Excitement filled the school board chambers as a panel of district staff and individuals from Equal Opportunity Schools shared what the partnership will do for high school students in Lee County.

Seattle-based EOS works with school districts nationwide to address equity for students who fall into a low income or minority demographic by helping to identify young people who are ready for upper-level courses.

“To date, we have worked with over 700 schools across America, roughly 33 states and 233 school districts,” interium Chief Executive Officer Eddie Lincoln said, adding that 30 percent of those schools had an increase of young people passing more than one AP, IB, or AICE classes in their first year. “We are seeing great success across the board.”

District Secondary Curriculum and Instruction Director Candace Allevato said the district has 25,000 students in ninth through 12 grade. For those students they offer 100 advanced courses in AP, AICE and IB.

All 15 high schools were authorized AICE centers during 2019-2020 and the following year, 2020-2021, all middle schools were authorized for AICE. Middle schools will offer Global Perspectives for the 2021-2022 school year.

The School District of Lee County also has another 1,000 students in 165 unique courses through dual enrollment.

“Equal Opportunity Schools is a great partner for us to make sure we are meeting every student’s needs and not leaving any student behind,” she said.

In addition, the district is deepening its professional development to ensure teachers are prepared to engage in the coursework by providing training through Cambridge, the College Board and IB.

“We go slow to go fast to ensure student success,” Allevato said.

District Diversity and Inclusion Director Jarrett Eady said 45 percent of the total enrollment population across students are now taking advanced coursework in 11th and 12th grade. That percentage is 32 for grades ninth and 10th.

Student participation in advanced courses increased from 35.9 percent to 37.8 percent from 2018-2019 for students who are white; from 13 percent to 25.8 percent for students who are Black, from 21.2 percent to 28.7 percent for students who are Hispanic and from 5.6 percent to 14.9 percent for students who are English-Language Learners, or ELL.

There are three major areas of focus of EOS: coaching and consulting, high level actionable data and highlighting each individual student.

Lincoln said EOS establishes itself as a partner and provides a partnership director who immerses themselves in each school. As far as actionable data, he said its reports that can help understand the school culture and how to improve key data points.

The last area of focus, many district staff were excited about, as it highlights each student’s individual voice. Lincoln said all of their young people want to go to college and by using the “Student Insight Cards” it provides a “baseball card of stats and data,” that showcases such areas as aspirations of college/vocational choices and barriers young people may have of pushing themselves academically.

“They are going to have pinpoint information to help guide conversation with students and parents to make informed decisions,” Lincoln said. “Our job is to help you identify and support young people. We do want to be the best partner, not a product. A partnership to do with you step-by-step. They are going to have a first class education to go into with whatever career they choose.”

Allevato said the Student Insight Card will provide the district with a new layer of information on every one of its students.

The Student Insight Card will include learning mindset and skills, test scores, educational goals, career interests, trusted adult, study skills, subject interests, teacher recommendations, GPA, reported barriers and comments from the students.

“Having additional information for each of these students, for every single student, was a game changer for our counselors,” EOS Chief Program Officer Dr. Tracey Conrad said.

East Lee County High School Principal Melissa Robery took board members on a journey through her last three and a half years as the school’s principal.

“At East Lee County High School, as educators it is our responsibility to stand in the door, so it doesn’t shut on our kids, while we prepare them to advocate for themselves and stand in the door for themselves,” she said.

Although the academic gaps for incoming ninth grade students has remained consistent during her time as principal, she has seen an increases in student achievements. She said 68 percent of the incoming freshman were at a level one or two in English Language Arts and reading.

“Thirty-two percent of our students were proficient coming into high school,” Robery said.

In 2020-2021 70 percent of incoming freshmen were not proficient in reading and ELA.

The graduation rate, though, has seen a 20 percent increase.

The graduation rate has increased from 71 percent to 91 percent in 2020.

“This year our graduation rate is between 93 and 95 percent,” she said.

