Raising the Educational Achievement of Secondary School Students - Volume 2 Profiles of Promising Practices
A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n
Academic Challenge and Enrichment Link Rural Students to the Outside World - 1995
Tuba City High School
Tuba City, Arizona
Overview
Ofelia wakes up early at her home on the Navajo reservation in Arizona to catch a 7 a.m. school bus that will take her 50 miles to Tuba City High School. A student in Tuba City's Liberal Arts theme house, Ofelia is eager to turn in a paper for an interdisciplinary U.S. history and English course discussing Puritan traditions as revealed in The Scarlet Letter. She proudly finished her paper at 9 p.m. the night before, just as the school's computer room was closing. Looking beyond high school, Ofelia is considering majoring in English in college.
At Tuba City High School, teachers and district staff have been engaged in fundamental school restructuring for almost a decade. The process of change began in 1985 when the school founded Bio-prep, a school-within-a-school honors program that initially focused on intensive course preparation in science and math and grew to involve an extensive college-preparatory curriculum in all subjects. Hallmarks of Bio-prep were a rigorous curriculum, team teaching, extended-day activities, and enriched summer program options off the reservation. Most of these features still exist through a new, schoolwide restructuring effort that continues the process of change in Tuba City High School. In the fall of 1993, building on the successes and lessons learned from Bio-prep, Tuba City launched Next Century Warriors, which extends special opportunities to all students in the school.
School Context
Located on Arizona's Navajo reservation, near the western border of the Hopi reservation, Tuba City High primarily enrolls Navajo and Hopi students from rural communities within a 54-mile radius of campus. All students in the school participate in the Next Century Warriors restructuring project.
Major Program Features
Until the advent of Bio-prep, Tuba City High had an academic record that reflected the damaging effects of rural isolation and high rates of poverty, teen pregnancy, unemployment, alcoholism; basic skills scores hovered three to five years below grade level at graduation for those who managed to stay in school. A group of Tuba City High School science teachers were especially concerned about the state of the school and its lack of college-bound graduates. With help from the Josiah Macy Foundation and Northern Arizona University, they created Bio-prep, a four-year, integrated high school honors program that prepared 150 students a year for postsecondary education. The program's goals were to offer enriched, advanced courses to average and above-average high school students who were willing to take on an academic challenge with the intention of pursuing higher education at a college or university. Macy Foundation support for Bio-prep continued until 1993.
The Bio-prep goals were extended to all students through the Next Century Warriors project in 1993. With $750,000 in funding from RJR Nabisco, a planning committee composed of the principal, district staff, and half of the school's faculty developed the following goals for the high school: (1) all students should develop and achieve to their highest potential; (2) by graduation students should be able to solve problems and make decisions; (3) students should be encouraged to pursue lifelong learning; and (4) the school's educational programs should contribute to the Native American community and society at large. According to one teacher who has participated in restructuring efforts over the past decade, "We're trying to keep the same expectations and support systems and high levels of success [for all students as there were in the Bio-Prep program]."
Academic Program
- Theme houses. Students at Tuba City enroll in one of four "houses," each with its own discipline-specific theme: Math, Academics, Science, and Health (MASH), Technology and Engineering Career House (TECHs), Business, and Liberal Arts. Students may take courses in any house--or even change houses entirely if their interests change--without losing credits or progress toward graduation. Each house has a team of teachers that remains with students until they graduate, a concept proven effective through the Bio-prep program. "It's important that kids develop a rapport with the faculty," explained the project director. Students take four core courses from their house team teachers and three courses from specialists (e.g., in art and physical education) who serve the entire school.
- Innovative uses of class time include advising and mentoring. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, Tuba City departs from its standard seven-period schedule to offer four 90-minute class periods. Students attend four of their classes on Wednesdays and three on Thursdays, as well as a fourth "advisory" session. In this weekly meeting, students in a stable cohort of 10 to 15 meet with teachers to discuss school-related issues, interact with special guests, or solve problems. Advisory meetings are held daily every morning in small groups with all house members. Topics and activities for these sessions will include counseling, mentoring, checking grades, and building self-esteem. Teachers will mentor students during the advisory periods and throughout the school day; they will receive extensive training from a former school counselor who was actively involved in Bio-prep.
- Interdisciplinary courses. Bio-prep offered many courses in interdisciplinary blocks, a strategy that still continues under the Next Century Warriors project. For example, Bio-prep ninth graders were required to take English, a math-physics course, and biology, all which were taught by a team of teachers who built connections among the disciplines. In eleventh grade, an American Studies course combined U.S. history and English; while students studied the Puritans, they read The Scarlet Letter. "This gave the feeling of a common group of kids with a common group of teachers doing common things," the Bio-prep director explains. Today, any interested student at Tuba City may take these courses; some courses maintain an honors label and draw matriculating students who have participated in a junior high school spin-off of Bio-prep.
Extended Support Programs
For Native American youth, getting to and staying in college hinges on having a solid high school preparation, garnering support from family and community, and adjusting to non-Native American culture. By offering summer programs, extending hours of school support services, and building parent/community support, Tuba City High School offers supplemental programs that work toward these ends.
