Poudre High School recognized as a model school for 9th Grade Success program - Coloradoan
Thomas Clayton
Poudre High School recognized as a model school for 9th Grade Success program
Kelly Lyell
Cody Bradley might have been a high school dropout without the 9th Grade Success program at Poudre High School.
Instead, he’s on track to graduate on time next spring, working part time through an internship with Woodward and working toward an associate degree at Front Range Community College through the school’s P-TECH program.
“If not for P-TECH and stuff like that, I probably would have dropped out and just started working,” Bradley said. “I never saw college as a future or something I was interested in … With P-TECH and having the internship and everything at Woodward gave me a purpose. Without them, I don’t think I’d be in high school.”
Bradley is paying it forward now, serving as an ambassador in the 9th Grade Success program that was showcased Oct. 22 for school administrators and district leaders throughout Northern Colorado and a handful from other states. Poudre was selected as a “national demonstration school” for the program designed four years ago by the Center for High School Success because it adopted it early and “embraced” the coaching and structure, the organization’s executive director, Kaaren Andrews, said.
The goal of the program is to improve high school graduation rates by ensuring students are “on track” by the end of their ninth-grade year. On track is defined as having completed at least 25% of the credits needed for graduation with no more than one failing grade, said Andrews, a former high school teacher and principal.
Students who are on track after ninth grade, Andrews said, are three times more likely to graduate from high school than those who are not. And that holds true, she said, across all demographics.
Ninth graders, Andrews said, are three to five times more likely to fail a class than students at any grade level. Absences, both excused and unexcused, increase significantly from what they were for those same students as eighth graders the previous spring.
It’s a really critical year that sets the tone for the rest of their high school education, she said.
“Ninth grade, being on track, is the biggest predictor of who graduates from high school,” Andrews said. “It’s not race, it’s not economic status, it’s not eighth-grade test scores, it’s not prior school performance, it’s not mobility … If we can get all kids to be on track, they will graduate.”
The 9th Grade Success program has been adopted by schools in 75 districts in 11 states, Andrews said. And it has proven to be effective in schools and districts of all sizes, in rural, urban and suburban settings.
Center High School in Colorado’s San Luis Valley saw its graduation rate increase from 59% in 2020 to 79% in 2024 after it began working to keep ninth graders on track, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said. And Englewood High School in suburban Denver increased its graduation rates from 73% to 86% after implementing the program.
Ninth grade “is such a pivotal year for students,” Polis said. “It’s really make or break; they’re either on track, or they fall further and further behind and the amount of absences increase and ultimately, that often leads to them dropping out.”
Program fit well with Poudre's career pathways
Poudre High School had already incorporated several elements of the Center for High School Success program before formally adopting it, Principal Carey Christensen and others at the school said. They had created several career pathways to guide students toward their varied post-secondary goals, from workforce training in various skilled trades to moving on to two- and four-year colleges.
Those pathways are based on the identified needs of employers in Colorado, she said, and include agriculture and the environment; engineering and design; entrepreneurship; health science and human services; arts and humanities; and an International Baccalaureate program that has been a part of Poudre High since the early 1990s.
People attending the showcase event were broken into small groups for a brief tour of some of Poudre High’s unique educational programs. Those included:
- A Geometry in Construction class that was building two Habitat for Humanity homes in the school’s parking lot
- Technology lab with a variety of highly specialized equipment
- Greenhouse where students were cultivating different plants
- Thrift store with clothing and other items available for those needing them in the school
- Two ninth-grade seminars — one for newcomers whose primary language was Spanish and one for students in the IB program
- Two student-run businesses in the entrepreneurship program — an escape room in modular units behind the school and a food truck parked outside
The pathways work well with the 9th Grade Success program, putting students in classes of students with similar interests, Christensen said, and better connecting them with a smaller group of teachers in a particular area of study. Students can still change pathways as their interests change throughout high school without impacting their ability to graduate on time.
Poudre ramps up resources, support for 9th graders
Since implementing the program, though, Poudre has doubled down on its efforts to provide ninth graders with the resources and support they need to be successful in high school. They redrew course schedules so that ninth graders could take their required core classes together in cohorts, better connecting those students with one another while making a large school with about 1,350 students this fall seem smaller.
They have ninth-grade seminars that teach students how to take control of their education and accept responsibility for their academic progress. Students fill out progress reports each week noting how they are doing in each of their classes and what assignments are due or overdue and share those with the teacher. Those who need extra support are directed to available resources within the school and community, including student ambassadors like Bradley.
Student-led, data-driven “kid talks” with teachers and counselors identify students’ strengths, goals and “interventions’ by both the student and staff to overcome any barriers that might be hindering their progress.
“For me, learning to advocate for myself is what got me further in high school,” Bradley said. “And not even just in high school, but it transfers out to work, home life and everything.”
Those are just a few key components of the 9th Grade Success program.
There’s a lot of responsibility put on the school’s staff, too. They have to create and maintain the structure of a comprehensive program designed to keep ninth graders on track toward on-time graduation. That includes participating in training programs, attending planning sessions, and implementing standard-based and fair grading policies that allow students to redo sub-standard work, submit late assignments without penalty and are based on the students’ work and not their behavior.
On-track rate of Poudre's 9th graders increases by 13%
Poudre has seen a 13% increase in the number of ninth graders who are on track to graduate on time since implementing the program, Christensen said. And that increase shows in its four-year graduation rates, which have steadily increased each of the past four years, from 78.0% in 2019-20 to 83.4% in 2022-23, the most recent year available, in a Colorado Department of Education database.
Cass Poncelow spent 11 years as a counselor at Poudre High School and served as the school’s ninth-grade engagement specialist for several years before taking a job this summer with the Center for High School Success, where she now is working with other schools and districts in the state and region to implement the 9th Grade Success program.
Poudre, she said, “already had a lot of those best practices in place.” But implementing the center’s program, she said, “was foundational in terms of us being able to really systemize it and be looking at the right metrics.”
The program is designed to provide a foundation and structure to keep ninth graders on track toward on-time graduation, Andrews said. Her hope is that schools are able to put those in place while working with her organization for two to three years, then sustain and improve upon it as Poudre is now doing.
“I’m really proud of the things we do here, and a lot of that starts with our ninth graders, building relevance and getting them here in the buildings and helping them be successful,” Christensen said. “Poudre’s a place of learning where shared decision-making prepares students for the pathways of the world. And we do believe that we are changing for the better, our ninth graders, one ninth grader at a time.”
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kelly...@coloradoan.com,x.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
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