Purpose: This position will focus on increasing the cohort graduation rate. The Graduation Coach will provide assistance to all high school students, individually and in groups, regarding high school graduation and completion, including but not limited to analyzing data to identify students or subgroups with potential high school graduation problems; planning, implementing, and tracking individual high school graduation plans; identifying and resolving barriers to graduation; and facilitating career choices and planning. This position reports to the principal.

Qualifications:

• Must hold or be eligible to for a North Carolina Professional Educator’s License

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• The Graduation Coach shall work to improve graduation rates for all population subgroups within the school by addressing learning loss through support and performing the following duties and responsibilities.
• Utilize the components of a profile of characteristics of potential dropouts to identify high school student with the high probability of not graduating;
• Collaborate with the feeder middle school to utilize the components of a profile of characteristics of potential dropouts to identify middle school students with the high probability of not graduating;
• Identify students scoring significantly below proficiency levels;
• Conduct an analysis that focuses on data for individual students and subgroups such as: State Standardized Tests: EOG, EOC o National Standardized Tests: SAT and ACT
• Local Records: attendance records, behavior records, records of teacher conferences, records of parent conferences, records of student conferences, SST meeting minutes, grade retention records, and records of credits earned;
• Develop and implement individual intervention strategies to increase the likelihood that these students will stay in school and graduate;
• Work with students to develop a graduation and achievement plan to include the best program to meet academic and post-secondary goals;
• Coordinate a transition program for 9th graders to successfully adapt to the rigor of high school;
• Develop a “Graduation Team” for each identified student that minimally includes an administrator, teachers, a counselor and/or a representative from a local support or agency;
• Connect individual students and their parents with programs such as Communities In Schools as well as area community colleges, business partners and connect individual students with mentors;
• Track the progress of individual and subpopulations of students as they progress toward graduation;
• Provide training to parents of students identified as being at risk of not graduating;
• Provide training to middle school and high school teachers on support measures that work with youth identified as at risk of not graduating and the youth’s parents/guardians;
• Work with faculty and administrators to adapt curriculum and instruction to meet the needs of identified at risk students;
• Identify and link area social agencies with youth at risk of not graduating and their parents/guardians;
• Develop partnerships with community organizations to support the goals of the high school graduation initiative;
• Conduct and analyze on-going formative and summative evaluation data of program effectiveness such as: What interventions were most utilized in achievement plans created for each at risk student;
• Number and percent of at risk students who met part or all of their goals in their academic plan;
• Number and percent of identified at risk students in the school compared to total school population and rationale for why the number/percent is higher or lower than the state average;
• Collaborates closely and regularly with the school counselor
• Provide and/or submit as scheduled and requested.
• Perform other duties assigned by the principal.