5 Factors That Contribute to Students Finishing High School

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted learning for over 1.6 billion students worldwide, raising concerns about student engagement and completion rates. Research suggests that successful schools prioritize inclusivity, strong relationships, comprehensive learning opportunities, tracking and transitions, and flexible systems to ensure students complete their studies. Our analysis highlights the importance of these factors in promoting student success and provides questions for parents to consider when evaluating their child's school.

Key Takeaways:

• **Explicit inclusivity**: A commitment to inclusivity and diversity helps equip all students to participate equitably in society. Schools can achieve this by developing critical capacity to challenge stereotypes, promoting positive relationships and relevant curriculum, and using resources that authentically represent students from different backgrounds.
• **Strong relationships**: Students benefit from teachers who balance high expectations with empathy and flexibility. Teachers should listen to students, use humor, foster dialogue, and show interest in their lives. Peer and community relationships also matter, and teachers should affirm students' strengths and understand and respond to obstacles in student learning.
• **Comprehensive learning opportunities**: Instruction that promotes complex thinking over memorization is associated with strong class participation, achievement, and students setting hopeful, aspirational goals for their educational futures. A comprehensive instructional environment for student success includes explicit instruction, support for individual needs, culturally affirming tasks, and culturally responsive curriculum materials.
• **Tracking and transitions**: Student success occurs over time. Some research suggests there are predictors of whether students are on a path to finishing high school by Grade 6. Schools need to monitor attendance and achievement across time and avoid simple responses like holding students back a grade.
• **Flexible systems**: Having flexibility matters in terms of whether students complete their studies. Systems that allow students to recover credits if they fall behind keep students moving forward. Investments in technology that promote connections to community and complex forms of learning and communication are more effective than those that ask students to practice and demonstrate isolated skills.

Statistics:

• Over 1.6 billion students worldwide have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Success leads to more success, and successful schools prioritize inclusivity, strong relationships, comprehensive learning opportunities, tracking and transitions, and flexible systems.
• By Grade 6, achievement in language arts and math, overall teacher-assigned grades, and patterns of attendance are key indicators of students' ultimate success in school.

Sources:

• James, C. (n.d.). Celebrating diversity isn't enough: Schools need anti-racist curriculum. The Conversation.
• Linton, R., & McLean, L. (n.d.). Mobilizing community resources to overcome racism in education. The Conversation.
• Stelmach, B., Kovach, M., & Steeves, L. (n.d.). Supporting Indigenous students' learning through teacher-student relationships. The Conversation.
• The Canadian Press. (2021, April 1). Students cross the street at Tomken Road Middle School in Mississauga, Ont.
• The Conversation. (2021, April 8). 5 factors that contribute to students finishing high school.