The 10 Day Push

Kay Winter, former AHS instructional/ data coach, heard about The 10 Day Push used at another high school with incredible results.  They reported that 60% of their students who participated in The Push passed the English 10 ECA.  Kay brought the idea to AHS, and it was adopted by our English and math departments as a last-minute review practice before the ECA tests.  The math teachers created their 10 Day Push plans to use in their classes, so their process is self-contained.  The English department, however, required some buy-in from the entire staff of AHS.  We asked teachers to donate their prep time for the 10 days that lead up to the ECA and use that time to review test materials with a select group of students.  The students who participate in the Push are “on the bubble” – they need just a little more instruction and motivation to pass the test.  They need a “push.”  All English 10 teachers recommended up to 10 of their students who would benefit from this practice, and those students were pulled out of elective classes and assigned to a teacher during the teacher’s prep.  No more than six students were assigned to any one teacher.  Materials for the review were collected and prepared in advance (with answer keys) so the teachers could use them without any additional prep work on their part.  All they gave up was time.  In 2012-13, only 59% of our students passed the English 10 ECA. However, in 2013-14 our English 10 ECA results jumped to 74%.  We believe that The 10 Day Push was a huge factor in our success.  We had 80 students participate, and 79% of them passed the ECA.

Challenges or Obstacles:

• The biggest challenge of implementing this practice is convincing teachers to give up their prep time.  We are preparing to begin The Push this year on April 27, and we still need some teachers to fill in some of the gaps.
• It takes a great deal of buy-in from the entire staff to make it work.
• We also had to pull students from their elective classes, and those teachers had to agree to “freeze” their grades to allow those students to prepare for this important test.
• The last obstacle for us was to make sure that all teachers who volunteered have a space to teach.  Unfortunately, we don’t have enough classrooms for every teacher, and we had to get creative – we are planning to use the conference rooms, the teacher lunchroom, and a balcony study area for this year’s Push.

Benefits and Successes:

• The most important benefit of this practice is the success that the students have on the ECA when they have completed the 10 Days.
• The feelings of confidence that they take with them into their testing rooms cannot be denied.  When the students are confident that they will pass the test, they are more likely to actually pass it, and that reflects on the school’s grade.
• We know the students only have one opportunity to take the English 10 ECA for it to count for us, so anything we can do to help the students be successful is amazing!  This practice has definitely contributed to the overall success of our school.

Submitted by: Tiffany Jackson, Anderson High School