- Summer options. Because Tuba City is extremely isolated (Flagstaff, the nearest town, is 80 miles away), and because the high school serves primarily Native Americans, many students have few opportunities to interact with students from other cultures--a fact that project staff believe may partially account for the high attrition rate of the few Native Americans who pursue postsecondary education. School staff believe that off-campus summer experiences can combat the effects of isolation. "In order for Native American youth to do better in college, they have to experience living on a campus, in a dorm . . . so they're more comfortable with the dominant society," said the Bio-prep director, who planned a rigorous off-campus summer experience for Bio-prep students. Using funds from the Macy Foundation, staff from Bio-prep and the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson developed a five-week, five-class summer program for 15 Bio-prep participants, held at UA. Participants studied Native American literature and creative writing for six hours each day and lived in UA dormitories. In addition, Bio-prep staff sought out, publicized, recruited for, and funded other summer opportunities, such as those offered by Arizona State University (ASU), eastern prep schools, other South-western universities, and even Oxford University in England.
Since Bio-prep has ended, students have had fewer chances to study off-campus, but a few students still participate in programs sponsored by ASU and UA. During the 1994 summer, with money from Next Century Warriors, Tuba City High offered five courses in math, physics, music, art, and creative writing to interested students. The school also offered a summer counseling and academic preparation session for incoming freshmen as well as field trips to San Diego and Los Angeles. The MASH house sponsors a geology "excavation" trip, which any student in the school may attend. District personnel recognize the importance of these summer programs and hope to increase participation in the future.
- Extended hours of service. Tuba City students are expected to work hard. To facilitate their learning, the school library is open from 7 to 9 p.m., Monday through Thursday. Under Bio-prep, math, physics, computer, and English labs--staffed by teachers--also remained open Monday through Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. Macy Foundation money paid for the added staff time. Although the school no longer has money to pay teachers for extended hours, many teachers volunteer extra time. One physics teacher holds class from 1 to 3 p.m. every Sunday; students know not to sign up for the class unless they can meet his demanding schedule. Transportation to and from these extended-day events is left to the student. Many students live in the high desert without electricity or running water, and their cultural lives center on tribal rather than academic involvement. Extending the availability of school resources enables them to strengthen academic competencies.
Support for Implementation
About 50 percent of the school's 85 staff members are Native American, more than usual for schools serving Native Americans. According to 1992 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) data, the average school serving Native Americans has 22 percent Native American faculty members. Staff stability is a major concern in most reservation schools; in 1990, the BIA reported that staff turnover averaged 30 percent in BIA schools, due mainly to the extreme isolation on reservations. However, the staff at Tuba City High is stable despite frequent changes in principal leadership over the past decade.
Leadership at Tuba City is not concentrated in the principal; instead, a long-standing and stable team of dedicated school and district staff has been instrumental in bringing about the school's decade of innovations. District and school staff alike praise the work and leadership of the former Bio-prep director, who could "get teachers together, help them like and respect each other, and get them to believe they have something special to offer." Through this stability, teachers have come to know the families who send their children to Tuba City High--a fact that has resulted in increased communication, better understanding, and stronger school/community ties. Teachers remain dedicated to helping students succeed at all costs, even when it means sacrificing personal time to keep open a lab or teach supplemental lessons during a weekend or after school. Says one teacher about his personal commitment to the school and volunteering extra hours without pay, "I feel it's normal."
Evidence of Success
Bio-prep students in the honors program made significant gains on state and national standardized test scores, increased their college attendance rates, and were accepted into some of the most prestigious colleges in the country (six are currently studying at MIT). Many students receive college scholarships. Graduates of the 1993 class earned five Manuelito scholarships from the Navajo tribe for outstanding academic performance--a record among the surrounding schools for the most scholarships received in one year.
As a whole, Tuba City students in the twelfth grade performed better than average on the Arizona Student Assessment Program (ASAP): In 1993, for example, reading and writing mean scores exceeded both the county and state averages (10.5 versus the state's 9.2 and 5.2 versus 5.1, respectively). Scores in math were below average (5.1 versus the state's average of 5.6). Tuba City High students consistently outperformed similar populations on ASAP writing and math tests, however, and were competitive in reading. On the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS), eleventh-grade students perform at levels superior to students in similarly situated districts in the state but below the average for the country. In 1992, eleventh graders scored an average of 31 in reading (versus the nation's average score of 52), 43 in language (versus 48), and 43 in math (versus 50). The district reports that ITBS scores have risen slightly over recent years.
The jury is still out on the success of Next Century Warriors. One encouraging sign is rising NCE gains: In 1993-94, reading scores went up 8.6 points and math scores increased 7.7 points from the previous school year. Another indication of nonacademic success is that pregnancy rates among Tuba City High School girls have dropped among first-year students and are low for the general student population; at one time, Tuba City High School had one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country. The district attributes this success to school support groups and an AIDS prevention program. Support groups are also credited for keeping substance abuse low among Tuba City students. Says one teacher who has experienced a decade of change at Tuba City High: "We're interested and motivated, and I think that's reflected on the students--that we expect a lot from them."
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