Rockford Public Schools and the reFRESH Program

On January 9th, I had the opportunity to visit with Morgan Gallagher, the Chief of Schools at RPS 205, to discuss the work they are doing to keep Freshmen on track. In addition to a dedicated staff, the efforts outlined below has them at a 3% increase over where they were this time of year last year.

Rockford utilizes a Freshmen Academy model in order to ease the transition from middle school to high school and has been creative over the years on ways to onboard students to make sure they start off their first year of high school with the skills they need to be successful. Most recently, they developed a program called reFRESH that provides 8th graders with the opportunity to take some summer classes before Freshmen year. In the reFRESH program, students are given extra instruction in math and English in order to close any skill gaps and to give them a jump start on their coursework. Students in this program are invited in by staff  that utilizes data collected throughout 8th grade. What sets this program apart from others is that students in the reFRESH program are taught by the teachers they will have as Freshmen, allowing them to start developing strong relationships with the adults they will see their first year in a new high school. 

Additionally, at one of this district's high schools, they have begun keeping the students in the reFRESH program in a cohort once the school year has begun where the entire group has the same core content teachers and Physical Education teacher so that those teachers can have weekly meetings about the students in the program. These weekly MTSS meetings are data centered and involve discussions around systems of support that RPS has available for their student body.

Next steps in this district include discussions around consistent grading practices and continued work on the ReFRESH program. 


For more information about these ideas, reach out to Morgan Gallagher at morgan.gallagher@rps205.com. 



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