JH/HS At-Risk and Credit Recovery Program Manager:  Mr. Jim Crozier

Definition: "At-risk student" means any identified student who needs additional support and who is not meeting or not expected to meet the established goals of the educational program (academic, personal/social, career/vocational). At-risk students include but are not limited to students in the following groups: homeless children and youth, dropouts, returning dropouts, and potential dropouts.

Guidance: Identification of students in each district is highly dependent on student(s) needs. Each school district will be different and the process dynamic. It is important that each district identify individual students at risk of school failure and use caution not to identify groups or clusters of students or even schools with a large concentration of high-risk students. Early Warning Systems are crucial for future success and each system should have two components. One is the identification process and the second is using the data for selection and implementation of research-based intervention programs.

Resources:

Significant Risk Factors of Potential Dropouts

• Significant Risk Factors by Grade Level

• Four Domains of Risk Factors

• Risk Factors and Protective Factors for Considering Risk of School Failure

Appropriate On-going Strategies

• Strategies for Differentiating Instruction

• 15 Effective Strategies for Dropout Prevention - More detailed information about each of the 15 Effective Strategies for Dropout Prevention can be found at the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network's website (www.dropoutprevention.org/effstrat/default.htm)

Provisions: Each school district shall include in its comprehensive school improvement plan the following provisions for meeting the needs of at-risk students:

1. Valid and systematic procedures and criteria to identify at-risk students throughout the school district's school-age population,

2. Determination of appropriate ongoing educational strategies for alternative options education programs as required in Iowa Code section 280.19A, and

3. Review and evaluation of the effectiveness of provisions for at-risk students. This sub-rule does not apply to accredited nonpublic schools.

Each school district using additional allowable growth for provisions for at-risk students shall incorporate educational program goals for at-risk students into its comprehensive school improvement plan. Provisions for at-risk students shall align with the student learning goals and content standards established by the school district or by school districts participating in a consortium. The comprehensive school improvement plan shall also include objectives, activities, cooperative arrangements with other service agencies and service groups, and strategies for parental involvement to meet the needs of at-risk children. The incorporation of these requirements into a school district's comprehensive school improvement plan shall serve as the annual application for additional allowable growth designated in Iowa Code section 257.38.

Links:

Preventing Problems, Promoting Development, Encouraging Engagement: Competing Priorities or Inseparable Goals? (March 2003)
Preventing Problems, Promoting Development, and Encouraging Engagement is an attempt to summarize the shifts that have occurred, to emphasize the common threads in several important fields and to spell out the implications of those shifts for those who work with or advocate for young people where they live, learn, work, play and contribute.

Center for Mental Health in Schools Online Clearinghouse 
Topic: Prevention for Students "At Risk"
Howard Edelman and Linda Taylor from the SMHP (School Mental Health Project) Center at UCLA have put together a collection of documents, resources, and tools for districts in the area of at-risk prevention.

Iowa Department of Education At-Risk Program (click on link)