In addition, Robery has seen an increase in college and career readiness from 26 percent to 62 percent. She said they increased academy opportunities during the 2017-2018 school year. During that year, East Lee County began offering two AICE courses with 25 students sitting in for the exam.

During the 2019-2020 school year, Robery said they piloted an opportunity where they placed a very large percentage of 12th graders in the AICE general paper class. Ninety-one percent passed the course.

“They can do it. They have to have support in place,” she said.

In 2020-2021 East Lee offered 13 courses with 488 students sitting for one or more exams.

“We did that by focusing on relationships and ensuring our students had a trusted person if struggling. We raised the academic expectations for students no matter their starting point. We raised expectations for all students,” Robery said.

She said she is a fierce advocate for her kids, staff and schools and shared how the Student Insight Cards would help her guidance counselors.

“Our students need their teachers to have time to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on student achievement. At this point we have some idea. We need the time to be able to do that,” Robery said.

To make that happen 1,387 hours are needed to meet with each of the students individually for 45 minutes, which equates to 9.2 weeks to reach all students at East Lee County High School.

That’s “four of our counselors meeting with students eight hours every day,” she said.

The information provided by the partnership with EOS, Robery said, gives staff an entire quarter of instruction time to support every single student from day one.

“Our students need their teachers to have a quick snapshot of student information that is not captured in any other way,” Robery said. “My goal for our district is to be able to ensure that every single student gets the best education possible, not sometimes, (but) every single day of the year. We owe that to our kids and they deserve it.”

Conrad said she was one of the first principals to partner with EOS in 2012, a former principal of an academic powerhouse in the college town of Columbia, Missouri. She said they were knocking it out of the park in terms of AP scores, but learned they were missing in identifying a lot of students through traditional means.

“Low-income students are less likely to go to college and less likely to graduate from college. I was a first generation college goer. My own children were part of this as a life-long teacher. We are talking about working folks, identifying those students and helping them get into the classes because it better prepares them to be in college, or any post secondary endeavor,” Conrad said.

She said there is an importance of taking AP, AICE and IB courses as a high school student.

“If you take one class it increases the chances of graduating in four years by 11 percent. An average score of two almost triple their chances in graduating in four years,” Conrad said. “A lot of times students don’t think about what transcripts look like. They think they can get in (to college) based on getting good grades. Advanced courses on a transcript is much more likely to be competitive in the enrollment process.”

Allevato also provided a year at a glance with EOS. She said in August there will be a survey and partnership plan, followed by building launch and district goal setting in September. In October there will an EOS student and staff survey and in November, an equity pathways report will be provided. From there, training, reviewing goals and student scheduling will take place.

The school board also was briefed on SCOIR, the College Admissions Network, during their meeting, which has three benefits — context, connection and outcome.

“SCOIR provides deeper exploration for students to identify talents. It connects with them through the course of high school years in building a portfolio that makes them ready to engage with post secondary choice,” School Counseling and Mental Heath Director Lori Brooks. “It also allows students, parents and student counselors to engage in collaborative discussions.”

She said school counselors spend a great deal of time on heavy case loads of students, which SCOIR will help with due to it being in the hands of students and parents providing a 24/7 access tool.

“It’s putting the meat on the hook of the discussion. These tools are there to build all of these access points and the discussion can happen on a deeper level,” Brooks said.

SCOIR is made available through an app, which parents can also engage and monitor, as well as counselors and administrators using a dashboard to monitor where students are in discovering their career path, searching for their college fit and curating their college list.

There is also on demand tools and videos to help parents understand financial aid.

“It’s free to Title I schools. It’s a major win-win. It leverages the school counselors time and puts power in the hands of students and parents,” Brooks said.

The school board unanimously approved the collaboration, from Aug. 1, 2021, through Aug. 31, 2022, with EOS during Tuesday night’s meeting in the amount of $255,000.