Written By: Seth Gordon, Newberg Graphic

Administrator Mikaela Schamp investigating Newberg's challenges in the hopes of creating a comprehensive solution

Since returning to the Newberg School District to become its dropout prevention and credit recovery coordinator in August, Mikaela Schamp has become convinced that in order for students to be successful and earn their diplomas, schools must provide two things: an effective system to identify the needs of struggling students and positive relationships with adults.

Inherent to that realization is that even if a school or district is strong in one of those two areas, both are needed and must work in tandem in order to serve all at-risk students.

Schamp laid out what she has learned so far about the dropout problem in Oregon and at Newberg High School in a presentation to the school board at its December meeting, explaining that Newberg is in such a one-but-not-both situation.

Specifically, she said that the high school is strong on the relationship front, with many people doing the work of connecting with families and students to help turn things around, but that the district lacks a system to identify and track students, coordinate resources and implement preventative measures.

Researching and building such a program for the district will be Schamp’s charge over the next five years, she told the board.

“Every kid has a story,” Schamp said at the conclusion of her presentation. “It’s finding the themes in the stories and what kids have like stories to give them the interventions they need systematically.”

Schamp told the board that the district is still very much in the investigative stage of the process, but presented some background on the factors that affect “at-risk” students — those who are currently disengaging from school or are in danger of dropping out.

Those factors fall into three major categories: social, like being homeless or economically disadvantaged; educational experience, which includes classic red flags like poor attendance, behavior and grades; and school, including lack of instructional quality or disorganization.

Schamp said that school factors are what teachers and administrators have the most control over and noted that a lot of good work is already being done on that front in hopes of increasing the graduation rate and addressing the achievement gap, including ongoing efforts to improve teaching and learning, like curriculum upgrades, digital conversion and improved professional development for teachers.

As background, Schamp shared that Oregon currently ranks 47th nationally in graduation rate and that its dropout rate has hovered between 3.5 and 5 percent for some time, meaning between 5,700 and 8,100 students drop out each year in the state.

Oregon also struggles with chronic absenteeism, with one in five students in the state missing 10 percent or more of the school year, as well as with homlessness, ranking in the bottom five of states at 8 percent.

“Those are some factors right off the top that tell us Oregon is in a tough spot,” Schamp said.

Looking specifically at the school district, Schamp pointed out that Newberg and Dundee feature 1,450 single-parent households, an at-risk factor, while 4 percent of the district’s students are homeless and just under half qualify for the state’s free-and-reduced lunch program.

On the flip side, Schamp said that in researching the various ways staff at NHS address at-risk students, she gained some real confidence moving forward because so much good work was being done without any requirement from the district level.

That includes the school’s own intervention process for students who are chronically absent, which is proactive in utilizing behavior specialist and homeless liaison Shyla Jasper to reach out to families.

“They’ve developed a system where they have a family mediator go with her in preventative visits, even before the requirement in the official process, to talk with parents about issues, to get services to them, to be an in-between when there is a combative relationship with the school,” Schamp said. “They’ve developed that partnership to the point where it’s been incredibly successful. We’re looking at making that available as a model.”

Assistant superintendent and interim NHS principal Dave Parker echoed the sentiment, adding that teachers and administrators are also currently discussing ways in which they can better identify when students are beginning to slip rather that after the fact.

“We’re doing so much great work, but we have so much more to go,” Schamp said.

She then laid out her roadmap for building a comprehensive system over the next five years. In year one, the focus will be on creating a more concrete plan with both long and short-term goals by addressing the following four areas: assessing Newberg’s at-risk population and current practices; surveying stakeholders and researching best practices and models to build a body of knowledge about the issue; building relationships and partnerships in the community to bring forth all available resources; and building a communication plan that will raise awareness and help move the district closer toward implementation.

Year two items include expanding preventative measures beyond the high school to middle and elementary buildings and pushing to provide as many options for students to earn a diploma as possible, including workforce certification and credit by proficiency.

In years three through five, Schamp said she hopes to have a well-functioning system in place for identifying students, providing achievable outcomes and pulling back students who may have aged out or not completed their studies.

“It’s the most passionate work I’ve ever done in my life,” Schamp said. “This is going to be hard work here. It’s going to be challenging. We have a lot of groundwork to lay and infrastructure to talk about.”