
Personalized and Flexible interventions
Teaches students to be self-managers
Parental/Family Involvement
School & Community Partnership

19. Check & Connect Model Key Elements
Relationship Building – mutual trust and open communication, nurtured through long-term commitment focused on students educational success.
Routine Monitoring of Alterable
Indicators – systematic check of warning signs of withdrawal (attendance, grades, suspensions) using data readily available to school personnel.

20. Check & Connect Model Key Elements
Individualized and Timely Intervention – support that is tailored to individual student needs, based on level of engagement with school , associated influences of home and school, and the leveraging of local resources
Long-term Commitment – committing to students and families for at least 2 years, including the ability to follow mobile youth from school to school.

21. Check & Connect Model
Key Elements Persistence Plus – persistent source of academic motivation, continuity of familiarity with youth and family, and consistency in the message that “education is important for your future”. Affiliation with School and Learning - facilitate student’s access to and active participation in school-related activities and events. Problem-solving and capacity building – promote the acquisition of skills to resolve conflicts constructively and to look for solutions - avoid the tendency to place blame and diminish potential to create dependency

22. Protective and Risk Factors:
Check & Connect Model
Protective and Risk Factors:
Students
Protective Risk
Complete homework Poor attendance
Arrives to class prepared Behavior problems
High locus of control Poor academic Good self-concept performance
Expectations for school Grade retention
completion Work ability

23. Protective and Risk Factors:
Check & Connect Model
Protective and Risk Factors:
Families
Protective Risk
Academic support Low educational Family involvement expectations
Motivational support Mobility
Permissive parenting styles

24. Protective and Risk Factors:
Check & Connect Model
Protective and Risk Factors:
Schools
Protective Risk
Committed, caring staff Weak adult authority
Orderly school environment Lost in large environment
Fair discipline policies Low expectations High truancy Few caring relationships

25. Check & Connect Model Role of the Monitor:
Neutral person responsible for helping a student stay connected to school.
Cross between a mentor, advocate and ‘case manager’.
Primary goal is to keep education a salient issue for the students, their family members, and their teachers.

26. Resiliency and Mentoring Approach
Check & Connect Model
Resiliency and Mentoring Approach
Important outcomes of mentoring (Schargel, 2003)
Make youth feel unique, special, good about themselves
Mentors model positive attitudes, behaviors
Help youth discover solutions to their problems, promote self-reliance
Help youth look beyond today

27. Check & Connect Model Mentoring Research
Mentoring helps improve school connectedness.
Mentoring helps reduce rate of absenteeism.
Mentoring helps improve relationships with parents/guardians.

28. Check & Connect Model
Research indicates that the length, frequency, and quality of the mentoring relationship are important components of program success. Additionally, studies and evaluations of best practices indicate that mentoring programs that address both individual and environmental characteristics tend to be the most effective.
OJJDP FY 2010 Strategic Enhancement to Mentoring Programs

29. Check & Connect Model
Research indicates that youth who participated in mentoring relationships that lasted a year or longer demonstrated improvements in academic, psychosocial, and behavioral measures, while those youth in mentoring relationships that lasted between 3 months and 1 year had fewer indications of positive effects.
OJJDP FY 2010 Strategic Enhancement to Mentoring Programs

30. Impact of Check & Connect
Reduced absences
Reduced tardiness to school/class
Increased credit accrual
Increased graduation rates
Decreased dropout rates
Reduced behavior referrals
Perceived increase in parent participation

31. Educational Equity Check & Connect
Diverse learners have
diverse needs.
Diversity takes differences into account and places value on those differences.
Equity ensures everybody has what they need to succeed and not treated differently because of their characteristics.